Annihilation Jeff Vandermeer 6 Points

Weird Fiction is one of my favorite genres, so I really enjoyed reading Annihilation. Personally, this style of horror is much more enticing to me and I get way more out of it. I think part of it is because most of the experience in reading comes from the physical environment and not the internal psyche, not to say that the genre doesn't delve into the psyche, especially Annihilation. The fundamentally basic theme behind the book is four scientists go into an unknown Area: X to do research for the government. This area basically rejects the standards or binaries of typical everyday life; ranging all over from biological to environmental differences. One of my favorite parts about the book is that we don't get any details about any of the characters, no names or physical descriptions. Without the identity of the characters, it brings all the attention to the environment. 

There is an interesting beauty to Area: X. I think a lot of people get uncomfortable either watching the movie or reading the book because the phenomenons are mostly unexplained, while, in the real world, most everything has a concrete explanation. People have grown so accustomed to having complete control over almost all elements in the surrounding area, and when that's taken away, they have no idea what to do. It also brings a whole new meaning to the word destruction. I think the word has mostly a bad connotation, but, as a catalyst of change, destruction is necessary to create a clean slate. Like how all the mutations, animals, and plants, that have some resemblance to humans were once humans that the area created new. People on the outside only see the area as corruptive and encroaching on human soil, not taking the time to think about how it has a beautiful ability to create something from chaos and annihilation. Like the explorers have already come to the conclusion that the space is bad even before taking a step inside it. Area: X is a representation of the beauty of the unknown and the quick decisions people make out of fear. 

There is a lot of deception and manipulation in the book. The conditioning the scientists went through before starting the journey as well as the hypnotist who follows them in. It was made clear that each volunteer was meant to write down their own experiences in a journal but  wouldn't they all have basically the same idea? If they had all been conditioned, it sounds like the government didn't really want to study it. They wanted reasons to back their belief that Area: X needed to be destroyed. The hypnotist freaked me out a little bit too. They're already in an uncontrollable environment and now they've lost control over their subconciousness. The total lack of control is terrifying. I almost forgot about the black boxes that each of them were carrying. I think from that, it's clear all volunteers are expendable and the government would do anything to help push each volunteer further into the area. 

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