I really liked the Southern Reach trilogy when it was "completed" but hadn't followed that up by reading anything else by Jeff VanderMeer since. I was interested to go further in the story but ended up being left cold.

There are three main parts to the book. I read the first part and started the second. The first part of the book takes place before the Southern Reach trilogy (sort of). A guy named Old Jim is reading about a group of biologists that went to what would become Area X to do field research, only to find that things were getting very strange. Old Jim is reading this years after the events described but I felt like I was back in time with the biologists with the eerie sensation that I was seeing into the past but unable to change it. There are creepy rabbits and also an alligator called The Tyrant that number among some of the dangers that the biologists face. But they also have some awareness that their reality is tenuous. This seems to correspond a bit to "Annihilation" with that book's unnamed biologists and the way that the team in that book had to come to grips with an unknowable reality.

The second part of the book seems to correspond a bit to "Authority", the second book in the series. Old Jim is more in the present in this part. He's a spy, some sort of operator, but he's sort of been put out to pasture. A missing daughter gives him a sense of urgency as he tries to parse the past. I just was not in the mood to read another character who continually second guesses everyone and everything in an effort to get behind smokescreens and understand the truth that no one wants him to know. It wore on me and I decided to stop.

But first I checked out the third part of the book in case things changed again. In this part, the narrator has so many F---s to give that he spews dozens of them all over the page, multiple times per sentence, and it seems that most of this part of the book is written in this manner. I have no particular issue with this word, but I got exhausted reading it so f-----g much. I decided that my decision to quit had been validated.

At first, I was almost disappointed as this seemed way too tame, almost boring, compared to the previous 3 volumes in the series. But then it dawned on me that I was about to make the same damned mistake those scientists of the first expedition made: I was underestimating what exactly I was dealing with.

Make no mistake. Every little thing that at first glance might appear too mundane or banal serves a purpose - if only to lure the unsuspecting reader into a false sense of security before dropping the sledgehammer of body horror, psychological terror and utter shock on them.

Seriously, I thought I was prepared because I had read the others but that was what the author had been waiting for, apparently. He's a sly one. And so So SO good!

OK, about the story: Many questions had remained unanswered from the original trilogy, right? Here, we get answers. Well, sorta. Part of the book plays in the first volume's past, part during the original trilogy (various points) and part of it maybe even in the slight future.
We get POVs we had never seen the story from before despite them having been vital to the original trilogy. We get to know the people involved in the creation of "Area X" (kinda). We get the full account of the (in-)famous first expedition (and I can't believe how stupid everyone was in underestimating what was going on, at least the ones that had been complicit)!

We also get new questions and that just has me screaming and pulling my own hair. Though truth be told: the mystery is what makes this so utterly alluring. I think I'd hate to have ALL the answers.

Instead, I THOROUGHLY enjoyed seeing all kinds of weird flora and fauna again, smiled when an expedition's gear started failing (and them still not trying to get out), cackled all the while people descended into madness* - if they weren't eaten or disappeared with only a few spooky traces that is.

(* though I think I enjoyed the absolutely terrifying body horror even more)

Mysterious, weird and lethal as ever, once again wonderfully riveting / disgusting / unsettling and with only one main character: Area X itself.
Love(d) it!

I read this book as a stand-alone not as book four in its series. That being said I was pretty lost. I had no idea on the connections to the last three books so I was missing tons of context and background info. I would definitely read this as part of the series not a stand-alone book

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for this complimentary ARC in exchange for an honest review!!

I do not even know where to begin but will start with, LONG LIVE THE TYRANT, LONG MAY SHE REIGN. I will give no further explanation. Read the book.

Once again we return to AAX or Area X for short. The novel is broken up into three sections and while each has a similar unsettling beauty they are wildly different. If you are looking for answers to things left in the original trilogy you will be either pleasantly surprised by what's given or extremely upset by twhut is not.

Part 1, Dead Town, is (for lack of better terms) fucked. It is wildly interesting, disturbing, beautiful, and grotesque. It is the start of insane things to come and really plays on Centrals willingness to do anything and everything possible to reach their shadowy means. You shift through the accounts with Old Jim and alongside him become enveloped by the bonkers story being told. There is no way that could have happened right?

