Absolution

(Hardback)

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Description

Ten years after the publication of Annihilation, the surprise fourth volume in Jeff VanderMeers blockbuster Southern Reach Trilogy.
TOP SECRET: A clear and present threat exists. Open-ended. Existential. Confirmation via uncanny op. Nature of same: Unknown. Initiating entity: Unknown. Priority: High.

Ten years after the publication of the bestselling Annihilation, Authority and Acceptance the first the basis of a now-classic film Jeff VanderMeer brings us back for a surprise fourth and final foray into Area X.

Absolution opens decades before Area X forms, with a science expedition whose mysterious end suggests terrifying consequences for the future and marks the Forgotten Coast as a high-priority area of interest for Central, the shadowy government agency responsible for monitoring extraordinary threats.

Many years later, the Forgotten Coast files wind up in the hands of a washed-up Central operative known as Old Jim. He starts pulling a thread that reveals a long and troubling record of government agents meddling with forces they clearly cannot comprehend. Soon, Old Jim is back out in the field, grappling with personal demons and now partnered with an unproven young agent, the two of them tasked with solving what may be an unsolvable mystery. With every turn, the stakes get higher: Central agents are being liquidated by an unknown rogue entity and Old Jims life is on the line.

Old Jims investigation culminates in the first Central expedition into what has now been labelled Area X. A border has come down, and a full team well trained but eccentric has been assembled to find Area Xs 'off switch' somewhere in the volatile, dangerous terrain that has mysteriously defied all attempts to be explored, mapped or controlled. A landscape that, one way or another, seems to consume all who enter it.

Sweeping in scope and rich with ideas, iconic characters and unpredictable adventure, Absolution converges the past, present and future in terrifying, ecstatic and mind-bending ways. It is the final word on one of the most provocative and popular speculative fiction series of our time.

Reviews

Praise for the Southern Reach Trilogy:

Im loving the Southern Reach Trilogy Creepy and fascinating Stephen King

Hauntingly weird and brilliantly new These are contemporary masterpieces and career-defining novels Adam Robert, Books of the Year, Guardian

'Unsettling and unputdownable like a good old-fashioned adventure story, only weirder, beautifully written and not at all old-fashioned' Karen Joy Fowler, Bookpage

This trilogy is a modern mycological masterpiece Remarkable Tense, eerie and unsettling Genuinely potent and dream-haunting writing. VanderMeer has arrived Guardian

'An ever-creeping map of the apocalypse' Colson Whitehead

'Revelatory, terrifying and marvellous' Helen MacDonald

A teeming science fiction that draws on Conrad and Lovecraft alike Sunday Telegraph

A lasting monument to the uncanny You find yourself afraid to turn the page Guardian

VanderMeers novel is a psycho-geographical tour de force, channelling Ballard and Lovecraft to instil the reader with a deep, delicious unease Financial Times

'The payoff is absolutely worth the patience' N. K. Jemisin, The New York Times Book Review

So disquietingly strange as to defy summarisation. Read it Daily Mail

Astonishing, frightening, spectacular I hope the trilogy will come to be seen not only as the instant sci-fi classic it is, but also as Literature New Statesman

Immersive, insightful and often deeply bloody creepy, this is a startlingly good novel A major work ***** SFX Magazine

A tense and chilling psychological thriller about an unravelling expedition and the strangeness within us. A little Kubrick, a lot of Lovecraft, the novel builds with an unbearable tension and claustrophobic dread that lingers long afterwards. I loved it Lauren Beukes

Original and beautiful, maddening and magnificent Warren Ellis

Author Bio

Jeff VanderMeer is an award-winning novelist and editor. His fiction has been translated into twenty languages and has appeared in the Library of Americas American Fantastic Tales and in multiple years-best anthologies. He writes non-fiction for the Washington Post, the New York Times Book Review, the Los Angeles Times, and the Guardian, among others. He grew up in the Fiji Islands and now lives in Tallahassee, Florida, with his wife.