Annihilation cover art

Annihilation

 Preview
Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection.
Listen to your selected audiobooks as long as you're a member.
Auto-renews at $8.99/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Annihilation

By: Jeff VanderMeer
Narrated by: Carolyn McCormick
Try Standard free

Auto-renews at $8.99/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $21.99

Buy Now for $21.99

About this listen

 ’A contemporary masterpiece’ Guardian

THE FIRST VOLUME OF THE EXTRAORDINARY SOUTHERN REACH TRILOGY – NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY ALEX GARLAND (EX MACHINA) AND STARRING NATALIE PORTMAN AND OSCAR ISAAC

For thirty years, Area X has remained mysterious and remote behind its intangible border – an environmental disaster zone, though to all appearances an abundant wilderness.

The Southern Reach, a secretive government agency, has sent eleven expeditions to investigate Area X. One has ended in mass suicide, another in a hail of gunfire, the eleventh in a fatal cancer epidemic.

Now four women embark on the twelfth expedition into the unknown.

 Adventure Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Science Fiction Technothrillers Thriller & Suspense Thriller Fantasy Technology Suspense

Critic Reviews

Praise for ANNIHILATION and the SOUTHERN REACH TRILOGY:

‘I’m loving the Southern Reach Trilogy … Creepy and fascinating’ Stephen King

‘Hauntingly weird and brilliantly new … These are contemporary masterpieces and career-defining novels’ Adam Robert, Books of the Year, Guardian

‘This trilogy is a modern mycological masterpiece … Remarkable … Tense, eerie and unsettling … VanderMeer writes much better prose than Poe ever did … This is genuinely potent and dream-haunting writing. VanderMeer has arrived’ Guardian

‘A teeming science fiction that draws on Conrad and Lovecraft alike … Annihilation shows signs of being the novel that will allow VanderMeer to break through to a new and larger audience’ Sunday Telegraph

‘A lasting monument to the uncanny … You find yourself afraid to turn the page’ Guardian

‘VanderMeer’s novel is a psycho-geographical tour de force, channelling Ballard and Lovecraft to instil the reader with a deep, delicious unease’ Financial Times

‘What a haunting book this is, lodging deep in the memory in similar fashion to otherworldly classics such as David Lindsay’s A Voyage To Arcturus … Annihilation is so disquietingly strange as to defy summarisation. Read it’ Daily Mail

‘Astonishing, frightening, spectacular … I hope the trilogy will come to be seen not only as the instant sci-fi classic it is, but also as Literature’ New Statesman

‘Immersive, insightful and often deeply bloody creepy, this is a startlingly good novel … A major work’ ***** SFX Magazine

‘A tense and chilling psychological thriller about an unravelling expedition and the strangeness within us. A little Kubrick, a lot of Lovecraft, the novel builds with an unbearable tension and claustrophobic dread that lingers long afterwards. I loved it’ Lauren Beukes

‘Original and beautiful, maddening and magnificent’ Warren Ellis
All stars
Most relevant
Opinion is just that, and your mileage may vary, but I loved Annihilation. Not "enjoyed" or "liked"; loved. My response to this book, and inability to articulate it properly is the biggest compliment I could pay the author. It's intelligent, fantastic, tragic, surprising, suspenseful and poignant in a way very few stories are. Even if you're not sure you'll enjoy it, it's worth taking a chance on. I it's just that good.

I read constantly. I've even read a few of the classics. Largely - and pathetically, I realised later - so I could say that, yes, I *had* read Ulysses and, in so doing, earned my citation for bravery in the face of James Joyce. Point is: I read a lot, across many genres, and there have been perhaps 2 or 3 books which captivated me as Annihilation did.

Describing Annihilation is difficult, beyond a fairly banal and generic assertion that it defies categorisation or summary. While it takes elements from sci-fi, horror, thriller, adventure, it is none of those. Annihilation is, however, very much the type of story from which everyone will take a slightly different message. The closest I could come to a genre for it would be philosophical- or existential- horror, but that doesn't begin to properly capture the tone or feel of the narrative.

The subtext and themes throughout are beautifully woven, and never overpower the story; so much so that I'm certain I missed as much as I caught on my first read through. While unique, the author's style has echos of Palahniuk, Easton Ellis, and even Lovecraft. In fact, the protagonist's introspection and internal journey are so well depicted that I wonder how much of themselves the author injected into the narrative.

A contemporary masterpiece

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
not terrible, but I wish I'd read another book instead.
it kept me reading long enough to finish it.
a big "meh" from me
voice acting was excellent.

honestly thought the movie did it better

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Beautifully written with eloquence and detail. I feel like I walked through area X along with the biologist. I love books that lead me to start thinking in my day-to-day in a more linguistically-inclined fashion. Clear characters amongst confusing flora and fauna, I was eager to keep listening to see how the biologist faired in her expedition. An accessible introduction to sci fi (with thrilling and dramatic flares throughout).

A fascinating journey through a familiar yet unnerving landscape.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Amazingly imaginative with unique world building and a suspenseful setting. Hence I am at a loss over how it's so boring. I listened because it was highly recommended and lauded by an opinion I trust, and I can see why it was. But, IMO, that powerful context, setting and suspense doesn't lend well to how heavily the story relies on mundane allegory and sentiment to build momentum. For me the result irritatingly ends up failing to suspend disbelief on so many occasions.

brilliantly imaginative, but...

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Loved the narrator, story was interesting and I loved the way the narrator built suspense. Can't wait for the next two books to come out on Audible!

Intriguing and suspenseful

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.