Part 2, The False Daughter, is my personal favorite. A psychological thriller following Old Jim as his life and mind seem to unravel. Puppeted by his "old friend" and boss Jack. This sections twists and turns were exciting. The unsettling feeling the deeper into it you got was anxiety inducing. Old Jim and Cass are great characters and their chemistry was perfect. It started pretty straight forward and ended in insanity and brutality. Honestly, I could have a whole novel around this section and would have been happy.

Part 3, The First and the Last, follows Lowry. Who, if you're familiar with the series, you'll know but not at all like this. A drug induced stream of consciousness told you by a real piece of work who in his drugged state can't stop thinking and saying FUCK. It is a lot at first. Like every other word is fuck. No issues with the fucks but makes sentences a bit wonky. It does cool down a bit and the first exped/mish goes by fast and in a blur. Area X and VanderMeer's writing in general is always an exciting challenge but make sure you pay extra close attention here as this is Area X newly born and at its most opaque. Beautiful and haunting visuals, reality distorted even more then I expected, hallucinations that make no sense but also all the sense? Lowry not my favorite character or narrator but think that's kind of the point.

By the end you'll probably feel a little hollow and that's not a bad thing. At least to me. Area X is a phenomenon not known fully to anyone and should (to me) remain a mystery. A cosmic horror of such an abstract nature you can only let it wash over you. You can only ACCEPT it. See what I did? Silly aside, I do feel that way and is that not what we do everyday in life anyway?

Thanks to NetGalley and MCD for the ARC of Absolution. Cannot what to have a physical copy in my collection.

Jeff VanderMeer is the king of weird fiction (or speculative fiction or literary sci fi), and so I was so excited to see that, seemingly out of nowhere, there was another Southern Reach novel-- a fourth book in what was originally billed as a trilogy. To get this out of the way: I do wish that I had reread the original trilogy before reading "Absolution." But I was just too excited to reread three books before getting to this one!

"Absolution" is hard to describe. It's mostly a prequel. The major throughline of the novel is an intelligence officer's work for Central, the shadowy and dangerous agency that features in the original series. This guy is a company man technically looking into a failed scientific mission to the Forgotten Coast (later known as Area X) but there are multiple levels of intrigue and political machinations, completely apart from the ecological and psychic weirdness happening in the area. The other sections of the novels are about the failed scientific mission (intriguing and creepy) and then the first ever mission into Area X (creepy, trippy, but written in a style that I found offputting and sometimes incomprehensible). There were parts where I frankly had no idea what was going on. But I was still enjoying it! This is par for the course for the Southern Reach.

If you liked "Authority," with all the spycraft and doublespeak and shadowy agencies with dubious motives, you'll love "Absolution." There is a strong similarity to "Annihilation" as well, with the time spent in an earlier Area X. Overall, this was an interesting addition to an excellent series.

Everything I wanted it to be and more. Haunting and melodic, this book lulls you into a bizarre nightmare that answers questions you were never brave enough to voice. Reading this book- after ten years of believing that the Southern Reach series was a trilogy- is like getting a free dessert after you've indulged to uncomfortable fullness at a Michelin star restaurant. I was constantly uncomfortable but I savored every minute of it.

The master of New Weird strikes again!Absolution (4th book of The Southern Reach series) is brilliant! It’s unsettling, mysterious and bizarre, it’s wonderfully weird, intense, atmospheric, terrifying and incredibly original.
This book gives so many answers and raises so many questions at the same time. I don’t think there will ever be a conclusion to Area X - it feels just as impenetrable, alien and incomprehensible as ever. And that feels right. There are so many mysteries still to be resolved. I’m hoping for more stories from Area X!
I read all 4 books within a month and having everything so fresh in my mind intensified the experience of reading Absolution. I could follow so many minor threads and details throughout all 4 books, so many little nods to the previous books which I probably would’ve missed otherwise. I loved all 3 ‘chapters’ of Absolution - they were all gripping. Old Jim’s was probably my favourite, followed very closely by Lowry’s. What a mindbender that last story was!!

I love VanderMeer’s works - they’re so fresh, atmospheric, unique and terrifying at the same time. I’ve never read anything like this. I’m a fan of new weird, and I have VanderMeer and Miéville to thank for that!

Absolution will be published next month - I got my hands on an ARC, as I couldn’t wait any longer. Thank you, NetGallery!

I'm a HUGE fan of the Southern Reach trilogy, so I've been anticipating this book since the author tweeted about it in 2020. I even preordered it when the announcement was made!

Unfortunately, I'm about 30% of the way through the book, and I'm really struggling to get hooked. I liked Dead Town (Part 1) enough, but part 2 is taking some time to pick up for me.

