Staff Pick
Prepare yourself for another psychologically intense narrative in this second installment of the Southern Reach Trilogy. This time we are taken behind the scenes of the agency and learn many of Area X's secrets, only to discover how much more there is to uncover. Recommended By Aubrey W., Powells.com
In this, the second installment of the Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer, we are introduced to Control, a character who has taken over the Southern Reach after the previous director failed. Paranoid, claustrophobic, and increasingly maddening, Authority dredges up more questions rather than answers, so be sure to have the third and final installment, Acceptance, readily available to complete your journey through Area X's mysteries. Recommended By Alex Y., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
In the second volume of the Southern Reach Trilogy, questions are answered, stakes are raised, and mysteries are deepened...
In Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer introduced Area X — a remote and lush terrain mysteriously sequestered from civilization. This was the first volume of a projected trilogy; well in advance of publication, translation rights had already sold around the world and a major movie deal had been struck.
Just months later, Authority, the second volume, is here. For thirty years, the only human engagement with Area X has taken the form of a series of expeditions monitored by a secret agency called the Southern Reach. After the disastrous twelfth expedition chronicled in Annihilation, the Southern Reach is in disarray, and John Rodriguez, aka “Control,” is the teams newly appointed head. From a series of interrogations, a cache of hidden notes, and hours of profoundly troubling video footage, the secrets of Area X begin to reveal themselves — and what they expose pushes Control to confront disturbing truths about both himself and the agency hes promised to serve. And the consequences will spread much further than that.
The Southern Reach trilogy will conclude in fall 2014 with Acceptance.
Review
"A clear triumph for VanderMeer, who after numerous works of genre fiction has suddenly transcended genre with a compelling, elegant and existential story of far broader appeal." — Lydia Millet, Los Angeles Times
Review
"The great thing about Annihilation is the strange, elusive, and paranoid world that it creates. The great thing about Authority is the way it takes the premises that we think we know about that world and turns them inside out, destabilizing everything in a way that makes it even more strange and elusive, and makes us the ones who feel paranoid. A stunning book, followed by a second stunning book that makes you rethink the first." — Brian Evenson, author of Last Days
Review
“Authority isn't a book that just picks up where the last one left off. Instead, it's packed full of new pleasures, not only new characters and settings but whole new kinds of writing. If Annihilation is an expedition novel painted with a thick coat of weird, then Authority is a spy novel given the same dark lacquer....Which makes me desperate to know what the third book is going to be like — whether it will be some mixture of the two, Jurassic Park meets James Bond, or some third thing entirely.” — Robin Sloan, author of Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore
About the Author
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 nonfiction 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.