Reddit reviews Annihilation: A Novel (The Southern Reach Trilogy (1))

Without being spoilery, there's a mysterious place in the pacific northwest (I believe... I could be wrong but it feels like it) inspired by St Marks Wildlife Refuge in florida called Area X that has lots of strange behaviors, and the first book is about a team of researchers sent in to investigate it.

Sorry, I can't really say much without spoiling stuff. However, the first book is only 208 pages, so I highly recommend finding a copy at your local library (or it's $7.73 on amazon) and reading through it in an evening

Incoming wall of text! Sorry in advance, look at the bolded words to kind of do a TLDR of my reply :P

Read "Annihilation", the first book in the Southern Reach Trilogy, by Jeff VanderMeer. It'll ruin Tanis for you, because you'll see where they got a lot of their content from (to put it nicely).

The two last books in that series are okay, but I wasn't completely on board for them. Loved the first one, though. You could also just watch the movie version that's on Netflix, but know this: while well-made in some aspects, the director chose not to re-read the book OR read its sequels, so it diverges from the original book / book series quite a lot in some unfortunate ways.

I'm currently (still) trying to get through [House of Leaves](https://www.amazon.com/House-Leaves-Mark-Z-Danielewski/dp/0375703764/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1536787331&sr=1-1&keywords=House+of+LEaves) by Mark Z. Danielewski. It's a fantastically weird story about a house...And about other things. It's probably the weirdest book I've ever read, in that it plays a lot with the format. There's at least two stories being told simultaneously most of the time, which can get kind of overwhelming. Think of it like if a regular horror movie and a found footage horror movie had a bastard child together. And that bastard child was this book.

If you're looking for weird fiction in the form of podcasts, I'd direct your attention to Archive 81. For my money, it's the absolute BEST in weird fiction podcasts. It's currently 3 seasons, and each season the podcast changes. It's still the same overarching story / world, but the settings are way different.

Other notable podcasts include King Falls AM which has sort of a goofy x-files-if-they-were-a-radio-station vibe to it, featuring both a lot of good comedy, good songs (when they happen) and the occasional gutwrenching drama. The writing is good, the performance is amazing. You could also go for Darkest Night if you're into the idea of podcasts as a horror medium. They do excellent stuff, and their new season starts this October! They feature a few cameos from Michelle Visage and RuPaul if that's your thing (and these two amazing people feature more heavily in the other podcast by this company, Deadly Manners.

Going back to books, I suggest Laird Barron to anyone who likes horror and short stories. He has mixes of gritty noir and cosmic horror, and he's an absolute blast. The Imago Sequence is my favorite collection of his, but The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All is great as well. Laird Barron has also appeared in compilations outside his own, and was part of compiling the excellent modern Cthulhu short story collection, Autumn Cthulhu. This book is great if you like the idea of cosmic H.P. Lovecraft-esque horror, but don't so much like the gross racism that HPL had (and showed in his work).

If you like Slenderman and have time to burn, I'd suggest looking at Marble Hornets on YouTube. It has 87 "main" entries of varying (but mostly short) length, with a bunch of cryptic in-between shorts. It's one of the first Slenderman pieces of media, though they don't call him that. In Marble Hornets, he's called "The Operator". TBH it's sort of varying in quality (especially in the beginning), as I'm fairly sure the people who made it were film students at the time. As they go along, they have some amazing moments where they show off some really, really great editing skills. Of course, you could also buy the whole series on BluRay if that's your thing, but it's available for free on their YouTube channel.

Here's an Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Annihilation-Novel-Southern-Reach-Trilogy/dp/0374104093

Jeff VanderMeer is the author name.

Here's a few recent books, all good or very good:

Last Plane to Heaven, Jay Lake (short story collection)


The Adjacent
, Chris Priest

On the Steel Breeze, Alistair Reynolds (Book2 in series)


The Causal Angel, Hannu Rajaniemi (Book3 in series)


Strange Bodies, Marcel Theroux


The Martian, Andy Weir (recommended!)


ShipStar, Benford-Niven (Book2 in series)


Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie


A Darkling Sea, James Cambias


The Disestablishment of Paradise, by Phillip Mann {I've just started this one, so can't say yet if good or great or crappy, but it's started off very good).


...And if you have not yet discovered The Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff VanDerMeer, you should probably check it out.