If you're a fan of Jeff's writing style outside of the trilogy, if you go into it knowing EXACTLY what it is (you're not getting more answers, really just a little more world building into the history of the people who were researching the area), and you've got a more recent memory of the trilogy you'll likely have better luck than me. So while it's not for me (right now), I can definitely see this finding its audience.

For now, I'm going to take a break and try to come back to it in October. I'll update my review if/when I do!

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

This forgotten coast prequel is not strictly necessary. But if, like me, you loved the twisted wierd-fiction spycraft and inscrutible bureaucratic intrigue of Control and Authority just as much as the shock-to-the-system wierdness of Annihilation—then you’re going to want to pick this one up, too.

Absolution is almost a collection of linked novellas—but it really is a novel. It comes together in the end with deliciously incoherent coherence. I found part one, Deadtown, pleasantly creeping; part two, The False Daughter, wildly absorbing. But part three, The First and the Last, is interminable. I couldn’t stand the narrator. Drug-addled stream-of-consciousness is one thing, but did he have to be an asshole to boot? I ended up reading half the stories in Naomi Novik’s delightful new collection while the last chapters of Absolution taunted me—how badly I wanted to know what would happen; how little I wanted to read the sentences that would tell me... But once I forced myself to sit down and finish the thing, exactly those stylistic choices that had been driving me up the wall paid off in a way I wasn’t expecting. Extraordinary to watch prose so tiresome turn sharp and dreaming on a dime.

What lingers: Old Jim, in the village bar, on the forgotten coast, playing Schubert's Winterreise on an old upright piano and trying to hang on to a world slipping away. Any old Winterreise won't do, if you want to capture the feeling of it. I've listened to many, but only one is right for Absolution: Roland Neuwirth's weary folk-singer version in Wiener dialect. Neuwirth captures the half-whispered pain of these songs, the other-worldliness, the winter chill on a summer’s day. That blend of the uncanny and familiar that the German romantics made into all-encompassing Weltanschauung—and that Jeff VanderMeer turns inside out, so you can see the guts splayed out, half-digested contents of stomach, slippery limp nerve stem behind lolling eyeball, ghostly flicker from broken (rabbit) camera.

Unfortunately I was disappointed in this latest surprise book in the southern reach trilogy. This is a novel in 3 parts and the first part looked promising, it had some of the weird spooky elements that made the first book Annihilation so good, but although the author wrote it in a similar style to the first book where the characters remain nameless, it felt a little forced. It also took place before Area X was created.

The second part was very reminiscent of the second book Authority; my personal least favourite in the original trilogy. It was basically more of a spy novella than a scifi story and we followed Old Jim who was mentioned in book 3 but I really had no interest in expanding his character or learning anything about him. This part was very slow paced and when action did happen it was confusing. Area X is still not fully formed in this part

The third part was from the perspective of Lowry who again was a minor character in book 3 Acceptance. This part I though could be very interesting because at least Area X was involved, which is what I wanted to read more about, not the people investigating it. Unfortunately even though some interesting and creepy stuff happens in this part, the style its written in totally ruins it. Lowry says the word fuck at least 10 times per page. Every page. This was distracting and took me right out of the story and made the weird creepy parts way less impactful. I am definitely not against swearing but this was so excessive it felt like it was written by an edgy teenager.

If you loved book 2 and 3 of the trilogy and want more of the top secret government spy stuff then you may enjoy this fourth instalment. I however, did not.

This book is really hard to rate in a way that's helpful for others, because so much depends on whether you read and liked the other Southern Reach books. I don't think it makes sense without the others, for sure. It's essentially in two halves, the first rather like the second Reach book "Authority", which I loved but many did not, and then the second like a furious and vile version of "Annihilation". I'm not sure the first half really hung together, although the sense of unease and institutional distrust work like gangbusters. The second half is explosive and frankly great, although a lot of people will absolutely hate it. I honestly did not know how to rate this - I ended up taking a star because the first half was awfully draggy, but I'd certainly say it's required reading for fans of the previous Southern Reach trilogy.

Absolution was an absolute thrill. The book is split into three novellas that delve into events that happened in the decades before Annihilation with tons of wild thrills and fun moments interspersed along the way. My favorite was the second novella, which felt like a suspenseful, introspective spy thriller with a broken protagonist. It’s got all that weird tension and mystery that VanderMeer does so well.

