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crofteereader 's review for:
Authority
by Jeff VanderMeer
It's funny to go from a 5-star first book to a 2-star second. But while VanderMeer's writing style (that eerie, paranoid, circuitous way he has of making you catch glimpses of things on the edges of the picture he's painting) was still there, the setting and main character in this book was not equipped to really make it flourish.
I think what bothers me the most about this book was that I don't feel like I really learned anything. Area X is being monitored by a clandestine organization. Okay. The rest of it was very... small scale. The character, Control (huh?), was very stereotypically paranoid - in exactly the way you would expect an ex-spy who still works for the organization that he's no longer allowed to spy for to be. Everyone else felt like caricatures of people (kind of what Annihilation was going for by not naming anyone but in the opposite respect) because, though they had names, they weren't really... defined?
Though in the last two sections, VanderMeer's style was able to break free of the constraints of a really ugly building and a really boring mind as the scope of the problem got bigger. And then I was 100% on board. But having to slog through 2/3 of the book to get there when Annihilation had felt so effortlessly genius and needling was more than I wanted to give.
I'm going to read the last one, but if I find out it's possible, I'm going to recommend that readers skip Authority and go right to Acceptance. (Or maybe just stick with Annihilation as a standalone if Acceptance follows this same path.)
I think what bothers me the most about this book was that I don't feel like I really learned anything. Area X is being monitored by a clandestine organization. Okay. The rest of it was very... small scale. The character, Control (huh?), was very stereotypically paranoid - in exactly the way you would expect an ex-spy who still works for the organization that he's no longer allowed to spy for to be. Everyone else felt like caricatures of people (kind of what Annihilation was going for by not naming anyone but in the opposite respect) because, though they had names, they weren't really... defined?
Though in the last two sections, VanderMeer's style was able to break free of the constraints of a really ugly building and a really boring mind as the scope of the problem got bigger. And then I was 100% on board. But having to slog through 2/3 of the book to get there when Annihilation had felt so effortlessly genius and needling was more than I wanted to give.
I'm going to read the last one, but if I find out it's possible, I'm going to recommend that readers skip Authority and go right to Acceptance. (Or maybe just stick with Annihilation as a standalone if Acceptance follows this same path.)