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A review by janeleng
Authority by Jeff VanderMeer
4.0
I was going to wait until I finished the series to write a review, but this book is such a departure from the first that I felt the need to comment.
The first and second book are written in a similar style but result a in wildly different experience. The solipsistic, confined writing still works in Authority, but it makes the pace of the book a little unbearable at times. Where as in Annihilation, which was over a hundred pages less than Authority, the writing felt like a frenzied sprint toward the conclusion of the book, in Authority it felt repetitious and meandering. I flew through the first hundred pages of Authority, but after that it felt like I was trudging through. It didn't pick up again for me until about the last hundred pages, which were wonderfully horrific.
For right now, this book is worth the read. It answered some of the big questions posed in Annihilation and provided a larger context for the story of Area X. It's hard to add a whole new setting and cast of characters (minus the director and Saul Evans) and still have it feel a part of the previous story but VanderMeer succeeded.
(Whether or not it will still feel worth it once I finish the series remains to be seen.)
The first and second book are written in a similar style but result a in wildly different experience. The solipsistic, confined writing still works in Authority, but it makes the pace of the book a little unbearable at times. Where as in Annihilation, which was over a hundred pages less than Authority, the writing felt like a frenzied sprint toward the conclusion of the book, in Authority it felt repetitious and meandering. I flew through the first hundred pages of Authority, but after that it felt like I was trudging through. It didn't pick up again for me until about the last hundred pages, which were wonderfully horrific.
For right now, this book is worth the read. It answered some of the big questions posed in Annihilation and provided a larger context for the story of Area X. It's hard to add a whole new setting and cast of characters (minus the director and Saul Evans) and still have it feel a part of the previous story but VanderMeer succeeded.
(Whether or not it will still feel worth it once I finish the series remains to be seen.)