The structure of the book kind of mirrors the first three books in the series—Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance—with each novella sharing a kind of theme with its corresponding novel. the expedition, the one that takes a step back, and the one that goes off the rails. You do get a few answers to some lingering questions and perspectives from the first three books, while setting a new stage. The book keeps you hooked, begging for more, and leaves you with a completely different perspective on the rest of the series.

That said, the third section was a bit of a shock. There are exactly 1,281 uses of "f*ck" in this book, and 1,236 of them are crammed into the last quarter. Every other sentence has multiple interjected "f*cks," and it can really mess with the flow. It’s super jarring, especially coming right after one of the most beautifully written parts of the book. Just a heads up—it’s a lot to take in.

But I’m glad I stuck with it because, honestly, this book has one of the wildest moments in the whole series tucked away in the middle of it—a gut punch that made me stop and question what the hell I just read.

Absolution is a solid entry in the Southern Reach series and my personal favorite of the four. Even though the abrupt shift in the last section threw me off a bit, the story is still beautiful and strange in the best way, and it's a must-read for anyone who’s even remotely interested in the series.

4/5

I loved the Southern Reach trilogy and was very excited to read this ARC. This prequel story really evoked the series, and brought me back to Area X. While it didn't answer all the questions one might hope for, the story was satisfying. My only criticism is that so many sentences were unwieldy. Some examples are this sentence:
"There was a pattern to some of the diagrams, a sort of improvisational quality he could sense, and much of it involved the Tyrant, the way the diagrams suggested jury-rigging, suggested that the Rogue had in some biological way used the cameras to create a symbiosis with the beast, and he didn’t know if he had used the right words in his head , but there came a kind of chill that was realization— that he could not be sure, seeing this, that at some point it had not instead been the Tyrant who became, in a way, not the servant of the Rogue or even willing companion but coconspirator."
And this sentence:
"It had the same high ceilings, here made obvious by the lack of dangling lamps, but despite that his footsteps made no echo, and spread out before him lay a simplicity he had not expected, as if the Rogue had less complexity to him than in Old Jim’s imagination."
And there are many more I could list. Having to take so much time re-reading sentences, breaking them down so as to be able to understand what is being said, took me out of the story. Heavy editing is needed before the final release in order to do justice to the story and improve the reading experience. I would then give the book a 5 star rating.

An incredible return to Area X. Absolutely loved every minute of it and I will be re-reading the series just to re-experience this one.

More of a mirror or accompanying piece than a direct pre- or sequel, we are transported into Area X once more. Especially the operations of Central/Southern Reach get more background, but the major mystery of Area X remains impenetrable
He felt like a caveman encountering the schematics of a spaceship

I truly enjoyed Annihilation, it being one of the books I picked up eagerly when I started reading again as an adult. Absolution had me very exited, aided by its gorgeous cover. In three parts we are returned to respectively 20 years before the barrier around Area X came down, 18 months before and during the first expedition 1 year after the area was sealed off.

The first section, Dead Town consisting of diary entries being commented upon by Old Jim, the main character of the second section, was definitely my favourite. We have deeply unsettling campfire settings, where music is reflected back from the trees to the scientist, and scenes of rabbits (potentially the same that are send into Area X in Authority?) turning up, who eat crabs and have living camera's attached to them. There are movies that change at every viewings which seemingly drive people mad.
Utterly unique in ideas and seriously foreboding, with a spot called Dead Town, this section made me think most of Annihilation. It is interesting that already 20 years prior to the barrier there were strange events in the Forgotten Coast, including uncannily smart alligators, headed by an especially large one called Tyrant and a human(like) apparition dubbed Rogue. Already here there are doubts if the bureaucracy that funded the expedition is not more aware and involved in the strange events: “All possible measures were taken but nothing could be done.”
Or had the outcome been exactly as intended?
This section of the book felt foreboding and claustrophobic, very well done in my view and you start to understand exactly what is meant with the following sentence: “From that moment” Team Leader 2 recalled “we felt as if we were the experiment”

The second part of the book False Daughter focusses on Old Jim, who is sent to the Forgotten Coast by Central high-up Jack Severance. This section felt more slow-burn spy thriller to me, with Old Jim teaming up reluctantly with Cass someone initially mascaraing like his lost daughter. Initially quite slow, there are clearly elements that don't want any further digging into the area and the Rogue. Old Jim and us are brought into contact with things that seem like mental viruses, triggered by certain song lyrics, or mental landmines, detonated by certain controlling words. There is even a Schubert song that seems particularly deadly. This section was enjoyable, certainly when secret rooms which seemingly endless dimensions in their corners and a facility where people are shoved into cylinders made their appearance. There are also overtones of human hubris, the idea that the power that is starting to manifest in mental programming and temporal impacts can maybe be controlled.

