After their high-risk expedition disintegrates, it's every scientist for herself in this wonderfully creepy blend of horror and science fiction. This is the first volume of the Southern Reach trilogy from VanderMeer (Finch, 2009, etc.); subsequent volumes are scheduled for publication in June and September 2014. The Southern Reach is the secret government agency that dispatches expeditions across the border to monitor Area X, an ominous coastal no man's land since an unspecified event 30 years before. This latest expedition, the 12th, is all-female, consisting of a psychologist, an anthropologist, a surveyor and a biologist (the narrator). Names are taboo. Their leader, the psychologist, has hypnotic powers. They have no communication devices, but they do have firearms, which they will use; some earlier expeditions also ended bloodily. Close to base camp is "the tower," a mostly underground structure that acts as tunnel, which they descend. On its walls are grim biblical admonitions, raised letters made of fungi. The biologist incautiously inhales tiny spores which, she will discover later, fill her with brightness, a form of ESP. Tension between the women increases when the anthropologist goes missing; they will discover her dead in the tower, discharging green ash. Next, the psychologist disappears. Leaving the hostile, ex-military surveyor behind, the biologist makes her way to the other interesting structure, the lighthouse, which she climbs in dread. VanderMeer is an expert fearmonger, but his strongest suit, what makes his novel a standout, is his depiction of the biologist. Like any scientist, she has an overriding need to classify, to know. This has been her lifelong passion. Her solitary explorations created problems in her marriage; her husband, a medic, returned from the previous expedition a zombie. What killed the anthropologist? The biologist's samples reveal human brain tissue. Some organism is trying to colonize and absorb the humans with whom it comes in contact. Experiencing "the severe temptation of the unknown," she must re-enter the tower to confront the Crawler, her name for the graffiti writer. Speculative fiction at its most transfixing.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

*Starred Review* An expedition of four women is sent into an unknown region called Area X, beyond the borders of humanity: a psychologist, a surveyor, an anthropologist, and our narrator, a biologist. The purpose of the mission is to collect data about Area X and report back to the government, the Southern Reach, but circumstances begin to change when the group discovers a tower (or tunnel) that was previously unmarked on the map. Inside the structure, strange writing scrawls across the walls, and a spiral staircase descends downward, beckoning the members to follow. Previous expeditions ended badly, with group members disappearing or returning as shells of their former selves, but little is known about what actually occurred on those trips to Area X. A gripping fantasy thriller, Annihilation is thoroughly suspenseful. In a manner similar to H. G. Wells' in The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896), VanderMeer weaves together an otherworldly tale of the supernatural and the half-human. Delightfully, this page-turner is the first in a trilogy.--Paulson, Heather Copyright 2010 Booklist

A clandestine government agency called the Southern Reach has sent 11 mostly failed IK I expeditions into Area X, where an environmental catastrophe has created a nasty new ecosystem that may be encroaching on our own familiar world The latest group sent to explore the region is composed of four women known only by their disciplines: surveyor, anthropologist, psychologist and biologist. Acting as narrator, the biologist takes us along as they make their way down a tunnel whose walls bear enigmatic and frightening messages that sound like Cormac McCarthy at his most biblical. Although her companions are gradually eliminated, the intrepid biologist presses on alone, finally reaching a lighthouse that holds the remains of all those earlier expeditions. Fear-fed violence ensues, and as required in this sort of novel, the biologist must foolishly descend even farther into the tunnel's depths to confront a monster, the Crawler, so protean she can't describe it - though at times its face seems to resemble a photo she's seen of the lighthouse keeper. No spoiler alert is needed because we know the narrator escapes to tell the tale, which is ponderously plotted, often abstract in style and not very scary, possibly because "Annihilation" is the first book of a projected trilogy but probably because the novel is really about itself and its genre, with a distinct debt to Poe's strange nautical adventure, "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket." Area X stands for the domain of fantastic fiction. The biologist is the reader. The Crawler is the subconscious creative process. The lighthouse keeper symbolizes outward communication and puts a human face on the Crawler. And, sure enough, the lighthouse keeper does bear a striking resemblance to the author picture on the back cover. Details from the biologist's past - she was a loner who would rather observe a tide pool than participate in her marriage - fill out the metafictional allegory, but without convincingly establishing the biologist's motivations for her risky behavior, motivations that might have made "Annihilation" not just intriguing but affecting. TOM LECLAIR'S most recent book is "What to Read (and Not): Essays and Reviews."

The unnamed narrator of this brilliant first in a trilogy from fantasy author Vandermeer (City of Saints and Madmen) tells of her ever-more-terrifying, yet ever-more-transcendent experiences, as she, a biologist, and the three other members of her all-women team (a surveyor, an anthropologist, and a psychologist) set out to explore Area X, for some unspecified number of years deliberately isolated from its surroundings. Theirs is the 12th expedition to Area X, sent two years after the last attempt; the team hopes to discover why the zone, so lush and beautiful at first look, is a place from which none return-at least not in the same form that they entered. Using evocative descriptions of the biologist's outer and inner worlds, masterful psychological insight, and intellectual observations both profound and disturbing-calling Lovecraft to mind and Borges-Vandermeer unfolds a tale as satisfying as it is richly imagined. Agent: Sally Harding, Cooke Agency. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

A small scientific expedition crosses the border into Area X, including our narrator, known only as the biologist. They are the 12th group to be sent with vague instructions to map this quarantined zone, the previous expeditions all having suffered terrible fates of one kind or another. Evidence of strange creatures lurking just out of sight and a general feeling that there are many things that the expedition hasn't been told combine to give this story a sense of creeping paranoia. VERDICT Appropriate for a book by an author who is always straddling borders, World Fantasy Award winner VanderMeer's (City of Saints and Madmen) latest falls somewhere between a long novella and a short novel. But this short work packs a big punch, as the author has rare skills for building tension and making the reader feel the claustrophobic dread of his characters. Readers will be unsettled, intrigued, and eager for the next volume in this new trilogy. [See Prepub Alert, 9/1/13.] (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.