Acceptance

Acceptance
Jeff VanderMeer

’A contemporary masterpiece’ GuardianTHE THIRD VOLUME OF THE EXTRAORDINARY SOUTHERN REACH TRILOGY – NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY ALEX GARLAND (EX MACHINA) AND STARRING NATALIE PORTMAN, OSCAR ISAAC, GINA RODRIGUEZ AND TESSA THOMPSONIt is winter in Area X. A new team embarks across the border, on a mission to find a member of a previous expedition who may have been left behind. As they press deeper into the unknown – navigating new terrain and new challenges – the threat to the outside world becomes only more daunting. In this last instalment of the Southern Reach Trilogy, the mysteries of Area X may have been solved, but their consequences and implications are no less profound – or terrifying.

ACCEPTANCE

JEFF VANDERMEER

Copyright (#ulink_f184df3e-b70c-5965-bd79-b9354a7423a6)

Fourth Estate

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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.

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007553532

Ebook edition © September 2014 ISBN: 9780007553549

Version: 2017-11-28

Praise for the Southern Reach Trilogy (#ulink_2d78c329-8b69-5bf5-9448-e28146617d4e)

‘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’

Simon Ings, Guardian

‘VanderMeer’s novel is a psycho-geographical tour de force, channelling Ballard and Lovecraft to instil the reader with a deep, delicious unease’

James Lovegrove, Financial Times

‘Immersive, insightful and often deeply bloody creepy, this is a startlingly good novel … the Southern Reach series will be a major work’

Will Salmon, SFX Magazine

‘A clear triumph for VanderMeer … 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

‘What a haunting book this is, lodging deep in the memory … So disquietingly strange as to defy summarisation. Read it’

Ned Denny, Daily Mail

‘The incidents pile up, building in tension and terror … More than just a horror novel; there’s something Poe-like in this tightening, increasingly paranoid focus … Cruel and exquisite’

N. K. Jemisin, New York Times

Dedication (#ulink_d17b4882-2143-51d6-a0a1-9586c5b7069c)

For Ann

Table of Contents

Cover (#ubba2ba69-f3b0-555d-9ede-83266285b0cf)

Title Page (#u5cfe1917-aca7-58cb-bb39-b8f8de9a468c)

Copyright (#u522caec4-48f7-5cc8-abb5-a75f23351fa6)

Praise for the Southern Reach Trilogy (#ubd6da15a-7239-53c7-abfb-e6b148a2c506)

Dedication (#u7ac574f6-90d3-5133-9f59-b32dee66019d)

000X: The Director, Twelfth Expedition (#u09f2396c-394f-51e9-a5e4-a28602139597)

Part I: Range Light (#uf9bc24c5-9d2d-5bc2-9421-f8952c471fa0)

0001: The Lighthouse Keeper (#ufdf2a10f-c820-5e85-9a44-a5561319bbb5)

0002: Ghost Bird (#uee0201e6-8a8f-51c4-9c60-dab9e7e5cf5d)

0003: The Director (#u75d43702-b5a0-5a12-80c5-deab82706ca5)