Finally we have The First and the Last, about the first expedition into Area X after the barrier came down. This should have been quite intriguing, if not for my strong dislike of the main character. James Lowry says fuck every two words and is on drugs, which seems a poor combination with entering a potentially hostile alien infected zone. Soon shit hits the fan for this group of 24 "earthbound astronauts", starting off with the protective suits and some people interacting in unexpected manner. Walkie-talkies scream horrors and boxes are destroyed only to reappear. The lighthouse, essential to Acceptance appears differently (if always eerie) to the expedition members, aligning to some dream images characters in part 1 and 2 saw. There are beaches full of human bones, a cut in half destroyer and there are guns that come alive. I think if there narrator to this section would have been different that this would have been my favourite section of the book, now it sometimes steered dangerously close to The files felt like they were written by a bad campfire storyteller.

In the end there is even cannibalism (Like some large scale jelly and jam preserves operation had gone all cannibal cult), but it is heavily implied that everything experienced by the team members is a reflection of simply an unknowable large force interacting with the world. In one of the final scenes Lowry thinks of disturbing a pond with fish and algae, as a god, but decides against it. It seems that unfortunately for the expedition that whatever powers Area X has not abstained from intervention, and that this might just be the start of an expansion of a phenomenon that doesn't just empowers nature in bizarre ways but also influences time. Remnants of the world before Area X seem to have aged by 50 years in one year, while already Old Jim notes that it seems in certain ways like . I was also reminded of Solaris, where we also have a large and unknowable entity trying to interact with humans, inadvertently breaking their minds. Also the eyes appearing on skin and deep revelatory insights conferred with a loss of humanity reminded me of the last episode of Neon Genesis Evangelion or the realm Truth resides in in Full Metal Alchemist, big anime energy that is rare to find in books.

Overall I liked this book, although parts of the 2 and 3 section felt at times like a chore to read. Jeff VanderMeer his writing draws you in, and there are plenty of big ideas, if not clear answers and conclusions, to enjoy here.

Quotes
Yet how could they guard against what could enter the mind?

Empathy slid to expediency

You did not want to be there. You didn’t want to be anywhere, ever again

Made of them nothing but receptacles for further terror.

Some things were best left alone. Some things did not bear further scrutiny.

Could you lose your mind to an unanswerable question or just your soul?

I think you’re evil and you’re going to kill me

Why?
So we can control it or destroy it.

Well, that was terrible and disgusting and worthless

Manifested as a kind of madness subsumed by paperwork

The vast outline of something moving through the deep, of processes that had gotten well beyond contain.

Only knew that he had reached his limit, his capacity, been brought to the edge of something beyond him.

The future colonizing the past

In the corner he’d scrawled “evil advances with good”, but could not fucking remember why.

We all kill what we love and love what we kill, he said

Look for a black mask. Unpredictable and off mission, read the note.
What was this, fucking Zorro?

If they were going to ignore him, he’d be the fucking loudest ghost in the world

Guns coming alive and absorbing their shooters

As if he was a meal now and someone was gorging on him

That Area X would never not happen

Jeff VanderMeer’s fourth Southern Reach novel is not a sequel, but a new story layered over the first three novels. In terms of chronology, all three interrelated parts of Absolution occur before the events of Annihilation (Book #1), but time is a mutable concept in Southern Reach, and I strongly recommend reading in publication order – that is, Absolution after the original trilogy. In fact, if it has been a few years, and if you have the time, you might consider re-reading the trilogy. I made do with my past reviews, some online synopsis, and ebook searches within the earlier books (Annihilation, Authority, Acceptance). Additionally, I feel the 2018 film Annihilation alone would not be good preparation.

It is my nature when reading SF to focus on parsing out the world-building and speculative concepts, even above my interest in the characters. Weird fiction, such as the Southern Reach series, is especially challenging in that regard, because one of its hallmarks is to evade conclusive understanding of the nature of its reality. VanderMeer explains nothing of his world directly, rather we view extraordinary and sometimes macabre events through the perspectives of his limited narrators. There are readers who are satisfied with sitting back to enjoy the style of writing without looking for patterns and meanings, and VanderMeer’s style is powerful enough, but I am not one of those readers.

