Annihilation: The Thrilling Book Behind the Most Anticipated Film of 2018
Hardback Published on: 27/02/2014
Price: £10.99
Bookseller Reviews
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Intriguing Area X!
Oooh this is one of those that has marvellous descriptions and builds the story slowly but effectively.
4 members of a group have been dispatched to Area X... READ MORE
A strong and unsettling start
"By the time we were ready to cross the border, we knew everything...and we knew nothing."
The first of the Southern Reach trilogy (which, excitingly, are... READ MORE
Perfectly pitched Lovecraftian horror
In Jeff Vandermeer’s Annihilation, we meet ‘the biologist’, one of a team of four sent to the mysterious Area X. Previous explorations have ended in mass d... READ MORE
Annihilation
Area X has been closed off for thirty years after an unspecified disaster. Various expeditions have gone across the border, all with fatal consequences. Th... READ MORE
A strange novel filled with creeping visions.
An uneasy novel filled with woozy memories - a purgatory on earth filled with nightmares.
The story is narrated in journal form by a biologist sent as part... READ MORE
Gripping sci-fi
I was fairly sceptical going into this one with the book just under 200 pages, I wondered why the need of a trilogy at all? Why not just put it all in one ... READ MORE
Unsettling and fascinating
I can only add to what other reviewers have said already, this book is weird and enthralling, and will haunt you. It's also refreshing to read about a scie... READ MORE
I'm still thinking about it weeks later
This is a review for the entire Southern Reach Trilogy and not just Annihilation.
Very smart, very clever, bursting with ideas, symbolism, metaphysical la... READ MORE
Incredible.
I had heard very good things about this book before I read it, and they were right.
This book is extremely good at world building, and detailing the weird ... READ MORE
Weird and wonderful
This is an edge-of-your-seat sort of book that will keep you gripped from the first page to the last. VanderMeer writes in the first person very well, enga... READ MORE
Annihilation
This is a deeply unsettling novel, that follows the 12th expedition sent in to explore the mysterious 'Area X'. We know nothing about the expedition member... READ MORE
Haunting and Beautiful
The central character, known only as the Biologist, has volunteered for an expedition into Area X: a stretch of coastline cut off from the rest of civiliza... READ MORE
To think this is just the beginning...
We find ourselves in Area X, a mysterious stretch of wild coastline that, following a strange event, is now controlled by the Southern Reach, a militant ag... READ MORE
Explore Area X!
Only one thing seems certain about the mysterious Area X – it changes those who come in contact with it but to what extent cannot be known. As four women e... READ MORE
An incredible read!
I took a punt on this after seeing it on the shelf in store. This was a real blind buy for me, not previously being aware of the author, but something abou... READ MORE
An intense sci-fi thriller.
A Biologist writes her journal as she enters the mysterious Area X on the latest expedition. All is not as it seems and it quickly becomes apparent that th... READ MORE
Annihilation
This is completely brilliant. A dark, tense mind-bending blend of sci fi and horror unlike anything else I've read. I've already raved about this to everyo... READ MORE
Addictive eco-horror.
The Biologist leads us through Area X: A pristine and mysterious eco-system that has developed and spread since an environmental event thirty years prior.
... READ MORE
treasure trap of a book.
An absolutely gripping, psychological treasure trap of a book. How did it take me so long before picking this one up? Perfect for fans of Lovecraft or Atwo... READ MORE
Synopsis
'A contemporary masterpiece' Guardian
THE FIRST VOLUME OF THE EXTRAORDINARY SOUTHERN REACH TRILOGY - NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY ALEX GARLAND (EX MACHINA) AND STARRING NATALIE PORTMAN AND OSCAR ISAAC
For thirty years, Area X has remained mysterious and remote behind its intangible border - an environmental disaster zone, though to all appearances an abundant wilderness.
The Southern Reach, a secretive government agency, has sent eleven expeditions to investigate Area X. One has ended in mass suicide, another in a hail of gunfire, the eleventh in a fatal cancer epidemic.
Now four women embark on the twelfth expedition into the unknown.
Publisher information
- Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
- ISBN: 9780007550715
- Number of pages: 208
- Dimensions: 222 x 141 x 20 mm
- Weight: 320g
Customer Reviews
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A team of four (a biologist, an anthropologist, a psychologist, and a surveyor) set out into an area known as Area X. The area is abandoned and cut off fro... READ MORE
Gripping journey to the abyss
Annihilation is the first of the Southern Reach Trilogy and had me hooked from the beginning. This is a novel powerfully imagined, with a taut plot and tru... READ MORE
Gripping thriller
Annihilation takes you on a journey with four women, through the mysterious Area X. The book is written from the Biologist’s perspective and VanderMeer’s d... READ MORE
Gripped!
I'm not usually one to read Science Fiction books but this pretty vibrant pink book caught my eye!
I was instantly gripped, such a dark and haunting read ... READ MORE
Great book
Annihilation is an interesting read. The narrator of the story is the biologist and through her first person perspective we gleam a little bit of what coul... READ MORE
a new fan
You are plunged at once into a strange but familiar world, with many questions, not quite sure why the expedition is there, what they have left behind or e... READ MORE
How do we know what is real?
The (unnamed) biologist is part of an expedition to a mysterious place - is it on another planet, in another dimension? The four-woman team are woefully un... READ MORE
Short n sweet
This book is less than 200 pages but it managed to tell an entire fleshed out story with equally interesting characters without any difficulty. I loved thi... READ MORE
'A sense of the uncanny'
Where (or what) is Area X?
Is it a geographical region malignly altered by some unspecified disaster? Is it some sort of alternative reality, a state of mi... READ MORE
Intriguing ...
This put me in mind of a literary Doctor Who meets Brian Aldiss' Hothouse by way of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers. It has a modern voice to it, but for any... READ MORE
I loved it!
I don't even know where to begin describing this book... it was quite a slow burner, not giving away any mysteries. That being said, I feel like Annihilati... READ MORE
Bizarre - but wonderfully so
This is excellent prose style. I don't normally read Sci-fi. But the buzz lured me in the way 'Harry Potter' did not. It is exacting and formulates more qu... READ MORE
trippy and confusing
I'm not really sure what to say.
The best description for this book would be ATMOSPHERIC. The writing is gorgeous in places and VanderMeer really knows how... READ MORE
Unique Journey to a strange world
I have yet to finish this book but I'm so thoroughly enjoying it and emersed in it so far I must write a review for now. I will updated when completed.
*T... READ MORE
Spooky...but interesting!
Originally I was interested in this due to really enjoying the film however I wasn't expecting the book to be so different. I loved the detail it went into... READ MORE
A must read for sci-fi-horror lovers
A book that left me questioning my own existence and wanting to sleep with the lights on. In this we meet the next four ‘subjects’ to enter Area X; a biolo... READ MORE