Annihilation
Jeff Vandermeer, 2014
Science fiction HorrorFantasyContemporary fiction
Four women cross the border into a coastal wilderness where the maps are wrong, the wildlife is off by a hair, and nothing there is neutral.
Feels like dread, awe and curiosity. About nature.
A page from the book
What it means when a ruined place starts to look beautiful.
The effect of this cannot be understood without being there. The beauty of it cannot be understood, either, and when you see beauty in desolation it changes something inside you. Desolation tries to colonize you. Jeff Vandermeer.VanderMeer began Annihilation after a backpacking trip in Florida's St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge; it won the 2014 Nebula Award for Best Novel.
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Questions readers ask
- What is Annihilation like?
- Feels like dread, awe and curiosity. About nature.
- What should I read after Annihilation?
- If you liked Annihilation, try The Fifth Season (N.K. Jemisin), The Hunt for Red October (Tom Clancy) and And Then There Were None (Agatha Christie).
A taste of the feed
She doesn't hate him for being powerful. She hates him for being honest.
This is why she hates Alabaster: not because he is more powerful, not even because he is crazy, but because he refuses to allow her any of the polite fictions and unspoken truths that have kept her comfortable, and safe, for years.
The Fifth Season · N.K. Jemisin
A house with no shadows at all, and every guest locking a door.
The others went upstairs, a slow unwilling procession. If this had been an old house, with creaking wood, and dark shadows, and heavily panelled walls, there might have been an eerie feeling. But this house was the essence of modernity. There were no dark corners - no possible sliding panels - it was flooded with electric light - everything was new and bright and shining. There was nothing hidden in this house, nothing concealed. It had no atmosphere about it. Somehow, that was the most frightening thing of all. They exchanged good-nights on the upper landing. Each of them went into his or her own room, and each of them automatically, almost without conscious thought, locked the door....
And Then There Were None · Agatha Christie
Hatred, praise. Love, suspicion. Love, humiliation.
Isn’t it funny. I’m enjoying my hatred so much more than I ever enjoyed love. Love is temperamental. Tiring. It makes demands. Love uses you, changes its mind. But hatred, now, that’s something you can use. Sculpt. Wield. It’s hard, or soft, however you need it. Love humiliates you, but Hatred cradles you.
White Oleander · Janet Fitch
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