The three parts of Absolution are
1) Dead Town; Twenty Years Before Area X – told from the retrospective perspective of Old Jim, an investigator going through Central’s records of the incident. “All possible measures were taken but nothing could be done.” In this part, Old Jim seems mostly rational, as he reviews records and artifacts from the bizarre events of Central’s scientific/psychic investigations and experiments on the Forgotten Coast, and the subsequent cover-up.
2) The False Daughter; Eighteen Months Before Area X – told from the perspective of Old Jim, who we learn is a former Central agent pulled back from the brink of madness and death by a faction within Central for purposes of an unknown goal that includes getting to the bottom of incidents of twenty years ago. His perspective is warped by his own emotional needs, the unknown extent of synthetic personality traits constructed for unknown factional purposes, manipulation by other agents of Central, implanted control words, drug effects, as well as the underlying and hidden foreign/alien actors with unknown motivations.
3) The First and the Last; One Year After the Border Came Down – told from the perspective of James Lowry, a foul-mouthed thug implanted in the First Expedition to the closed realm of Area X by a faction within Central. His secret assignment is to shoot when needed, bring back artifacts, and to take control when expedition command breaks down.

Characters include a number who first appear in the original trilogy, that started with the Twelfth Expedition, albeit earlier versions of them – Old Jim (later known as Ol’ Piano Fingers), James Lowry, Henry Kage and his half-sister Suzanne, Gloria Jenkins (later known as The Psychologist), Jackie Severance, and Allen Whitby.

I would love to discuss the clues to reality, and my theories about them. This novel is the longest in the series so far, maybe too long for its own good, and it gives some explanations (from limited perspectives, repeatedly revising, and maybe contradictorily) of some of the realities of the earlier trilogy. But this is a public review, and discussion of them would be spoilers to the original trilogy. Further, discussion of the implications of those clues would also be spoilers to this novel, and that is the whole suspense for a reader like me. Suffice it to say, the potential answers suggested lead to further mysteries. Will it ever end with a final rational explanation? I doubt it. But it’s a unique journey, and afterwards I found myself looking on events of my own life with new suspicions.

I read an Advance Review Copy of Absolution in an ebook format, which I received from Farrar Straus and Giroux through netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review on social media platforms and on my book review blog. This new title is scheduled for release on 22 October 2024.

Thanks to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the ARC.

TL;DR. Be prepared to be confused, no one in the book understanding what is going on for most of the run (which honestly tracks with reality), this series is vibes-centric with shorter bursts of action.

I loved the first three books, and I anticipated that because of how much I loved those, I might have too high of an expectation for this one. The book is divided into three distinct parts, where the first one is 20 years prior to Area X border coming down, the second and longest part is 18 months before the border, and the last part is 1 year after the border. The ending can be expected from page 1 if you've read the other three books, but all of these books are the journey and not the destination. Or, I guess, the destination makes sense after the journey you've had.

Seriously rounded up 4 stars. I am torn about it as I much disliked the last POV after enjoying the first two. Because of the nature of Southern reach books, none of the narrators in the series have ever been reliable, but this guy Lowry takes the cake. This was one of the rare examples where in parts I didn't know what was going on, and did not care to find out because I didn't care if our POV character survives. The Hargraves bit was clear from the get go.

DNF at 21%

Annihilation was my first foray into the world of Jeff Vandermeer and I fell head over heels. The weird, atmospheric, naturalism of that book drew me in and I read the whole trilogy. My next was Borne and again with the beautiful, weird naturalism theme and I loved that book along with the short story, A Strange Bird. When I saw Vandermeer was coming out with another book set in the Southern Reach trilogy I jumped on an ARC of it. Maybe this is like some of his other books I haven't read it but I felt like I was reading from a completely different author. Sometimes I'd see glimpses and the first novella had some creepy promise but it felt like a sub par version of his own writing. I just want to go back and re-read Annihilation now to get that feeling I was looking for in this book and striking out on.

Thank you to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

You don’t know what you think you know. Or, rather, what you know is only the mere apparition of something else, something more natural and abundant that dwells on the other side of your meager perception. This book wants you to look at yourself, your ideologies and definitions, and reconsider not just their authenticity and provenance but also their utility. Do they bring you closer to a type of truth, or do they use dividing lines to magnify distinctions?

