Annihilation, by Jeff VanderMeer

Annihilation
Jeff VanderMeer
FSG Originals: 2014

What can you do when your five senses are not enough? - pg 178

Stripped of so many identifying features, Annihilation is something of an experience in partial sensory deprivation.  Characters are identified by their job description (biologist, psychologist, anthropologist, surveyor), they are investigating someplace simply called Area X, the flora and the fauna are described but not labeled.  Area X becomes something of an alien land, possibly in some sort of terraformed deep country region of Florida, possibly anywhere else. The location of Area X, at this point, is much less important than Area X itself.

Annihilation features the twelfth expedition into Area X, a region cut off from the rest of the land some unknown number of years ago.  There is some sort of barrier that must be crossed, a barrier that separates Area X from what might otherwise be called "the real world", or perhaps the "mundane world".  Area X is a place that seems to drive people crazy, those that are able to cross the barrier, anyway.  Members of previous expeditions have committed suicide, have murdered each other, have returned damaged in some way.  The four women on this expedition know what came before, or, at least, they know what they have been told of what came before. Still they venture in to explore, to document, to discover. Area X is a great unknown, but after twelve expeditions, the information they have is still lacking. 

This is a legitimately unnerving novel. As the expedition begins to explore a structure close to the base camp that was not on any of their maps, the flat out weirdness of Area X begins to be revealed.  With the spare descriptions lacking labels, Annihilation is a novel that exudes unease and fear.  What is going on with Area X?  What is the deal with that structure?  While it is never clear why everyone seems to lose their mind after going into Area X, the sense of fear sets in immediately, as does the effects of Area X.  The place is, for lack of a better term, wrong. Or, just "other". 

If I don't have real answers, it is because we still don't know what questions to ask. Our instruments are useless, our methodology broken, our motivations selfish. - pg 192-193

Perhaps it is only the lack of discrete names for everyday nature that adds to the lingering sense of doom that permeates Annihilation, but it may also be that when something is wrong, something is flat out wrong.  Down the structure, the "tower", the Biologist begins to notice the passing of a creature she describes only as The Crawler, which like the job descriptions of the expedition members, is so generic that it adds to the atmosphere of the novel.

So much is left to the imagination of the reader that there will be countless ideas as to what is going on, what the Crawler might look like, and everything in between. Yet, Annihilation is a novel written by an author in complete control.  The writing is deliberate and VanderMeer has carefully constructed this setting, this place, and what he has revealed is exactly what is needed to tell the story. It is not everything that reader necessarily wants, because exclamations of a harried and confused "what the sweet hell..." that trails off in cautious awe and uneasy understanding are common.

Annihilation is an impressive beginning to the Southern Reach trilogy and if the subsequent volumes are anywhere near as strong as this one, Jeff VanderMeer will have written something impressive indeed.

Wonderbook

A couple of days ago Jeff VanderMeer posted about his forthcoming Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Writing Imaginative Fiction. 

VanderMeer has this to say

This will be the first creative writing guide that doesn’t just supplement text with images, but replaces text with image. In fact, its 300 pages will include over 175 diagrams, illustrations, and photographs. The diagrams will be radically different from what you find in most writing books, and the integration of the text with image will also be something you haven’t seen before.

and

The main text will include chapters on Inspiration, Elements of Story, Beginnings & Endings, Writing & Revision, The Bleeding Edge, and a special chapter on writing exercises that I think will blow most people’s minds visually—and will set out all of the things my wife and I do in our workshops and masterclasses. Elements like Characterization will be woven into the discussion in all of the chapters, since separating out the people from the story seems pointless to me.

In addition, the book will feature short essays on a variety of writing-related subjects by Neil Gaiman, Lev Grossman, Karen Joy Fowler, Lauren Beukes, Charles Yu, Karin Lowachee, Catherynne M. Valente, Michael Moorcock, and several others, as well as a long exclusive discussion about craft with George R.R. Martin. A comprehensive list of over 700 essential non-realist novels is just one item of interest in the appendices. The format of the book will allow annotations and asides in the margins for additional value.

