Tag: Annihilation

Annihilation ~ A Capsule Book Review

Annihilation ~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp

Jeff Vandermeer’s science fiction novel, Annihilation (the first installment of the Southern Reach Trilogy), is about a nether place on earth known as Area X, an uninhabitable region in which nature has gone awry, a place very dangerous to humans. Several expeditions have gone to Area X to try to ascertain what is going on and, also, to try to figure out why Area X is getting bigger, with the potential of encompassing the entire earth. Is it the work of an alien intelligence or is it just nature gone crazy? Many questions remain unanswered.

The main character of Annihilation is without a name. We only know her as “the biologist.” She is telling the story in her first-person voice. Her husband, also nameless, went on the most recent expedition. He was “lost” for almost a year but one day miraculously turned up again and then died right away (or did he?). The biologist is a solitary, brooding person. She signs up to go on the twelfth expedition, realizing that it is almost certainly a decision that will result in her death. She is willing to die, one supposes, for the sake of knowledge.

All the other members of the twelfth expedition are women and they are all without names. We only know them as “the psychologist,” “the anthropologist” and “the surveyor.” They are all business with no bonding or camaraderie among them. Soon they all die freakishly and the biologist is left on her own to try to learn the secrets of Area X, starting with what she calls “the Tower,” a massive cylinder (apparently) implanted in the earth that might be, in fact, a living organism. Stairs lead downward in the Tower and along the wall on the stairs is a peculiar kind of writing that is composed of tiny, hand-shaped living organisms that write words, which the biologist comes to call “the Crawler.” What do the words mean and what intelligence is behind them? The biologist inhales a spore from the writing on the wall that changes her. After the spore, she glows from within and seems impervious to things that might otherwise kill her. Is the alien intelligence (if that’s what it is) protecting her so she might learn the secrets of Area X?

And then there is the lighthouse that is the epicenter of Area X. The biologist journeys to the lighthouse and there discovers the notebooks of all the previous expeditions, including the notebook of her (lost or dead) husband. She comes to a fundamental understanding of what Area X is about and is able to formulate some theories, but still there are many unanswered questions, which will, it is presumed, be answered in books two and three of the Southern Reach Trilogy.

Annihilation is an imaginative excursion into the unknown in just under two hundred pages. While it’s a little overly descriptive at times for my taste and the middle section seems to drag on a little too long, we can overlook those things in view of the overall fine quality of the writing and of the story itself, which is unlike anything I’ve ever seen or heard of before. We do appreciate originality wherever we can find it.

Copyright © 2018 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

Annihilation ~ A Capsule Movie Review

Annihilation ~ A Capsule Movie Review by Allen Kopp

Annihilation is a science fiction/horror story based on a novel by Jeff Vandermeer. Lena (Natalie Portman) is former military, a biologist specializing in cellular development who teaches medical students in a university. Her husband, Kane (Oscar Isaac), also in the military, went on a secret mission a year ago and never came back. Lena wants some answers.

Three years before the action of the story takes place, a streak came out of the sky and settled on a lighthouse on an unspecified beach and, after that, mysterious things began happening. There’s some kind of force field emanating from the lighthouse and it’s getting bigger all the time. Nobody knows what’s going on. When teams of scientists go to the lighthouse to investigate, they never come back. It turns out that Lena’s husband, Kane, was one of those who went to investigate. After being gone for a year, missing and presumed dead, he casually turns up again one day. He’s not himself, though. He doesn’t know where he’s been or what has happened to him. He becomes violently ill, Lena summons an ambulance, and while he and Lena are enroute to the hospital in the ambulance, it is stopped in a not-very-subtle way by what appears to be a convoy; Kane and Lena are taken into custody.

Lena awakens, after being sedated, in what is apparently a military facility. She is told that Kane is very critically ill and is probably dying, but nobody knows exactly what’s wrong with him. Lena isn’t allowed to leave the facility. She becomes acquainted with some of the other people there, who just all happen to be women. Some of them decide they will go on an expedition, led by psychologist Dr. Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh), to Area X, the strange area surrounding the lighthouse that is getting bigger all the time (the fear is that it will soon encompass the entire world). This area is also known as the “Shimmer.” It’s probably a suicide mission, because, as we know, none of the people who have gone to investigate the Shimmer have ever returned.

So, we have five women going into the Shimmer on this very dangerous mission, including Lena and Dr. Ventress. The first thing that happens to them is they can’t remember anything and seem to have lost time (days? weeks?) for which they have no explanation.

The Shimmer is a frightening but also a beautiful place where the laws of nature seem to be turned upside down. Unusual and colorful flowers, unlike any seen in the real world, grow in profusion. And, if that isn’t enough, species have apparently been mutated with other species, which the members of the expedition discover when they are attacked by a vicious, enormous alligator that behaves in a very aggressive way and runs as fast as a dog. Later, there is a kind of a faceless bear that is intent on killing them. This is the stuff of nightmares.

Some of the women in the expedition meet horrible deaths, as you might expect, but Lena, our main character, makes it to the lighthouse. What she discovers there will confuse you and leave you wondering but will not bore you. Since Annihilation is the first installment of a trilogy, I’m figuring there will be a sequel, as long as this movie makes enough of a jingle at the box office.

A full explanation is never given of what the Shimmer is, but my takeaway is that it’s an alien life force that will slowly but gradually consume the earth without the aliens (whoever they are) ever lifting a finger (do they have fingers?) or engaging in any kind of warfare with earthlings. Maybe I’m wrong, but this is the only explanation that comes to hand at the moment.

Annihilation is challenging science fiction, unlike silly space adventures geared to the youth market. It’s the same kind of cerebral science fiction as Arrival, a movie from 2016. In both movies, the principal character (a woman in both cases) confronts the profound and unimaginable. We live vicariously through these characters because none of us will ever confront the profound and unimaginable, except maybe when we die.

Copyright © 2018 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997