Authority by Jeff VanderMeer

John Rodriguez, the new head of a secret agency tasked to monitor Area X—a lush and remote terrain mysteriously sequestered from civilization—is faced with disturbing truths about himself and the agency he has sworn to serve when the secrets of Area X begin to reveal themselves. Original. 50,000 first printing.

Jeff Vandermeer does it again in “Authority”, by showing us all a new perspective about the Area X and what it means, this time from the outside, Southern Reach side. The story was very nice again, just a little more sluggish than I would have expected. But it ended up in a nice cliffhanger, enough to make me want to read the next book, as to see where the mystery is going to take me.

Could and should have been half as long. Drags and turns a creative premise into a slog. The first was great and still worth reading.

I good quick scifi read. I read this long after reading Annihilation and it immediately drew me back into the setting. Will definitely read book 3.

This book is an odd duck–on the one hand it's about world-changing events, but on the other hand it has nice little moments where the protagonist goes for a jog. I like the mixing of scope. Not only does it make the protagonist more interesting, it centers the horror/weirdness in a personal way. A page turner where, frankly, not a whole lot happens until the end–and yet still a page-turner.

My only complaint is that, while the first book was clearly a set up for a trilogy, it at least had a solid ending. This one has a very Empire Strikes Back ending, which isn't a bad thing in itself, but I love it more when authors can give us a contained story and still make us want to read “the next one”.