World Building Book Group: Annihilation

The World Building Book Group will discuss science fiction, fantasy, and other speculative fiction titles that provide rich, layered imaginary worlds populated with diverse forms of life. Selected titles will encourage readers to explore different possibilities and spark curiosity about the world around them.

This month's title is Annihilation by Jeff VanDerMeer.

About the book:

Area X has been cut off from the rest of the world for years. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. Expeditions into Area X have ended in disaster or death.

In Annihilation, the first volume of Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach Trilogy, we join the latest expedition. The group is made up of four women: an anthropologist; a surveyor; a psychologist, the de facto leader; and the narrator, a biologist. Their mission is to map the terrain, record all observations of their surroundings and of one another, and, above all, avoid being contaminated by Area X itself.

They arrive expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers―they discover lifeforms that surpass understanding. But it’s the secrets they carried across the border with them that change everything. - Amazon