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Synopses & Reviews
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2024:
The New York Times, Washington Post, New York Magazine, TIME, Kirkus, Literary Hub, Goodreads
The surprise fourth volume in Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach series--and the final word on one of the most provocative and popular speculative fiction series of our time.
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 bestseller list; awards were won; the books made the rare transition from paperback original to hardcover; 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 all this, 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, Absolution is a brilliant, beautiful, and ever-terrifying plunge into unique and fertile literary territory. There are some long-awaited answers here, to be sure, but also more questions, and profound new surprises. It is the final word on one of the most provocative and popular speculative fiction series of our time.
Review
“Eerie and evocative….VanderMeer's horrifying declaration of the impossibility of knowing the other is a knockout.” -Publishers Weekly
"The surprise fourth volume in Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach series --- and the final word on one of the most provocative and popular speculative fiction series of our time." -Bookreporter
About the Author
Jeff VanderMeer
is the author of
Hummingbird Salamander, the
Borne novels (Borne,
The Strange Bird, and
Dead Astronauts), and
The Southern Reach Trilogy (Annihilation,
Authority, and
Acceptance), the first volume of which won the Nebula Award and
the Shirley Jackson Award and was adapted into a movie by Alex Garland.
He speaks and writes frequently about issues relating to climate change
as well as urban rewilding. He lives in Tallahassee, Florida, on the
edge of a ravine, with his wife, Ann VanderMeer, and their cat, Neo. VanderMeer founded the Sunshine State Biodiversity Group nonprofit in 2023.