Sounds like something to check out when it is published next year.

Art by Jeremy Zerfoss.

Vander-interview

Aidan Moher interviews Jeff VanderMeer over at A Dribble of Ink.  Interesting and entertaining interview.  It gets a bit wonky at times, but decent reading.  What works is that it comes across as a conversation. 

Finch, by Jeff VanderMeer

Finch
Jeff VanderMeer
Underland Press: 2009

It begins with two dead bodies and an investigation. Only one corpse is human, the other a grey cap, one of the fungal overlords of occupied Ambergris. John Finch, human, is the detective tasked to discover the identity of the victims and the cause. Finch is not simply a noir detective novel, but to attempt to talk more about the core plot and betrayals and rebellion and fear and mysteries of Ambergris would be folly and miss the mark.

Finch is not simply anything. It is a mystery that begs for unraveling, though unlike the hypothetical onion, readers are not likely to see all the layers they peel away and they may not recognize the core. That’s okay. There are plenty of different ways to read Finch and all of them are wholly satisfying. There is Finch for the Vander-neophyte, which is semi-straight forward in the detective tale. The ending is less important than the journey. The answers Jeff VanderMeer provides for long time readers of his work serve as teasers for the new reader, and those are just the ones the new readers will recognize as referencing the earlier work. The Vander-faithful will be rewarded for what may well be their last trip through Ambergris in a story set a few hundred years after they first visited. Changes are afoot. Other readers will look for the political aspects of the grey caps building two towers and the nearly broken rebellion the humans insurgents are still fighting against the occupying grey gaps. There is a lot to Finch as told through a not entirely straight forward narrative.

While the staccato prose of Finch is initially off-putting, after only a few pages the rhythms of Jeff VanderMeer’s writing seeps in and becomes part of the discordant atmosphere of Ambergris. The city is rotted and somehow the short sentence fragments helps to convey this fungal rot.

The doorknob cold but grainy. The left side rough with light green fungus.

Sweating under his jacket, through his shirt. Boots heavy on his feet.

Always a point of no return, and yet he kept returning.

I am not a detective. I am not a detective.

-Finch, pg 2

This is fantastic stuff. The above quote jarred at first, but now feels perfect. The rest of the novel builds from there and, not to use cliché about a book “grabbing hold and not letting go”, but once the Ambergrisian rot settles over the reader, this is a city the reader would never wish to live in but will also not want to leave. This is a novel which commands attention from the first framing page of an interrogation and which rewards both careful and casual reading.

Longtime fans of VanderMeer’s Ambergris stories will likely have a number of lingering questions answered, but prior knowledge of Ambergris is not a requirement for admission to Finch. VanderMeer provides everything a new reader needs to step into Finch and not feel any more lost than VanderMeer intends the reader to be. Finch is a incredibly well crafted novel and should be on everyone’s short list of novels to read next. Finch is a novel to be excited about.


Reading copy provided courtesy of Jeff VanderMeer / Underland Press.


I'll go one further, now that I'm out of the bounds of the review. I was initially very skeptical of Finch because I had previously attempted City of Saints and Madmen and while I recognized the craft, I wasn't engaged (or, perhaps, I didn't engage well enough with the early Ambergris stories, not sure it really matters at this point). I just didn't connect with the stories. It happens. I chocked it up to stuff that just doesn't work for me for some reason. On the other hand, I completely "got" The Situation. Now, though, I want to go back to City of Saints and Madmen and see how I respond after the inoculation of Finch. And also read Shriek: An Afterword.

This is to say that I have a weird relationship with Jeff VanderMeer's fiction before Finch, but I'm damned passionate about the awesomeness of Finch. I really want people to read this and love it as much as I did.

Best American Fantasy 2

Best American Fantasy 2
Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (editors)
Prime: 2008

In the introduction to the first Best American Fantasy anthology, editors Ann and Jeff VanderMeer attempted to define in very broad strokes what they meant by “Best”, “American”, and “Fantasy” and used a very broad definition of what constituted a fantasy story. This second volume is intentionally tighter in the definition of fantasy, here “the manifestation of fantasy is real within the story, even if only hinted at in some” (pg 12).

