Annihilation
Area X has been cut off from the rest of the continent for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. The twelfth expedition arrives expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers. They discover a massive topographic anomaly and life-forms that surpass understanding. But it's the surprises that came across the border with them, and the secrets the expedition members are keeping from one another that change everything.
Stats for nerds
10recommend
17mentions
17people
2015–2026years
59% recommend29% neutral12% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- It always blows my mind that Lonesome Dove is recommended across so many different communities, especially nerd-related ones like HN. I read ~100 books a year on average and it continues to top my all time favorites list; but, in all honesty, I cannot believe it appeals to the wide audience it does due to its content.
That said, here are some of my all time favorites (no particular order):
01. Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
02. Lonesome Dove (Larry McMurtry)
03. A Painted House (John Grisham)
04. A Gentleman in Moscow (Amor Towles)
05. The Great Alone (Kristin Hannah)
06. All the Light We Cannot See (Anthony Doerr)
07. Annihilation (Jeff VanderMeer)
08. The First Law Trilogy (Joe Abercrombie)
* this encompasses three long books; however, I consider them one long epic novel
09. Mailman (Stephen Starring Grant)
10. Demon Copperhead (Barbara Kingsolver)
11. Lessons in Chemistry (Bonnie Garmus)
12. Hench (Natalie Zina Walschots)
13. Personal Librarian (Marie Benedict)
14. In Cold Blood (Truman Capote)
15. Life We Bury (Allen Eskens)
16. Ordinary Grace (William Kent Krueger)
17. God of the Woods (Liz Moore)
18. Maid (Nita Prose)
19. The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell (Robert Dugoni)
20. The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store (James McBride)
- Annihilation By Jeff VanderMeer
Diaspora by Greg Egan
Anathem by Neal Stephenson (this one is a bit like doing homework but worth it imo)
If you vibe with short stories Exhalation by Ted Chiang Crystal Nights by Greg Egan isn't bad either
- My best reads this year:
Non-fiction:
- The Power Broker by Robert Caro
Fantasy:
- The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson
Sci-fi:
- Sun Eater series by Christopher Ruocchio
- A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr
- Ra by qntm
- Jean le Flambeur series by Hannu Rajaniemi
- Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer (didn’t like the subsequent books of the series so much)
Other novels:
- Woodcutters by Thomas Bernhard
- . Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch. Urban fantasy with a great audiobook narrator (Kobna Holdbrook-Smith). Harry Potter meets Sherlock Holmes. Loved the computer history and London Library parts in False Value.
. Chrestomanci series by Diana Wynne Jones. Found the first book in a local phonebox library. Especially liked the probability computer in Conrad’s Fate.
. Southern Reach trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer. Recommended by a barber after I mentioned the cartoon "Scavengers Reign". Annihilation is well worth reading.
. The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro. Novel about memory, forgetting.
. Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman. Short novel imagining Einstein's dreams whilst he worked on his relativity theory.
- "Southern Reach Trilogy" by Jeff VanderMeer [0]. I absolutely loved every book. "Annihilation" is probably my favorite.
What hooked me about the series were two things: 1) It was very, /very/ weird and 2) it often times felt like the characters had no power.
"Bliss Montage" by Ling Ma [1]. The short stories felt dreamy - drifting in perspectives, places, and times. Many of the stories had a supernatural aspect to them.
"Invisible Cities" by Italo Calvino [2]. This book is a puzzle. You could read it front to back, or you could read it in the various different orders. There is no intended order. Again, very dreamy and weird. This book is a conversation, where Marco Polo is telling Genghis Khan of the cities within his kingdom. I was introduced to this book by Jacob Geller's video essay "Cities without people" [3].
"Ring" by Koji Suzuki [4]. One of my first horror book reads, and also the first in the Ring series. The "Ring" movies are based off of this book. I also read the 2nd one, which provides a very different view on the series and gives the horrors in the book a scientific backing.
This year for me has been the year of strange novels.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Reach_Trilogy
[1]: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374717124/blissmontage
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Cities
- Hunter x Hunter by Yoshihiro Togashi - I recently started reading manga again and had heard about the series. It's an amazing feat of visual storytelling, jumping genres all the time, an incredible and vast world, and complex characters you can't help but love or hate. On the surface it looks fun and lighthearted but that facade is quickly thrown out to explore mature themes, ultimately culminating in an exploration of the morality of humanity and depression.
Others would include:
The Percy Jackson and the Olympians series - I read this when I was a kid, even got all of the books autographed by the author! It was the first series I read that I remember deeply moving me. The books subvert the traditional "chosen one" protagonist, and even the hero questions this. It's fun reading, he has a huge ego that constantly gets taken down. As a kid reading along wanting him to be this epic hero, almost self inserting myself into the fantasy, I fell in love with all the Greek mythology and characters. It's been a long time since I re read them, but I still think back with nostalgic glasses. It probably won't hold up as well going back, but I think they're timeless enough.
Sherlock Holmes - I've always been a fan of mysteries and well...it's Sherlock Holmes. Between all the copies and collections I own I either have them all or multiple copies of the same stories. I know I definitely have duplicates from different publishers with slight variations. But loved it as a kid and made me interested in science.
Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer
