On Paths Unknown discussion

Hello, all. Here is the clock in and opening thread for Annihilation. It's been a little over a year since I read this and I'm really excited to be revisiting this stretch of imagination.

Looking forward, Amy, though I must offer my apologies: I'll only be able to join in on around Friday. But, looking forward!

We will be here when you get here :)

I reread the first chapter tonight. It is as good as I remember it. I love it when that happens.

Loved this series. I will have to flip through some pages here.

Oh, definitely do!

Reading this first chapter, there is just so much what the heck going on, right out of the gate.

There were four of us: a biologist, an anthropologist, a surveyor, and a psychologist. I was the biologist. All of us were women this time, chosen as part of a complex set of variables that governed sending the expeditions. The psychologist, who was older than the rest of us, served as the expedition's leader. She had put us all under hypnosis to cross the border, to make sure we remained calm. It took four days of hard hiking after crossing the border to reach the coast.

I mean, just so much 'What is going on here???' feeling of weirdness. I loved it. (Why women 'this time'? What complex variables? Why hypnosis? ) One of the things that delighted me is that rereading it now, I am getting the same sensation of vertigo I had then, even knowing some of the answers. (I haven't read the next two books, though, so I don't have that.)

Haven't read this before. Finding it amazing. Have booked next books from library.

I got the rest of the trilogy as soon as I fell in love with Annihilation too.

Here is another bit I really liked:

The water was so dark we could see our faces in it, and it never stirred, set like glass, reflecting the beards of gray moss that smothered the cypress trees. If you looked out through those areas, toward the ocean, all you saw was the black water, the gray of the cypress trunks, and the constant, motionless rain of moss flowing down. All you heard was the low moaning. The effect of this cannot be understood without being there. The beauty of it cannot be understood, either, and when you see beauty in desolation it changes something inside you. Desolation tries to colonize you.

The language just transports me, and that ending ('Desolation tries to colonize you.') scares me.

I am wondering how the rest of you are reacting to the biologist?

I am trying to sort out my reactions from before and my current reading. She seems a little more mercenary to me this go round.

FYI, if anyone is doing the Super Mash-up Challenge, Annihilation was awarded the 2015 Nebula.

Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "Oh, definitely do!

Reading this first chapter, there is just so much what the heck going on, right out of the gate.

There were four of us: a biologist, an anthropologist, a surveyor, and a psycho..."

The only answer I can find is "Who knows". We certainly never find out. Maybe in book 2 and 3.

Very true. VanderMeer is comfortable not giving out all the answers, and I admire that.

Given how short this book is, I am going to open two more threads: one for Immolation and Immersion and one for Dissolution and the entire book. We'll say this first thread covers Initiation and Integration.

Thread #2 (chapters 3 and 4) here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Thread #3 (chapter 5 and entire book) here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Chapter 2 spoilers: The image I'm getting from (view spoiler)[the tracks in the tower is something like this:



meets this:
(hide spoiler)]

What do you think?

Yes. Those images exactly.

I couldn't think of anything with (view spoiler)[cilia, but she did mention trilobites; I should look up pictures of them to get the impression right. (hide spoiler)]

Sorry to be tardy to the party. The first volume of the trilogy was checked out from the local library and I didn't wish to buy it new, being bereft of experience and to a degree enthusiasm. Finding a copy this morning at a book sale I plunged, fortune 's favor and whatnot.

No need to apologize. Glad you found it!

The narrative unfolds with an unhealthy admixture of arrogance and displacement. The combination was effective but annoying as hell. I wasn't sure I was going to push on. I did.

That's an interesting comment, Jonfaith. On my first read through the overall experience bowled me over so that I pretty much accepted the biologist without question. It was much more apparent to me on the read through how deeply damaged she is, and that failing to tell the rest of the team about her exposure to the spores was very reckless, at the least. So I think I see what you are saying on that point, even though I didn't find her narrative at all annoying myself.

Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "Chapter 2 spoilers: The image I'm getting from the tracks in the tower is something like this:

What do you think?"

I never was able to figure out what the tracks were supposed to look like, even after finishing the whole series, but your images make sense.

As for your earlier question about what I thought about the biologist, I didn't know what to make of her on my first read-through. She was sort of off-putting and I wasn't sure whether she was really our protagonist or secretly crazy...and if she was secretly crazy, just how crazy was she?

In what way did she strike you as crazy? As if she had invented the entire narrative, or as if she had been so affected by her 'training' and by Area X that she no longer knew what was real? Or did you mean in some other way?

A. wrote: "Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "Chapter 2 spoilers: The image I'm getting from the tracks in the tower is something like this:

What do you think?"

I never was able to figure out what the tracks were supp..."

I never felt that she was crazy. She seemed the best put together of them all.

Anne wrote: "I never felt that she was crazy. She seemed the best put together of them all."

That's closer to my reaction; too sane for her own good, was my general reaction (both reads).

A. wrote: "Amy (Other Amy) wrote: In what way did she strike you as crazy? As if she had invented the entire narrative, or as if she had been so affected by her 'training' and by Area X that she no longer knew what was real? Or did you mean in some other way?

The second one. It was just an idea I was considering because I didn't know what to make of her odd personality and paranoia toward the others. I don't think I fully trusted her until her encounter with the Crawler laid bare the last of what she'd been hiding from us.

Oops, A., that was actually Whitney you were replying to.

A. wrote: "I don't think I fully trusted her until her encounter with the Crawler laid bare the last of what she'd been hiding from us."

I think you were a smarter reader in that regard than I was. I trusted her fully the first time; it was only on reread that I realized I should have made her earn that trust. (She did earn it, definitely.)

Amy (Other Amy) wrote: I think you were a smarter reader in that regard than I was. I trusted her fully the first time; it was only on reread that I realized I should have made her earn that trust. (She did earn it, definitely.)

Funny, I usually go the opposite route, sympathizing too much with protagonists who are supposed to make me feel ambivalent. But this story was just so weird that I couldn't get a handle on it for a long time. I guess that's why I didn't trust the biologist.

Arriving late to the party, but a couple things from the first two chapters, which I just finished:
- I really appreciated the faster pacing, since I just came from reading Possession, a good book but very meandering
- Still unusual, I think to have four main female characters, especially from a male author
- Perhaps related to the preceding point, it's interesting to see how the relations of power and knowledge develop among the characters
- I was initially skeptical about hypnotism as a plot device, but it seems to work here, and it increases the weirdness of the whole story so far.

The party is glad to have you, Stephen :-)

The pacing really surprised me with this book. I was preparing myself for a lot of world building here, but it was all action (while carrying home enough information to sustain a big world). I loved that.

I've been trying to think of another SF book that has an all female 'crew' in some similar vein. Nothing has occurred to me yet. I agree the power dynamics are so interesting partly because of that feature. As the 'men writing women' author demographic goes, I really think VanderMeer did a stellar job.