There are some absolutely fantastic stories in this anthology, in both meanings of the word “fantastic”. This would normally be where a disclosure of what the standout stories in Best American Fantasy 2 are, but all of the stories more than have merit. There are very few questionable stories here, all are solid, and which story rises above the rest will likely depend on personal taste. My standout stories are written by Kage Baker, Michelle Richmond, Peter Beagle, and Rachel Swirsky.

“How the World Became Quiet: A Post-Human Creation Myth” from Rachel Swirsky is a powerful closing story. Originally published in Electric Velocipede #13, “How the World Became Quiet” is a future history of mankind after numerous apocalypses. This future history is completely unexpected and the shape of humanity is nothing like readers will expect. This is a spectacular story from one of the best new writers today.

The closing story is a far future science fiction tale, but “The Ruby Incomparable” from Kage Baker is a more traditional fantasy. Baker works with magic, gods, and a desire for immense power. This could be just any other story, but in the hands of Kage Baker, the result is nothing less than magical. Pardon the cliché.

The range of fiction in Best American Fantasy 2 is impressive, but perhaps no story demonstrates just how varied the fiction here can be is Matt Bell’s “Mario’s Three Lives”. This story harkens back to the childhood of every reader within a couple of years of thirty who played Nintendo in their childhood. Yes, it’s that Mario. This rather short story is far more moving than one would think and it perfectly encapsulates what the “Best American Fantasy” really means.

The editors VanderMeer have put together an anthology with a distinctive voice and which lives up to the billing of truly containing some of the best American fantasy published in 2007, though the stories here know no year. Best American Fantasy 2 is should be considered a “must read” anthology. Period.


Reading copy provided courtesy of Jeff VanderMeer

The Situation, by Jeff VanderMeer

I dedicate The Situation to all of the passive-aggressive emotional vampires, cowardly blunderkinds, narcissistic sociopaths, and incompetent power-abusing managers currently lurking amongst unsuspecting office workers everywhere.

The above is the acknowledgment to Jeff VanderMeer's novella The Situation. Given the dedication, this is a story set in a corporate office and features a long suffering office worker with a worsening work-place situation. That's something so many of us are facing today, though to be honest, it's not a new situation for employees to be in. So, in that sense, The Situation is a perpetually topical story.

What makes The Situation stand out is that VanderMeer takes all the mundanity of working in an office and combines it with elements of absolute fantastic. The narrator's office is filled with the weird and surreal. The narrator appears to make educational products, except they are educational beetles that can crawl into an ear and teach the recipient. A major project is to make a fish that will swallow a child and after sensory deprivation, increase the child's facility at math. The corporate world of The Situation is utter madness.

If a story can truly be said to be "about" anything, The Situation is about a poisonous corporate enviornment. Coworkers once considered friends change as they are promoted. Managers can be absolute monsters. A new employee can alter the atmosphere of a workplace. It's a perfectly common story told with fantasatic literalizations of what occurs in offices around the country (perhaps world).

Damn, Jeff VanderMeer nails this one.

The Situation is available for download.

New Weird Intro

Jeff VanderMeer posted the introduction to The New Weird anthology which he co-edited.

In the 1990s, “New Weird” began to manifest itself in the form of cult writers like Jeffrey Thomas and his cross-genre urban Punktown stories. It continued to find a voice in the work of Thomas Ligotti, who straddled a space between the traditional and the avant garde. It coalesced in the David Lynchean approach of Michael Cisco to Eastern European mysticism in works like The Divinity Student. It entered real-world settings through unsettling novels by Kathe Koja, such as The Cipher and Skin, with their horrific interrogations of the body and mind. It entered into disturbing dialogue about sex and gender in Richard Calder’s novels, with their mix of phantasmagoria and pseudo-cyberpunk. It could also be found in Jeffrey Ford’s Well-Built City trilogy, my own Ambergris stories (Dradin, In Love, etc.), and the early short work of K. J. Bishop and Alastair Reynolds, among others.

