A single-volume hardcover edition that brings together the three volumes of the Southern Reach
Trilogy which were originally published as paperback originals in February May and September
2014. Annihilation is the first volume in Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy
Authority is the second and Acceptance is the third. Area X-a remote and lush terrain-has
been cut off from the rest of the continent for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges
of human civilization. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine Edenic
landscape all the members of the second expedition committed suicide the third expedition
died in a hail of gunfire as its members turned on one another the members of the eleventh
expedition returned as shadows of their former selves and within months of their return all
had died of aggressive cancer. This is the twelfth expedition. Their group is made up of four
women: an anthropologist a surveyor a psychologist the de facto leader and our narrator a
biologist. Their mission is to map the terrain and collect specimens to record all their
observations scientific and otherwise of their surroundings and of one another and above
all to avoid being contaminated by Area X itself. They arrive expecting the unexpected and
Area X delivers-they discover a massive topographic anomaly and life forms that surpass
understanding-but it's the surprises that came across the border with them and the secrets the
expedition members are keeping from one another that change everything. After the disastrous
twelfth expedition chronicled in Annihilation the Southern Reach-the secret agency that
monitors these expeditions-is in disarray. In Authority John Rodriguez aka "Control " is the
team's newly appointed head. From a series of interrogations a cache of hidden notes and
hours of profoundly troubling video footage the secrets 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. And the consequences will spread much further than that.
It is winter in Area X in Acceptance . A new team embarks across the border on a mission to
find a member of a previous expedition who may have been left behind. As they press deeper into
the unknown-navigating new terrain and new challenges-the threat to the outside world becomes
more daunting. The mysteries of Area X may have been solved but their consequences and
implications are no less profound-or terrifying.
