Annihilation By Ansel Shipley
italics mine
Jeff VanderMeer’s novel Annihilation is set in a world apart from
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ours, while still being uncomfortably familiar. Nature has reclaimed the setting in Annihilation, Area WX, by force. Like the novel itself, Area X is an insidious and untrustworthy place, full of twists and turns and an overwhelming sense of wrongness. This twisted sanctuary “has been abandoned for decades, for reasons that are not easy to relate.” This deeply unsettling novel lures you in like the dark wilderness of its setting; you need your questions answered but you know the answers will frighten you. Annihilation eludes categorization. It embraces a myriad of genres, drawing inspiration from science fiction and horror while remaining under the umbrella of “literary fiction.” This crossgenre style is often called “weird fiction.” VanderMeer plays with the Lovecraftian idea of cosmic horror by substituting the natural world in place of the universe. The core sense of humanity’s ultimate insignificance and powerlessness remains. VanderMeer’s interest in fungi and parasitic organisms is reminiscent of the film maker David Cronenberg’s body horror. As the characters are picked off, Area X begins to reclaim them, and the descriptions are decidedly unnerving. The “biologist” character describes it as