Authority

Authority by Jeff VanderMeer
Published: 2014
Series: Southern Reach #2
Length: 341 pages

The events from the first book have finished, and now the team outside of Area X are struggling to understand what happened on this last expedition. Southern Reach has appointed a new head to the department, John Rodrigues, and we follow him as he takes the job, learns about the building, the staff, and the secretive history of the Area X research. In the first book, we get to see inside Area X and the regular world outside almost seems like a mystery. In this, we’re back on the outside looking in and we get to watch as the department struggles to understand.

This was such an interesting sequel to Annihilation. It deals with the continuation of the first novel’s events and is set near the same area, but it feels like a completely different series. It follows a new character, it’s written in third person instead of first person (as it’s no longer told through journal entries), and it deals with life outside of Area X. Most authors would have this be the setting for the first novel, as it seems a more natural progression, but this was a very cool way to structure the series.

It’s also much less action-packed than the first novel. Annihilation bombarded the reader with bizarre happenings from start to finish, whereas this is mainly structured around normal office life for the majority of the story, which still somehow manages to be fascinating. When strange things occur in everyday settings, they can can feel even more unsettling.

I could see how some people might find this novel a bit too slow. There’s not a lot that actually happens in the way of events, but being in Rodrigues’ head and following as he dug for answers was a lot of fun. Particularly in this case, as there is an interesting balance in knowledge between what the reader knows and what Rodrigues knows. It could have actually been quite annoying if it wasn’t handled properly, but Jeff VanderMeer nailed it.

Excited to see how this series ends!