Makes me want to go find a copy of the anthology and check out the stories. I don't know if the fiction would be my cuppa, but I think it is essential reading for the modern fantasy reader.

Errata

I don’t have much to say about it, but I rather liked Jeff VanderMeer’s new story “Errata”. It’s chock full of meta weirdness, but quite good. You can find it over at Tor.com.

some more Twilight commentary

These are old, but since this might be my Twilight Review Week, I wanted to point out another couple.

First off is Cat Rambo guest blogging at Jeff VanderMeer's Ecstatic Days. I read this when it was first posted, three months before I read the book. Rambo's post is good, but the 100+ comments are just as interesting. Rambo does spoil the series, so avert your eyes if that's a problem. Check out Cat Rambo's commentary on Twilight.

She has the usual “oh I am so ugly because it has somehow escaped me that I actually have a body type that fits inside American beauty norms” thing going. Interactions with female friends are kept to a superficial minimum because we all know women can’t do the friendship thing with each other. That might be too empowering a message. So would Bella being able to save herself. But in everything she does, every faintly brave action, Edward is her motivation, the center of the universe for her.

Then, and a recent post from VanderMeer himself pointed out Meghan McCarron's thoughts on "some things Twilight says are awesome but they are not awesome at all".

Here is #3 from McCarron's list of 8.

3. Your boyfriend, who does not sleep, stands outside your window every night without your knowledge. He also breaks into your house without warning. He also follows you whenever you leave town in case you "get" into "trouble." (Hint: this will be less awesome when he is your ex-boyfriend.)

Rambo and McCarron are both quite awesome and got their points across far more succinctly than I did.

Fast Ships, Black Sails, by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer (editors)

Fast Ships, Black Sails
Ann and Jeff Vandermeer (editors)
Night Shade Books: 2008

Until the Editors Vandermeer pubished Fast Ships, Black Sails, pirates had not truly penetrated into popular fiction the way they had back into film with the Pirates of the Caribbean movie series. Perhaps because of the movies, pirates are a subject of renewed interest. The editors touch upon this in their introduction.

At least part of the current fascination with pirates, including our own, has to be about freedom, frontiers, a yearing for adventure and a desire to explore exotic locales. pg 1

The Vandermeers may be right, because for what other reason are pirates so compulsively cool if not because, in a sense, pirates inhabit the frontiers of the ocean in the same way the American West was explored and mythologized by settlers, ranchers, and cowboys. It is that sense of freedom, lawlessness, and excitement that can only occur several paces beyond the fringe of civilization. Contained within Fast Ships, Black Sails are science fictional pirates, exploring not just the frontiers of our world, but the frontiers of space and new planets.

The anthology opens with "Boojum" from Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette. "Boojum" sets the tone, in a way, for the anthology and in this one story, shows the range of what a pirate story can be. "Boojum" is a tale set on the Lavinia Whatley, a "ship" which is actually a living creature which travels through space and engages in piracy against other "vessels". At its heart is the character of Black Alice Bradley, one of the ship's engineers who truly loves the Lavinia Whatley. Though this is, initially, a simple story of a raid gone bad, "Boojum" becomes more when we learn more of the Lavinia Whatley through the eyes of Black Alice. Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette's skill at telling the story and their command of language is outstanding. There may not have been a better choice to open Fast Ships, Black Sails than "Boojum".

It goes without saying that the Editors Vandermeer selected the stories they deemed "the best", and that across the board they are likely satisfied with the lineup of stories in Fast Ships, Black Sails. Tastes vary, and any review is always going to rely on the taste of the reviewer and on how the reviewer experiences fiction. With any luck, the taste of the reviewer will line up with a wide range of readers and inform readers as to the relative merits and quality of a given work.

