Annihilation Released February 4: Want to Help? Here's How

Cover and interior detail from Annihilation, click for larger version."Annihilation is one of a grand writer’s finest and most dazzling books." —Peter Straub--Annihilation Tour Schedule (Seattle, Portland, San Fran, NYC)--FSG's Southern Reach/Annihilation pageSome great pre-pub excitement around Annihilation, my new novel, being released in North America February 4. It's a Publishers Weekly pick of the week and Lydia Millet reviewed it for the LA Times, writing in part, "“A clear triumph for VanderMeer...a compelling, elegant and existential story. The apparent tragedy and freakish ecology of Area X's blight are quite fascinating, and the solitary voice of its post-humanist narrator is both deeply flawed and deeply trustworthy--a difficult and excellent balance in a novel whose world is built seamlessly and whose symbols are rich and dark.” With a lot more to come.How You Can Help!If you like my fiction and want to support Annihilation, here are some of the things you can do to help.—Buy the book now. You can preorder it on Amazon (where you can also preorder all three books for a very low price) or your preferred bookseller. In fact, FSG has a whole list of bookseller links if you scroll down on this page.--Buy the book during release week. Here are a few direct sales links:* Barnes & Noble* Indiebound* Powell's Books* Amazon.com and Amazon Canada* Indigo Chapters (Canada)* Blackstone audio book (read by Carolyn McCormick, who also read The Hunger Games)—Review the book. Blog, review site, or on social media. Any mention, especially noting whatever you really liked about the book, helps immensely.—Review it on Amazon. Go to the Amazon sales page for the book and tell other readers what you liked about it. A quick and easy way to help get the word out and create interest.—Make sure local booksellers carry it.—Request it from your local library. Making sure your local library knows about Annihilation, which got three starred library journal reviews not only increases library orders but allows multiple people to enjoy the book.—Spread the word through twitter and facebook. Tell people about the novel through social media, using your favorite link about the book.More Info on Annihilation and the Southern Reach trilogyArea X has been cut off from the rest of the continent for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; all the members of the second expedition committed suicide; the third expedition died in a hail of gunfire as its members turned on one another; the members of the eleventh expedition returned as shadows of their former selves, and within months of their return, all had died of aggressive cancer. This is the twelfth expedition.Their group is made up of four women: an anthropologist; a surveyor; a psychologist, the de facto leader; and our narrator, a biologist. Their mission is to map the terrain and collect specimens; to record all their observations, scientific and otherwise, of their surroundings and of one another; and, above all, to avoid being contaminated by Area X itself.They arrive 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.Annihilation is the first volume in Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach trilogy, which will be published throughout 2014: volume two (Authority) in June, and volume three (Acceptance) in September."In much of Jeff VanderMeer’s work, a kind of radiance lies beating beneath the surface of the words. Here in Annihilation, it shines through with warm blazing incandescence. This is one of a grand writer’s finest and most dazzling books." —Peter Straub, author of Lost Boy, Lost Girl"Original and beautiful, maddening and magnificent." —Warren Ellis"One of those books where it all comes together—the story and the prose and the ideas, all braided into a triple helix that gives rise to something vibrant and alive. Something that grows, word-by-word, into powerful, tangled vines that creep into your mind and take hold of it. Annihilation is brilliant and atmospheric, a novel that has the force of myth." —Charles Yu, author of How to Live in a Science Fictional Universe"A dazzling book . . . haunted and haunting." —Kelly Link, author of Magic for Beginners"A tense and chilling psychological thriller about an unraveling expedition and the strangeness within us. A little Kubrick, a lot Lovecraft, the novel builds with an unbearable tension and a claustrophobic dread that linger long afterward. I loved it."—Lauren Beukes, author of The Shining Girls"The great thing about Annihilation is the strange, elusive, and paranoid world that it creates. . . .?I can’t wait for the next one." —Brian Evenson, author of Last Days"It’s been a long time since a book filled me with this kind of palpable, wondrous disquiet, a feeling that started on the first page and that I’m not sure I’ve yet shaken." —Matt Bell, author of In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods"This swift surreal suspense novel reads as if Verne or Wellsian adventurers exploring a mysterious island had warped through into a Kafkaesque nightmare world. ?The reader will want to stay trapped with the Biologist to find the answers to Area X’s mysteries." —Kim Stanley Robinson, author of the Mars trilogy"After their high-risk expedition disintegrates, it’s every scientist for herself in this wonderfully creepy blend of horror and science fiction. . . . Speculative fiction at its most transfixing." —Kirkus (Starred Review)"A gripping fantasy thriller, Annihilation is?thoroughly suspenseful. In a manner similar to H. G. Wells’ in?The Island of Dr. Moreau?(1896), VanderMeer weaves together an otherworldly tale of the supernatural and the half-human.?Delightfully, this page-turner is the first in a trilogy."?—Heather Paulson, ALA Booklist?(Starred Review)