I don't mind a good dystopian story, so I picked up Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer as it was getting quite a lot of buzz recently. After reading it, I found out that it had been made into a movie, and that fact confirmed my reaction to it. I felt, as I read it, as though I was watching one of the seemingly infinite number of low-budget Sci Fi films on TV in which a small number of characters work their way through a claustrophobically small set and get bumped off one-by-one by an unknown (or known) force/monster/ boogieman. That pretty much sums up the book. Set in the not-to-distant-future, this "eco-nightmare" takes place in "Area X" - somewhere in Louisiana evidently, where there is some sort of major psychic/ecological disruption taking place. The government (?) periodically sends exploratory parties into the area and all meet with some sort of disaster, usually a combination of physical and psychological trauma. The novel follows the 11th expedition into the area. Consisting of five women, we only know the characters by their functional names (archeologist, linguist, psychologist, etc.). They discover a "tower" not on the official maps of the area and explore it, finding a creature of interest. There's also a "lighthouse" where relevant action takes place. The novel is the 1st in the 3-book "Southern Reach" series. The writing is good, basically mimetic fiction with some weird stuff thrown in. Although not a bad piece of writing, I'm skipping the rest of the series.
For a review of the book from The Washington Post, click here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/annihilation-by-jeff-vandermeer/2014/02/25/0a52a03a-9d82-11e3-b8d8-94577ff66b28_story.html
For a review of the movie based on the book from Variety, click here: https://variety.com/2018/film/reviews/annihilation-review-natalie-portman-1202706321/
