Authority

Authority
Jeff VanderMeer

In ‘Annihilation’, Jeff VanderMeer introduced Area X – a remote and lush terrain mysteriously sequestered from civilisation. 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 team’s 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 he’s promised to serve. And the consequences will spread much further than that.The Southern Reach trilogy will conclude in autumn 2014 with ‘Acceptance’.

COPYRIGHT (#ufcb3cb29-f4d8-5806-ab7d-3968f1e8ce99)

Fourth Estate

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street,

London, SE1 9GF, UK

www.4thestate.co.uk (http://www.4thestate.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain by Fourth Estate in 2014

First published in the United States by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2014

Copyright © VanderMeer Creative, Inc. 2014

Jeff VanderMeer asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780007553464

Ebook Edition © May 2014 ISBN: 9780007553495

Version: 2018-09-26

PRAISE FOR THE SOUTHERN REACH TRILOGY (#ufcb3cb29-f4d8-5806-ab7d-3968f1e8ce99)

‘A tense and chilling psychological thriller about an unravelling expedition and the strangeness within us. A little Kubrick, a lot of Lovecraft, [Annihilation] builds with an unbearable tension and claustrophobic dread that lingers long afterwards’

LAUREN BEUKES, author of The Shining Girls

‘A lasting monument to the uncanny … you find yourself afraid to turn the page … We are less than 200 pages in to the Southern Reach Trilogy … and already home is a distant memory’

SIMON INGS, Guardian

‘Annihilation owes much to the explorations of psycho-geographical landscapes in early J. G. Ballard and also to the work of the old masters of weird fiction such as H. P. Lovecraft and William Hope Hodgson, with their love of nameless horrors haunting liminal realms. VanderMeer synthesises these influences to create a tale with a deliciously creepy atmosphere of dread’

JAMES LOVEGROVE, Financial Times

‘Immersive, insightful and often deeply bloody creepy, this is a startlingly good novel. If the sequels live up to it, then the Southern Reach series will be a major work’

WILL SALMON, SFX Magazine

‘A clear triumph for VanderMeer, [who] has suddenly transcended genre with a compelling, elegant and existential story of far broader appeal … A novel whose world is built seamlessly and whose symbols are rich and dark’

LYDIA MILLET, LA Times

‘A teeming science fiction that draws on Conrad and Lovecraft alike … The writing itself has a clarity that makes the abundancy of the setting more powerful’

PAUL KINCAID, Sunday Telegraph

DEDICATION (#ufcb3cb29-f4d8-5806-ab7d-3968f1e8ce99)

For Ann

Contents

Cover (#ubc8a44b9-aff9-5a22-a0bc-14ceb1da55c7)

Title Page (#ud0e7d20c-82f3-5343-8ae0-c4264bad05fd)

Copyright

Praise for the Southern Reach Trilogy

Dedication

Incantations

000

001: Falling

002: Adjustments

003: Processing

004: Reentry

Rites

005: The First Breach

006: Typographical Anomalies

007: Superstition

008: The Terror

009: Evidence