Ancient Logic

I prize the ability of fiction to create worlds. When a few dozen words can conjure forth an entire countryside, I’m hooked.   Annihilation , by Jeff VanderMeer is just such a book. I really can’t throw enough praise at this book. While I placed it second last week in my best-of list, I think that is really a question of degrees. Annihilation burrows into one of my favorite sub-genres of literature, weird fiction, and consumes it from the inside out. This novel incorporates more than a century’s worth of great works from authors such as Machen, Burrows, Dick, and Lovecraft but never slumps into recitation. Annihilation is a clear and original statement, a manifesto of the terrible power of the unknown. Better still, Annihilation is merely the first in a series called the Southern Reach Trilogy. For a book that is deliberately and mischievously obtuse, the fact each book was released within months of each other is an act of unanticipated altruism. The set-up of the novel e...