“Absolution” by Jeff Vandermeer

Gotta be honest here: it’s going to be hard for me to review this book fairly. I’m pretty certain Jeff Vandermeer set out to screw me over, specifically. I’d read and enjoyed the first 3 Southern Reach books and others by Vandermeer, I chose to read this one now for the “Last in a Series” square in r/Fantasy Bingo. I always do hard mode, and since this Southern Reach #4, it seemed perfect. But then Jeff had to go and fuck me over and announce he’s planning more Southern Reach books. YOU COULDN’T WAIT TO SAY THAT UNTIL APRIL, JEFF?!?!?!?!?!

Anyway.

This is a prequel to the other three Southern Reach books. And maybe a sequel? Both? What even is linear time? Certainly not that linear around Area X.

We get three stories in one, by my count. The primary protagonist is a Central agent called Old Jim. He crawled into a bottle after his daughter disappeared from his life, but was eventually hauled out of it by Central, sobered up, and sent to the stretch of coastline that would ultimately become Area X. He accounts for two of the three stories. First is his investigation into a previous Central expedition to the area that fell apart under very mysterious circumstances. And as he learns what happened to this expedition, his own story unfolds as the area gets weirder and weirder until, ultimately, the border comes down.

The other part of the book, accounting for about the final quarter, is a man named Lowry. He’s part of an expedition into Area X - I think it takes place shortly after Area X formed, and well before Annihilation, but I’m not 100% on that.

Both sections of the book, the three-quarters with Old Jim and the one-quarter with Lowry, are largely streams of consciousness. As always with Vandermeer’s books, I don’t really feel like I was understanding what was going on, but I was experiencing it along with the characters.

The thing I struggled with was Lowry. He’s some combination of insane/tripping/affected by Area X, which leads to extremely long sentences, disjointed language, and twisted perceptions. It was all very appropriate, but it made that last quarter a challenge to wade through the reading of it.

But, my annoyance at the timing of Jeff’s announcement aside, I enjoyed this return to Area X and am looking forward to more.