Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

  • Authority

  • The Southern Reach Trilogy, Book 2
  • By: Jeff VanderMeer
  • Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
  • Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
  • 4.1 out of 5 stars (284 ratings)
Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Authority cover art

Authority

By: Jeff VanderMeer
Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £13.00

Buy Now for £13.00

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Listeners also enjoyed...

A Peculiar Peril cover art
Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe cover art
The Year's Top Short SF Novels 2 cover art
Elder Race cover art
Solaris cover art
The Killing Star cover art
Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper cover art
Trust No One cover art
Children of Time cover art
Here & There cover art
White Knight cover art
The Shadow of What Was Lost cover art
The Red Tree cover art
Chasing Shadows cover art
Cthulhu Lives! cover art
Gameboard of the Gods cover art

Summary

The second volume of the extraordinary Southern Reach trilogy. The Southern Reach is a government agency so secret it has almost been forgotten.

Following the disastrous twelfth expedition chronicled in Annihilation, the second audiobook of the Southern Reach trilogy introduces John Rodriguez, the new head of the government agency responsible for the safeguarding of Area X.

His first day is spent grappling with the fall-out from the last expedition. Area X itself remains a mystery. But, as instructed by a higher authority known only as The Voice, the self-styled Control must battle to 'put his house in order'. From a series of interrogations, a cache of hidden notes and hours of profoundly troubling video footage, the mysteries of Area X begin to reveal themselves—and what they expose pushes Control to confront disturbing truths about both himself and the agency he's promised to serve.

Undermined and under pressure to make sense of everything, Rodriguez retreats into his past in a labyrinthine search for answers. Yet the more he uncovers, the more he risks, for the secrets of the Southern Reach are more sinister than anyone could have known.

©2014 Jeff VanderMeer Creative, Inc. (P)2014 2014 by Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

Praise for Annihilation:

"A teeming science fiction that draws on Conrad and Lovecraft alike… The writing itself has a clarity that makes the abundancy of the setting more powerful. Annihilation shows signs of being the novel that will allow VanderMeer to break through to a new and larger audience" (Sunday Telegraph)
"A lasting monument to the uncanny… you find yourself afraid to turn the page… We are less than 200 pages in to the Southern Reach Trilogy… and already home is a distant memory, and an unreliable one, too: for who's to say that home was not always X at heart?" (Simon Ings, Guardian)
"Annihilation owes much to the explorations of psychogeographical landscapes in early JG Ballard and also to the work of the old masters of weird fiction such as HP Lovecraft and William Hope Hodgson, with their love of nameless horrors haunting liminal realms. VanderMeer synthesises these influences to create a tale with a deliciously creepy atmosphere of dread" (Financial Times)
"Annihilation is a weird and wonderful novel. And the hardback edition is as beautiful as the prose between the covers.' Metro‘A tautly told, self-contained story, informed and illuminated by the flawed and very human voice of its narrator" (Arc)
"Immersive, insightful and often deeply bloody creepy, this is a startlingly good novel. If the sequels live up to it, then the Southern Reach series will be a major work" (***** SFX Magazine)
"A tense and chilling psychological thriller about an unravelling expedition and the strangeness within us. A little Kubrick, a lot of Lovecraft, the novel builds with an unbearable tension and claustrophobic dread that lingers long afterwards. I loved it" (Lauren Beukes)
"Original and beautiful, maddening and magnificent" (Warren Ellis)

"Creepy and fascinating." (Stephen King)

What listeners say about Authority

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    123
  • 4 Stars
    88
  • 3 Stars
    55
  • 2 Stars
    15
  • 1 Stars
    3
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    148
  • 4 Stars
    79
  • 3 Stars
    24
  • 2 Stars
    5
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    109
  • 4 Stars
    64
  • 3 Stars
    56
  • 2 Stars
    17
  • 1 Stars
    9

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Superb

These books are unconventional and challenging. This volume builds on the actual ceiling horror of the first and is no less profoundly disturbing.

This isn't a conventional thriller, there's no pounding adrenalin or just-in-time suspense, just psychological disconnection and a sense of disconcerting otherness watching a man unravel in the face of the incomprehensible.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Oh dear ... So dull after the first

I'm sorry to say that if I had had to read this and not listen I wouldn't have finished it, saying that I don't think I would have wasted the time listening either. This second book really adds little to the overall story, the last hour was the only interesting bit in my mind.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Boring

This was one of the most boring books I ever read. So many needless details and descriptions. I barely could finish it

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Slow read

Interesting to start but looses pace early on and drags for the next 8hrs until a good end. Will read the last book in series as I hear it's better, but I'll need a break first and read a few page turner's ... which this definitely isn't!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Great narration, brilliant story

Suspenseful, mysterious and sometimes horrifying. Great sequel to “Annihilation” that delves into the inner workings of the southern reach and leaves you eager to start the third book in the trilogy for more answers. Brilliantly narrated by Bronson Pinchot.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

If you‘ve done annihilation disappointing

I am listening to the third episode now but this the second one was just boring should have made the second and third book into one but the story after the first has slowed right down and just seems not worthwhile after the first but I was told as a trilogy it worked
So far it does not

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Struggled to stay engaged

Enjoyed the ending but found it a bit of a slog. I'll still read the final book though- really hoping it answers a lot of questions.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Hypnotic

Sure, I enjoyed it. Not sure I'd recommend it to anyone because it's hella weird and meandering but I wanted more Annihilation and it was satisfying based on that criteria

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Meandering

I finished listening to this on my second attempt. It is so different to the first book in the trilogy. Less action, more contemplation. The audio quality and the narration are good.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

good narrator held me through

lots of people have said this is a boring book. I totally understand why. I often feel the same with character based stories. but the texture and feeling of the writing as well as the narrator's performance just about kept me engaged. and was worth it in the end. its like a modern lovecraft in many ways. he certainly describes everything both wood and trees. but its all part of the 'Terrior"! looking forward to pt 3

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!