Authority (The Southern Reach Trilogy, Book 2) (Southern Reach Trilogy 2)
The second volume of the extraordinary Southern Reach trilogy. ‘Creepy and fascinating’ Stephen King. The Southern Reach is a government agency so secret it has almost been forgotten. Following the disastrous twelfth expedition chronicled in ‘Annihilation’, the second book of the Southern Reach trilogy introduces John Rodriguez, the new head of the government agency responsible for the safeguarding of Area X. His first day is spent grappling with the fall-out from the last expedition. Area X itself remains a mystery. But, as instructed by a higher authority known only as The Voice, the self-styled Control must battle to ‘put his house in order’. From a series of interrogations, a cache of hidden notes and hours of profoundly troubling video footage, the mysteries of Area X begin to reveal themselves-and what they expose pushes Control to confront disturbing truths about both himself and the agency he’s promised to serve. Undermined and under pressure to make sense of everything, Rodriguez retreats into his past in a labyrinthine search for answers. Yet the more he uncovers, the more he risks, for the secrets of the Southern Reach are more sinister than anyone could have known.
Intellectual horror for those who are not interested in the typical blood-and-gore of basic, everyday horror novels,
And Spoiler: Don’t read this review if you haven’t already read Annihilation.
The adventure in Area X continues… where we find out more about what has *really* happened in Area X, as well as with the members of its exploratory missions.
I expected the name “Control” to be a function of the protagonist’s professional role. Interestingly… it’s not. A new director has taken over the Southern Reach facility after the disappearance of the previous director — who chose to be part of, and never returned from, the last exploratory mission.
Control is not only faced with taking over responsibility for the unit responsible for investigating the strange, perhaps otherworldly, occurrences, in Area X — he must also engage in a power struggle with the Assistant Director, who may, or may not, have more information about what happened on the last expedition which included his predecessor.
What’s more, he must attempt to elicit information from the only intellectually-aware survivor of the last expedition, the biologist — who seems both strangely inclined and disinclined to cooperate with his investigations.
But the new director bears his own secret baggage: repeated failure at past assignments, an apparent inability at self-awareness, a highly-controlling maternal figure who may or may not be directing his actions.
All is not as it seems… and, what’s more, it seems we may not yet truly understand the scope of what is actually happening in Area X…
This is intellectual horror for those who are not interested in the typical blood-and-gore of basic, everyday horror novels — crossed with an incredibly interesting mystery.
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|Long winded but with good story,
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|Frustrating and light-years away from Annihilation,
The massive problem with this second volume is that, basically who cares about the ‘high-level’ spy background and childhood problems of this ‘Control’ when you have something so Much More exciting like Area X next door? If at least the plot was focused on the ageing facility and its very odd employees, or on its reasearch and discoveries, but no. We are served never ending unpallatable and long chapters on the uninteresting and dull past life of this guy, as mediocre as his mother is successful, GrandDad was so great too and blah blah blah.
It really took the fantastic hook planted in my curiosity with Annihilation not to give-up on this one. The story picks up again in the last bit, when ‘something happens’ at last and the closure isn’t too bad, but really that book should have been edited, cutting out all the dreary bits about ‘Control’, about whom I doubt anyone gives a damn. It is a very uncomfortable juxtaposition of two different types of novels suddenly trying to be one: one sci-fi novel with incredible potential, an exciting adventure into the unknown, and another drab type of ‘spy-on-the-remand’ novel, dwelling on the why and how a guy can get from the ‘field’ to a desk-job. As if honestly we’d care?! I don’t understand what got into Vandermeer with this. Writer’s block? Trouble following up on a genius idea? Probably.
An immensely frustrating sequel and hoping the third part will more to the level of the first. 3 stars because there is still hope!
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