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.