I found the aliens in Octavia Butlers Xenogenisis/Lilith's Brood trilogy (link to book 1) to be extremely interesting and different, but not so far off difference as to be confusing. VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy (book 1) had some pretty far out aliens that definitely fit that bill, though, but is only tangentially military.

edit: just saw I am not the only one to mention Lilith's Brood; props to u/emopest for getting to it first. Leaving the comment because it is just that good!

Try Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer. It's not scary, but it's pretty creepy.

Solar Express

The Southern Reach Trilogy This one is controversial on this sub and perhaps not strictly sci fi, but it sure is mysterious.

Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer is definitely Lovecraftian in atmosphere and setting, as well as plot. I've also seen hints of cosmic horror in there. Highly recommend it.

If you're a reader, and love Zone Fiction, you might consider checking out Jeff Vandermeer's Southern Reach trilogy, especially the first book or two, Annihilation and Authority. The backdrop is a mysterious, anomalous Zone cordoned off by secret government agencies and explored by repeated, failed expeditions, and this Zone is in and around Georgia and North Florida.

The author says he was inspiried by lots of hikes and nature walks he took in the area. You may find it's right in your wheelhouse. Very creepy, very Zone Fiction + Weird Nature.

This reminds me of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy.

I've seen quite a few weird fiction readers in /r/printsf. I'll ask if I can advertise there.

I just finished Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural and it was excellent. Last week I also read Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer which I thoroughly enjoyed.

I haven't decided what to read next. I was looking at Dark Descent or a collection of Kafka stories which includes one of my favorite weird stories, In the Penal Colony.

It's much, much lighter than that.

http://www.amazon.com/Station-Eleven-Emily-John-Mandel/dp/0385353308

http://www.amazon.com/Annihilation-Novel-Southern-Reach-Trilogy/dp/0374104093/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1426626059&sr=1-1&keywords=annihilation

Has anyone ever heard of this book, Annihilation??

Annihilation: A Novel (The Southern Reach Trilogy) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0374104093/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_HR9Yzb4CJ84K0

Is this the correct book series?

Maybe you'd enjoy Jeff Vandermeer's Southern Reach Trilogy, which begins with Annhilation. Personally, it was a little bizarre for my taste (like reading the diary of Salvador Dali while on acid kind of bizarre), but it was certainly unique to my experience. I haven't read the second two yet, but from what I understand, while the politics increases, I don't think it becomes completely politics-centered. Based on your description, it might be what you're looking for.

Arrival and Annihilation were both based on books:

https://www.amazon.com/Arrival-Stories-Your-Life-MTI-ebook/dp/B01JEMPGWQ

https://www.amazon.com/Annihilation-Novel-Southern-Reach-Trilogy/dp/0374104093

But this is a perfect opportunity to plug one of my favorite books... and it's in the public domain... and it's a really fast read...

But it's not contemporary. :( Bear with me...

Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper.

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18137

(The two sequels are not public domain yet.)

The premise is this: In the future, you can incorporate an uninhabited planet for the purpose of consumption of resources. Mining, farming, pharmaceuticals, etc. whatever comes from the planet is wholly owned by the corporation.

So long as it's uninhabited.

So this prospector is out mining for fossilized jellyfish that fluoresce when exposed to body heat, a very valuable gemstone. He gets back to camp after a hard day and finds a small fuzzy animal in his shower. He somehow snuck into the place.

So he does the normal thing, he feeds it and tries to make friends, but the more he learns about Little Fuzzy the more he starts to think that it's not an animal, it may not be sapient either, but if it's not then it's right on the edge of what is sapient and what isn't.

It's a great read. Maybe about time for my annual re-read of all three... Oh, for the contemporary bits... It's set in the far future but it was written in the early 1960s so people still meet for cocktail hour and cigarettes. LOL.

If you had more time before your next session, I'd recommend reading Annihilation by James VanderMeer. Lots of great inspiration there for strange passages to different planes, and, explicitly, lighthouses and towers.

Annihilation (first in the trilogy) - a great mind-bender in the "new weird" category. Plus it's a quick read!

All-time greatest epic fantasy series (IMO blows away GRR Martin and Tolkien): The Malazan Book of the Fallen - 10-book compilation

I'd love to pick up The 11th Hour CISSP Study Guide :)

cheers, and happy Monday!

The plot and setting are entirely different, but I found myself comparing the The Witch's tone and atmosphere to Annihilation. They both have that surreal sense of unease about an unseen force, and deal with isolation and mistrust.