The novel “Annihilation” by Jeff VanderMeer was published for the first time in 2014. It won the Nebula and Shirley Jackson Awards for best novel of the year. It’s the first book of the Southern Reach trilogy.

A biologist, an anthropologist, a surveyor and a psychologist are the 12th expedition into Area X. After the dramatic results of the previous expeditions, the four scientists hope to finally get a success in understanding the transformations that occurred in that area and the others strange phenomena that happen and that changed members of previous expeditions as well.

The four women have the minimum knowledge of each other needed to the expedition, linked to their respective skills. During their exploration they discover what the biologist calls a tower that doesn’t rise into the sky but sinks into the ground. In their exploration they will be forced to face not only the weirdness of Area X but also their inner problems.

In “Annihilation” the reader is thrown into the mysterious Area X together with the four women who form the 12th expedition trying to solve its mysteries. Through the personal diary that the biologist keeps following her instructions, the reader slowly starts gettin some details about Area X and the expedition but also the protagonist’s increasing introspection.

The novel is in some ways an inner journey more than the exploration of a place full of mysteries and its characteristics make it difficult to label it. It won the Nebula, which is awarded to science fiction and fantasy works, but also the Shirley Jackson, which is awarded to psychological suspense, horror and dark fantasy works. It was also labeled as weird. This is a case where labels are limiting.

The atmosphere created by Jeff VanderMeer is rather oneiric given that the protagonists are in a place where abnormal things happen, without point of reference to the point that even their names are never mentioned and all of that is continually alternated with the biologist’s introspection. This intertwining of interior and exterior is the point that since the publication of “Annihilation” divided the readers because the ones who manage to immerse themselves in that atmosphere find it fascinating and appreciate the novel while the ones who can’t do that don’t feel the protagonists’ tension and risk boredom.

Jeff VanderMeer was inspired by an excursion he did in Florida for almost twenty years, seeing in the 14 miles hike many species of plants and animals. Basically, there’s a real foundation for the environment described in “Annihilation” from which the author starts to create Area X.

The idea of ​​an area in which organisms are somehow mutated and even the human beings that enter it can somehow be mutated is not new and by reading “Annihilation” you can hear echoes of works such as “Roadside Picnic”, by Arkadi and Boris Strugatski, and “Eden” by Stanislaw Lem. The author added other things such as putting nature in the spotlight with its variety and in this case its oddities. This is crucial in the novel’s development because the intertwining of interior and exterior also includes the relationship between the protagonists and the environment in which they’re exploring.

The difficulty in reading a novel of this type is increased by the fact that the biologist is in many ways isolated even from her travel mates, partly due to the instructions they received and partly due to her character. Her motivations are at least partly shown slowly and don’t help to feel empathy towards her while the biologist knows little about the other three women and therefore neither the reader learns much about them.

In 2018 Netflix released a movie based on “Annihilation” which, however, deviates a lot from the novel, even in the meaning of the title. In some ways the movie is more conventional, in the sense that the protagonists have their names and there are other points of reference in the story, including some explanations on what happens in Area X, in particular in an ending of considerable visual impact. Some readers who found the novel boring appreciated the movie, others who immersed themselves in the novel’s strange atmosphere found the movie too conventional.

Jeff VanderMeer published two sequels to “Annihilation” but for the readers who lived its reading as an inner experience and don’t feel the need for explanations, the novel works very well on its own. For this reason I recommend reading it to people looking for this type of work.