Jeff VanderMeer, thoughts?

[Fried Egg]

What do you people think of Jeff VanderMeer?

I'd previously read "Finch" and "Shriek: An Afterword" both of which I had enjoyed a lot and now I've just finished "Annihilation", the first part of the "Southern Reach" trilogy and I really enjoyed it:

Something has happened to a small pocket of America that has driven all humanity away. It is sealed off in some nebulous way never quite made clear to the reader although the government agency tasked with dealing with this phenomenon has found some way to cross into it. In this story we follow a small team of scientists sent into this mysterious 'Area X' in order to explore and try to understand it. However, they are only the next in a long line of investigative teams sent in, all previous attempts having failed in various ways.

Reading through other reviews I notice many people lamenting the lack of character development in this novel but it was clearly deliberate. The narrative is an account of the biologist in the team, a naturally reclusive and solitary character anyway, but their very training inhibited them from getting to know each other well, encouraging them to think of each other only in terms of their professional roles. The story starts and they have already entered 'Area X', only finding out some of the protagonist's back story in occasional flash backs later in the narrative.

There is a strong sense of mystery and weirdness that is only compounded as the story develops and we find what little we were able to take for granted turned on its head. And as the story draws towards a conclusion, much mystery remains and many of the conclusions reached retain a degree of ambiguity. This is bound to upset some readers but should delight fans of weird fiction.

I look forward to reading next next part of the trilogy very much.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I got an ARC of Annihilation and couldn't take to his style at all. I found it horribly info-dumpy and only lasted about thirty pages. Which was disappointing because the premise appealed.

 

[Fried Egg]

I got an ARC of Annihilation and couldn't take to his style at all. I found it horribly info-dumpy and only lasted about thirty pages.

Really? That's surprising because I thought, if anything, it was surprisingly lacking on info. There was very little explanation as to why they were there or what they were trying to do which, I thought, added to the mysteriousness of it all.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Yeah, I just looked again to check it was the same book and the first three pages are all back story about the mission and the characters, and I got totally bored. It may be to do with voice and readers' expectations - if it had been in a character's voice rather than a narrator's I might have felt differently. Horses for courses....?

 

[Stephen Palmer]

I've read Veniss Underground, The City Of Saints And Madmen and one other whose title escapes me... VU is excellent.

Weird, but good-weird.

 

[Extollager]

I've read Annihilation and Authority. I felt they were typical current sf in taking a premise and spinning it out for hundreds of pages, where a generation ago the story would have been told more economically (compare Budrys's Rogue Moon, another "alien installation" story, which without hurrying packs much that Vandermeer seems to be aiming for into the space of a novella). I felt that V. is writing something that cries out "easy to adapt into a movie(s) -- please do." I was kind of surprised that Farrar Straus Giroux, which used to be a "literary" publisher, issued these. I'd rate them about 3/5. I'll probably read the third Reach book when it comes out, but, on the other hand, if I saw the ones I've read already for sale at a garage sale, 50c each, would have to think about whether or not to buy them. (I read library copies.)

 

[Fried Egg]

I've only read "Annihilation" but it wasn't very long. Just under 200 pages I believe which is pretty short for a novel these days...

 

[Fried Egg]

I've read Annihilation and Authority. I felt they were typical current sf in taking a premise and spinning it out for hundreds of pages, where a generation ago the story would have been told more economically (compare Budrys's Rogue Moon, another "alien installation" story, which without hurrying packs much that Vandermeer seems to be aiming for into the space of a novella).

It's funny but sometimes when I see other people's views on books I wonder whether they are actually talking about the same book I read.

This just seems to me such a bizarre criticism. On the one hand, while there are many books being published these days that sprawl needlessly over hundreds of pages this isn't one of them. Indeed, my copy only has ten more pages than "Rogue Moon". But to hold up "Rogue Moon" as a great example of word economy is baffling. This book is packed with needless digressions following pointless conversations and characters that only distract from the interesting theme of the book. I know I'm not the only person to feel that way after reading it.

I don't mean to deny others the right to form different opinions on books that I do. But sometimes I just don't understand where they are coming from...

 

[Extollager]

I don't mean to deny others the right to form different opinions on books that I do. But sometimes I just don't understand where they are coming from...

If we were talking at a science fiction con, we might have an interesting discussion that would clear that up.

