Ten years after the publication of Annihilation the surprise fourth volume in Jeff
VanderMeer's blockbuster Southern Reach Trilogy. When the Southern Reach Trilogy was first
published a decade ago it was an instant sensation celebrated in a front-page New York Times
story before publication hailed by Stephen King and many others. Each volume climbed the
bestsellers list awards were won the books made the rare transition from paperback original
to hardcover the movie adaptation became a cult classic. All told the trilogy has sold more
than a million copies and has secured its place in the pantheon of twenty-first-century
literature. And yet for all this for Jeff VanderMeer there was never full closure to the story
of Area X. There were a few mysteries that had gone unsolved some key points of view never
aired. There were stories left to tell. There remained questions about who had been complicit
in creating the conditions for Area X to take hold the story of the first mission into the
Forgotten Coast-before Area X was called Area X-had never been fully told and what if someone
had foreseen the world after Acceptance ? How crazy would they seem? Structured in three parts
each recounting a new expedition there are some long-awaited answers here to be sure but
also more questions and profound new surprises. Absolution is a brilliant beautiful and
ever-terrifying plunge into unique and fertile literary territory. It is the final word on one
of the most provocative and popular speculative fiction series of our time.