When I write that the standout stories from Fast Ships, Black Sails come from Justin Howe, Carrie Vaughn, Brendan Connell, Rachel Swirsky, and Jayme Lynn Blaschke it is with the full understanding that others will prefer the Naomi Novik, Steve Aylett, and Garth Nix. In fact, Jonathan Strahan has selected the Garth Nix story "Beyond the Sea Gate of the Scholar-Pirates of Sarskoe" for inclusion in his forthcoming anthology The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Three.

With all that said, Fast Ships, Black Sails is, with very little question about it, an outstanding anthology. There really are stories for everyone. As the editors mention at the end of their introduction,

Within these pages you'll find villains, all right, black-hearted and gold-hearted both. You'll find captains in love with mermaids. You'll find double-dealing, double-crossing, and double-identities....pirates serious or humorous, in the past, the present, or the future... pg 2

Steve Aylett's "Voyage of the Iguana" is an absurd list of journal entries about a particular voyage and the mishaps that occured on said voyage. In short doses and when thinking about it, the story is funny. But it is not a story readers will engage with. Or, it is not a story I could engage with. I, as a reader and reviewer, can recognize why some will like this story and why the editors selected the story, but it isn't one of the best of the anthology.

"The Adventures of Captain Blackheart Wentworth: A Nautical Tail" from Rachel Swirsky is one of the standout stories in Fast Ships, Black Sails. Anyone who has read Swirsky in the past should not be surprised by this fact. This is a serious pirate story featuring rats and eventually a cat.

Cracked Mack the Lack had been the last of their dastardly crew. Sully'd found him that morning, gone tail over snout in the stern. Arsenic done him in. Mack had a taste for it, reminded him of that crack in the wall called home when papa took the boys out of a morning to learn their way in the world: how to tweak a cat's whiskers and pry cheese from between spring-loaded jaws. Now Mack was gone, wrapped in a spider web shroud to decay in his watery grave.

Awesome. Simply awesome. A full collection of stories from Rachel Swirsky would be well worth the price of admission. Lacking that, this story in Fast Ships, Black Sails will have to do for now. This may be the best story in the anthology.

There is much good in Fast Ships, Black Sails and truly nothing bad. While not all stories come anywhere close to living up to the gold standard set by Rachel Swirsky or the Elizabeth Bear / Sarah Monette tale, there are no true clunkers in the anthology. If you like pirates or you just think that some pirate stories could be interesting, Fast Ships, Black Sails is a great anthology, one of the year's best and chock full of original fiction.


Reading copy provided courtesy of Night Shade Books.

Six Reasons to read The First Law

Jeff Vandermeer asked Joe Abercrombie for reasons why people should read his books. Joe answers at Omnivoracious.

2. Because its frequent explosions of visceral action are the closest you can get to being hit in the mouth with a mace and still keep all your teeth. Its selection of rooftop chases, duels to the death, chaotic melees in all weathers and full-scale pitched battles are so exciting they may cause you to lose control of your bodily functions.

Abercrombie's answers are fully awesome and had I not read and enjoyed the hell out of the first two, those six answers would be more than enough to get me reading. (Still waiting for my library to even stock The Last Argument of Kings).

As it is, I wanted to point out that post for sheer cool factor.

VanderMeer at Huffington Post

So, Jeff Vandermeer has an article up at the Huffington Post on political fiction.

This first article covers:
Jessica Z, by Shawn Klomparen
Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow
The Pisstown Chaos, by David Ohle
Stretto, by L. Timmel Duchamp
Black Clock #9

And then a quick take on Seeds of Change, Use of Weapons, Slaughterhouse Five, and Corrupted Science.

It's worth checking out (the article).


Edit Note: I originally included something in this blog post (which Jeff Vandermeer references in the comments) and I was factually incorrect. I will not normally edit the blog for saying something stupid (I don't think), but I will edit when I say something that is flat out wrong and inaccurate. For anyone who did read the original version of this post, let me correct myself: Jeff did, in fact, disclose his contribution to Black Clock 9.