I'm thinking of the VanderMeer three-volume sequence. The first book is not a truly independent book, surely.

I might differ with you about "pointless" material in "Rogue Moon," but in any event I'm not sure whether there's more than one version. There's the novella in the Science Fiction Hall of Fame Vol. IIB, and there's a paperback that might or might not be the same text as the novella. My point is that Budrys has two intriguing sf concepts (the matter transmitter, the alien installation) in one novella and works up plenty of suspense and atmosphere, and gets the story told in that space. No need for two more volumes. By contrast, I did feel sometimes that VanderMeer was kind of spinning out his story, which as of now isn't even complete.

But I'll leave the matter at that.

 

[Fried Egg]

Well, I think that annihilation could stand on its own. I'm left feeling curious enough to want to find out more but I feel like the biologist's story is complete, and am quite happy with that. Perhaps it isn't over, perhaps I won't feel the same way by the time I've read the second volume.

Have you read any of his other books? They were far more loosely connected even though they were set in the same "world".

 

[Extollager]

Have you read any of his other books? They were far more loosely connected even though they were set in the same "world".

No, and unless Acceptance impresses me more than I expect it to, I probably will not read more VanderMeer.

 

[BAYLOR]

In 2008 he wrote Predator South China Sea

 

[Nerds_feather]

I reviewed it (Annihilation) a few months ago. I thought it was an exciting and well-written book, but not without it's faults.

As for the comparison with Budrys...VanderMeer isn't trying to do the same thing as Budrys, stylistically, so I don't think it's a very good comparison. Gene Wolfe--that works. Or Lovecraft (though VanderMeer has gone out of his way to disassociate with Lovecraft, the influence is clear).

 

[Nerds_feather]

Springs - I didn't feel it was infodumpy, and usually I'm super sensitive to that. I guess for me infodumping is defined at least in part by leaving character perspective to present background information, encyclopedia-style. In this case, at least as far as I remember, everything remained firmly in the narrator's perspective. But perhaps we have different definitions of "infodump?"

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Springs - I didn't feel it was infodumpy, and usually I'm super sensitive to that. I guess for me infodumping is defined at least in part by leaving character perspective to present background information, encyclopedia-style. In this case, at least as far as I remember, everything remained firmly in the narrator's perspective. But perhaps we have different definitions of "infodump?"

Oh gosh, I suspect there's a thread in that. I define info-dumping as any period where providing information/backstory/explanation takes over the story intrusively. For me, the whole thing of there were four of us, and that included a surgeon and a .... Did that for me. However, I could tell he was parodying old diary entries and a certain period - unfortunately it's not a style I enjoy and one I find information heavy. But that's a reading taste thing.

 

[Silver Owl]

If I enjoy China Mieville am I likely to enjoy this?

 

[Jo Zebedee]

His style struck me as very different from Mieville's, so I don't think it would be a given.

 

[Extollager]

I'm about 50 pages into the third Southern Reach book (Acceptance) now and am feeling impatient with the author's penchant for mystification, which isn't the same thing as evoking the legitimately mysterious. Part of my reaction is due to a degree of distaste for second-person narration, which is used some of the time. The narration by now often has a repetitive feel.

I don't think this is a "trilogy," by the way. It seems to me to be one protracted story drawn out across three volumes. I'll stick with it for a while longer at least, but I'm glad it's a library copy and not something I paid for and might feel obliged to finish because of having invested a few dollars in it.

 

[The Bluestocking]

I've been struggling to get into the first book.

Think I'll take a pass on this and come back to it later when I'm in the right frame of mine to tackle it.

 

[Extollager]

One of the characters in Acceptance, the third part of the Southern Reach/Area X novel, as well as in Authority (the second part), is usually called Control -- and readers of Le Carre's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and viewers of the the superb circa 1980 TV miniseries (Alec Guinness*) may wonder if this title is intended by VanderMeer to recall a tragic Le Carre character who went by "Control."

If that was his intention, it was a risky one, because readers may compare the sf three-volume novel and the earlier works, not to the advantage of the "trilogy" by VanderMeer. The earlier works (book, miniseries) were tantalizing and satisfying, but the 2014 "trilogy" was, for me at least, ultimately too exasperating for me to want to stick with it....

*not to be confused with the TTSS movie, which I thought was pretty wretched.