Absolution

A Southern Reach Novel

By: Jeff VanderMeer

Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot

One of Time's Must-Read Books of 2024 • One of Indigo's Top Ten Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books of 2024 • Named Best Book of the Year by Barnes and Noble • One of Kobo CA's Best Science Fiction Books of 2024

Ten years after the publication of Annihilation, the surprise fourth volume in Jeff VanderMeer’s blockbuster Southern Reach Trilogy.

When the Southern Reach Trilogy was first published a decade ago, it was an instant sensation, celebrated in a front-page New York Times story before publication, hailed by Stephen King and many others. Each volume climbed the bestsellers lists, awards were won, the books made the rare transition from paperback original to hardcover, and the movie adaptation became a cult classic. All told, the trilogy has sold more than a million copies, and has secured its place in the pantheon of twenty-first-century literature.

And yet, for Jeff VanderMeer there was never full closure to the story of Area X. There were a few mysteries that had gone unsolved, some key points of view never aired. There were stories left to tell. There remained questions about who had been complicit in creating the conditions for Area X to take hold; the story of the first mission into the Forgotten Coast—before Area X was called Area X—had never been fully told; and what if someone had foreseen the world after Acceptance? How crazy would they seem?

Structured in three parts, each recounting a new expedition, this book delivers some long-awaited answers, to be sure, but also more questions, and profound new surprises. Absolution is a brilliant, beautiful, and ever-terrifying plunge into unique and fertile literary territory. It is the final word on one of the most provocative and popular speculative fiction series of our time.

Critic reviews

One of Time's Must-Read Books of 2024 • One of Indigo's Top Ten Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books of 2024 • Named Best Book of the Year by Barnes and Noble • One of Kobo CA's Best Science Fiction Books of 2024

Bat ship crazy (in a good way)

I loved this area x revisit. No answers here. You want more answers go out to sea tiny a green row boat. Immersion, interesting prose, raw emotion is what you will find here. And alien alien thoughts in the minds of delicate humans. F f f f f f f !

How is this what has become of the southern reach trilogy?

I love Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance, but this book is so far removed from those books I love that I am struggling to reconcile it even comes from the same person's brain. It answers no questions, struggles to maintain any semblance of a story line, and misses every opportunity at narrative symmetry or surprise that you crave. Vandermeer as always brings to the table such beautiful, sumptuous prose, but without a story to compel it along, it's little more than a hostage negotiation of pretty words.

The voice actor sounds like he's having a lot of fun though.