Fairy Tale Spotlight: Annihilation [Book Review]

[I heavily attempt to stay away from spoilers in this blog because I want people to look into this franchise.]

"Annihilation" is a novel written by Jeff VanderMeer. It is the first book in what is called the Southern Reach Trilogy. It was published in 2014. I read this one because I liked the movie from 2018. The comparison to the movie is kind of important to this review, at least from my own personal perspective.

The concept of this story is very simple. There is an area on Earth called Area X that has some pretty strange things happening in it. All living matter is slowly combining with each other, which is creating a new eco system. The story itself is about one person in one of the many groups that decide to travel into Area X.

In this case, the speaker of the book is a biologist. No name is given at all. In fact, not one single name is given to any of the characters of this entire book, and I thought that was pretty cool. The closest thing you get to a name for the main character is Ghost Bird, which was just a pet name that her husband gave her. I suppose a lot of the fans of this series will probably lovingly call her by that name.

Other than what I just said, I won't be spoiling anything else about the story since this book is still heavily in play. The reason I wanted to write this blog is to explain that this book is like an alternative version of the movie. Although it might be more accurate to say that the movie was an alternative version of the book since it came afterwards.

It felt like I read an entirely different book which ultimately was the same as the movie. That's a weird feeling. But you know what? It makes sense if you understand anything about the story at all. I might even suspect that the people who wrote the film did it on purpose. This is the kind of universe where things sort of keep changing because of the combining and transformative nature of Area X. I can't say that this happened for that reason, but that doesn't make it any less cool.

Going from movie to book was actually a very surreal experience. I felt like I traveled into an alternate universe that was just different enough to notice, and yet the very same event was occurring. Very cool!

Personally, I do recommend this book, but this recommendation comes with a caveat. I think the best way to experience this particular story is to both read the book and see the movie. I honestly think they go well together in this very particular situation. I don't think I have seen a case where this happened, at least to this degree.

If you have never heard of the Southern Reach series, you might try poking around at it. It's especially good if you are a fan of the surreal. Other than that, I think I've said all I want to. I liked it, and that was what was most important.

This blog was written on April 22, 2024.

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