Annihilation

Annihilation is a tricky book to contain within the confines of a review. Honestly, even now I'm not sure how I feel about it exactly. Nevertheless, I do know a few things. First, VanderMeer creates an excellent tone throughout the book. It's dream-like, tense, mysterious, wondrous. I was effortless receptive to these moods, particularly because of the writing, which was beautiful and even melodic at times.

I particularly enjoyed how weird this book was. Nothing is as it seems, questions are left hanging with no concrete answers. The flora and fauna of Area X defy human logic, and are deeply imaginative. This is made especially obvious through our protagonist, the biologist, who purposefully unreliable, so I never really knew what was either a lie, a bending of the truth, or actually true. She is also mysterious in her own ways, just like the environment. Through her, we experience a lot of self-reflection and contemplation, which is at odds with the fantastical nature of everything else. There's also some exploration of identity, and what it means to be.

Not only is the ecology of Area X being altered by the creature in the tower, but some people are replaced by doppelgangers of themselves, and seemingly every person on the expedition is subject to hypnosis.

It's a delicious little nugget of weird science fiction that's over in a flash, which left me with all sorts of theories about the truth behind everything. I think I preferred the beginning of the book when Area X was still an absolute mystery in every sense, and found myself slowly losing interest over time. I also really enjoyed the dynamic between the expedition members, so it was disappointed that became less of a focus as the story progressed.