Vandermeer's Favorite Short Fiction Fantasists

Jeff Vandermeer just posted his list of favorite short fiction fantasists. All women.

Vandermeer's post was more in light of the Tin House: Fantastic Women issue as well as his reading for Best American Fantasy, but I see it also in relation to Eclipse Two.

After making a list of women who were NOT to be on the list, Vandermeer then goes on to list twenty three MORE women who are talented writers.

And I wonder: How the hell did Strahan only manage to include ONE woman when Vandermeer lists 36 and didn't include novelists?

Sometimes stuff don't make sense.

Why I Stopped Reading City of Saints and Madmen

I have heard nothing but praise for Jeff Vandermeer’s City of Saints and Madmen, and I wanted to read the book for several years now. Only problem is that my library only had City of Saints and Madmen: The Book of Ambergris, a shorter edition published by Cosmos Books. After a couple of years I gave in and grabbed The Book of Ambergris from the library.

The collection opens with “Dradin, In Love” and from the start I was disappointed.

I think this is a case of Vandermeer’s style just not working for me. Obviously, Jeff Vandermeer is a talented writer. He has a World Fantasy Award on his shelf, Michael Moorcock wrote the introduction to this collection, and pretty much anywhere I go online I see high profile praise for Vandermeer whenever his work is mentioned. People like his work.

I couldn’t get in to it.

“Dradin, In Love” is written in a curious mix of present tense and past tense (at least at the start of the story, I didn’t notice it after a couple of pages) and Vandermeer works his descriptions of Ambergis in such a way that the stank of the city comes alive and off the page. But, the story *feels* description heavy to me. There are little tidbits I liked in how Vandermeer built Ambergris with the story, the mushroom dwellers, the book store, the chase / doublecross at the end of the story. There is much to admire here, but I was never in a position where I wanted more from the story and instead, I had to force myself to keep reading.

I started the second story, “An Early History of Ambergris”, which is written exactly like what you would expect from the title – as a history – complete with absurd footnotes. I like the footnotes, but this is where I checked out.

What this means is that I’m missing the World Fantasy Award winning novella “The Transformation of Martin Lake”. In an intellectual sense I would like to read the story someday, but I’ve completely checked out of Ambergis and though I’m two thirds of the way through the collection, I’m done.

I know that City of Saints and Madmen was skillfully constructed, and I appreciate the construction of this collection more than I did The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, but this impressive work of imagination is not at all for me.

Free Vandermeer

Jeff Vandermeer's forthcoming novella "The Situation" is now available for free download (PDF...). There is also a new interview with Ann and Jeff over Wired / Geek Dad. (via Ecstatic Days). Very good interview, interesting read.

Ann Vandermeer Interview

Jeff Vandermeer points us to a long, and excellent interview Readers Voice did with his wife, editor Ann Vandermeer.

Fascinating interview, reading about how Ann got her start editing and working in the field and how she ended up over at Weird Tales as the fiction editor. Ann also details what her work life is like over at Weird Tales, which is absolutely incredible (for me) to learn about because, honestly, I’d much rather be an editor (or at least a slush reader) than a fiction writer.

Rachel Swirsky Interviewed by Jeff Vandermeer

Jeff Vandermeer is starting a series of interviews with people he is calling “Conversations With The Bookless”, talented writers who are year(s) away from writing / publishing their first book. For his first interview he selected Rachel Swirsky.

Discerning readers of this site will remember Rachel Swirsky from her Subterranean Online story “Dispersed by the Sun, Melting in the Wind” and her Konundrum story “A Letter Never Sent”, both of which I was impressed with...in particular “A Letter Never Sent”. She’s a writer I’m watching and excited about.

It’s a good interview. I like the work I’ve read from Swirsky and it was fun seeing her interviewed since she is, after all, The Bookless.

Wonder who else he has on tap for interviews. I have ideas on who I would want to interview (Swirsky, Lori Selke, Mary Robinette Kowal, Elizabeth Bear, etc), so I wonder if Vandermeer will come up with some more short fiction writers I’m reading these days.