Sent as the twelfth expedition to survey the uninhabited Area X, four women soon discover that the area is far worse than they initially thought.

Annihilation: For thirty years, Area X has remained mysterious and remote behind its intangible border – an environmental disaster zone, though to all appearances an abundant wilderness. The Southern Reach, a secretive government agency, has sent eleven expeditions to investigate Area X. One has ended in mass suicide, another in a hail of gunfire, the eleventh in a fatal cancer epidemic. Now four women embark on the twelfth expedition into the unknown.

Authority: After thirty years, the secret government agency known as the Southern Reach has been unable to solve the mysteries of Area X, a seemingly malevolent landscape wiped clean of human civilisation. Expedition after expedition has failed to come up with answers, often disastrously. The Southern Reach, in the process, has become a backwater agency, forgotten and underfunded despite the urgency of its mission. Following the tumultuous twelfth expedition chronicled in Annihilation, the agency is in complete disarray. Enter John Rodriguez (aka “Control”), the Southern Reach’s newly appointed director. Working with a distrustful team desperate for success, Control must navigate a maze of frustrating interrogations, a cache of hidden notes, and hours of profoundly troubling video footage. In Authority, the second volume of Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach Series, many of Area X’s most disturbing questions are answered.

Acceptance: Area X has rebuffed expedition after expedition for decades, refusing to reveal its secrets. As it expands alarmingly, the Southern Reach agency tasked with its investigation has collapsed in confusion. Now, one last, desperate team crosses the border, determined to reach a remote island that may yet hold vital answers. In this climactic volume of the Southern Reach trilogy, reality mutates and mysteries resolve.

Absolution: 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? Structured in three parts, each recounting a new expedition, there are some long-awaited answers here, but also more questions.