This was actually a re-read, I first tackled this book six or seven years ago. It was the first Jeff VanderMeer book I’d read, and I was so enamored with it that I wanted to read it again to see if it held up.
Publisher’s description: “Area X has been cut off from the rest of the world for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; the second expedition ended in mass suicide, the third 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 weeks, all had died of cancer. In Annihilation, the first volume of Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach Trilogy, we join the twelfth expedition.
The 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, record all observations of their surroundings and of one another, and, above all, avoid being contaminated by Area X itself. They arrive expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers—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.”
Annihilation operated from a really interesting place – these events are really happening, but also rich in metaphor. People are people in this book, but are also reduced to their jobs (“Biologist”) and eventually their emotions (representing anger, etc). I found the imagery to be both grotesque yet beautiful, and was impressed that VanderMeer spent the time fleshing out his main character as well as building the sense of place.
This might be one of the best examples of “New Weird fiction”. I have sort of fallen out of love with the genre in the last decade (China Mieville, another prominent author in New Weird, is mostly to blame), and would have a tough time recommending it to others. If you like the idea of an eclectic blending of Lovecraft/modern mythology/horror/sci-fi, which is my best attempt at defining New Weird, Annihilation would be a good place to start.