If I was going to sum up this book then I’d say that it was gritty, surreal and lacked specifics. The characters remain unnamed, the setting: likewise unnamed, along with an unspecified location and no hint as to when it is set. Annihilation is the first in a trilogy detailing the events surrounding a region of coast that seems to have been taken over by an alien ecological force. The main character is a biologist who is a member of a exploration team sent into investigate the infected (if that’s the right word) region. As well as having to contend with strange creatures who may or may not be imaginary, alien doppelgangers and transformed humans, the team also has to deal with a member who may not be on their side … Continue reading “Book review: Annihilation (The Southern Reach Trilogy – Book 1) by Jeff Vandermeer”
Category: reviews
Book review – The Mandibles: A Family 2029–2047 (by Lionel Shriver)
I think I’m on to Lionel Shriver’s secret: timing, research – and sharp story-telling doesn’t hurt either.
She taps into the single fear that is uppermost in the nation’s mind and crafts a story that drags that fear into an extreme reality. Afraid your kid is going to go postal? Shriver’s got a book for that. Worried that your financial resources will be depleted by a bout of cancer? She’s got a novel for that too.
Right now the middle classes are scared that the ongoing financial crisis will render them destitute by the time they hit retirement age, and right on cue the Shriver literary machine pops out a book about a moderately wealthy family that finds itself increasingly less wealthy as the US economy crashes and the encumbent government decides (unwisely) to default on its international debts.
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