“He paused only to listen to the silence--to hear that above the sound of his own breathing, it was cut through with the chitter of bats, the chirps of flying squirrels. A natural silence, then, full of unconsidered life.”

This book is, likely, going to be polarizing. If you loved Annihilation but weren’t especially keen on Authority then this book probably won’t do it for you. If you thought the open-ended, soft “answers” at the end of Acceptance weren’t quite enough and want things to be much more neatly tied up and clear, you will leave this book frustrated. If Annihilation is an amorphous, intimate fever dream, Authority a political thriller full of right angles and sharp edges, and Acceptance a frenetic spiral that obscures ideas of destiny and human intentionality, then what is Absolution? The previous three books adopted different literary styles and tones and Absolution is no different, starting with a hands-off, distant kind of analytical analysis, followed by a close third person that is similar to Authority in style, a neurotic political thriller that descends into madness as the Forgotten Coast/Area X infiltrate our experience, and it ends with a section that is a desperate nightmare, not the ethereal dreamscape of Annihilation but instead a frenzied, terrified introspection. It feels like a mobius strip, a perpetual returning, a consolidation of perception so that it expands in all directions until reality constantly cascades upon itself, eschewing temporality for experientiality.

None of that says much of anything about the plot of this story, just how it feels when reading it. The plot isn’t a whole lot different than that of the other three, which is to say find out more about what Area X is. Here we start by analyzing reports from a mission on the Forgotten Coast that was 20 years prior to the formation of Area X, and then the bulk of the novel settles into a story that brings us back to the Forgotten Coast but 18 months before the border falls, overlapping with many of the experiences in the third novel, from a different perspective, and finally the last 30% brings us along on the first expedition, a year after the border appeared. In these three times we do get answers, we get glimpses of things we already knew about or wondered about, some of the connective tissue that helps us see how things are related in probably intractable ways. So, some of our satisfaction is certainly quelled. But there are really just more questions asked, and no answers as to any of the why that are more direct than what Acceptance gives us. But what this novel lacks in definitive answers it makes up for in the experience of reading, which felt like a roller coaster at times. It was sometimes frustrating, sometimes felt like it was not even pretending to care about logic, and it was a constant thrill.

“It was an anthropological nightmare, this festering need to hold on to the foundation of your vision, your prior frame of reference.”

Continuing the exploration of transformation that was so prevalent in the original trilogy, Absolution reminds us of our culpability. Trying to avoid the truth of constant and inevitable change, and learning to embrace that transformation with open minds and hearts instead of ego and domination, is one thing. Here we are reminded that we are part of the ecosystems we find ourselves in, and our actions have effects. We are constant ripples changing the world around us, the experiences of others, and we more often than not rush blindly forward only to get in our own way, create the very problems we are hoping to remedy. There is an irony in the title, because absolution is a type of forgiveness, a freedom from consequences, and here we find that such freedom can only come through an honest reckoning of the harm – and, too, sometimes joy – that we introduce into our environments. Absolution doesn’t come with the recitation of a prayer or a ritual flagellation, but instead in a true baptism, a natural baptism, a submersion in and submission to the multifold ecosystems we find ourselves in constant relationship with, reacting to and acting upon. When we come to the end of our journey and realize it is the beginning again, we realize that our actions and emotions connect us to all things in ways not recursive or controlling but in fact all-embracing and emancipatory, then we can hear the beauty of the songs that are found in the natural silence of the unconsidered.

I want to thank the author, the publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and NetGalley, who provided a complimentary eARC for review. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

These books have a way of really getting into your head, they are all well written with beautiful prose but leaves you feeling uneasy. It’s amazing being able to go back to the world of Area X and to see more of it.

This is a prequel to the events in the Southern Reach Trilogy and is told as three separate sections each consisting of its own story that shows the evolution of Area X. The first section and my favorite is called “Dead Town” and takes place twenty years before Area X, it is about a group of biologists and field experiments before Area X. The second section is “The False Daughter” and takes place 18 months before Area X, it is about Old Jim from the book Acceptance. The third section is “The First and the Last” and takes place one year after the border came down and it is about the first expedition to study Area X.

As always this was an incredibly well written book with an overall feeling of mystery and although there are answers to some of the questions from the Southern Reach Trilogy you are still left with unanswered questions. There is still so much left to learn!