ACCEPTANCE
JEFF VANDERMEER
Fourth Estate
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street,
London, SE1 9GF, UK
www.4thestate.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by Fourth Estate in 2014
First published in the United States by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2014
Copyright © VanderMeer Creative, Inc. 2014
Jeff VanderMeer asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the authorâs imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007553532
Ebook edition © September 2014 ISBN: 9780007553549
Version: 2017-11-28
âA tense and chilling psychological thriller about an unravelling expedition and the strangeness within us. A little Kubrick, a lot of Lovecraft, [Annihilation] builds with an unbearable tension and claustrophobic dread that lingers long afterwardsâ
Lauren Beukes, author of The Shining Girls
âA lasting monument to the uncanny ⦠you find yourself afraid to turn the pageâ
Simon Ings, Guardian
âVanderMeerâs novel is a psycho-geographical tour de force, channelling Ballard and Lovecraft to instil the reader with a deep, delicious uneaseâ
James Lovegrove, Financial Times
âImmersive, insightful and often deeply bloody creepy, this is a startlingly good novel ⦠the Southern Reach series will be a major workâ
Will Salmon, SFX Magazine
âA clear triumph for VanderMeer ⦠a compelling, elegant and existential story of far broader appeal ⦠A novel whose world is built seamlessly and whose symbols are rich and darkâ
Lydia Millet, LA Times
âA teeming science fiction that draws on Conrad and Lovecraft alike ⦠The writing itself has a clarity that makes the abundancy of the setting more powerfulâ
Paul Kincaid, Sunday Telegraph
âWhat a haunting book this is, lodging deep in the memory ⦠So disquietingly strange as to defy summarisation. Read itâ
Ned Denny, Daily Mail
âThe incidents pile up, building in tension and terror ⦠More than just a horror novel; thereâs something Poe-like in this tightening, increasingly paranoid focus ⦠Cruel and exquisiteâ
N. K. Jemisin, New York Times
Just out of reach, just beyond you: the rush and froth of the surf, the sharp smell of the sea, the crisscrossing shape of the gulls, their sudden, jarring cries. An ordinary day in Area X, an extraordinary dayâthe day of your deathâand there you are, propped up against a mound of sand, half sheltered by a crumbling wall. The warm sun against your face, and the dizzying view above of the lighthouse looming down through its own shadow. The sky has an intensity that admits to nothing beyond its blue prison. Thereâs sticky sand glittering across a gash in your forehead; thereâs a tangy glottal something in your mouth, dripping out.
You feel numb and you feel broken, but thereâs a strange relief mixed in with the regret: to come such a long way, to come to a halt here, without knowing how it will turn out, and yet ⦠to rest. To come to rest. Finally. All of your plans back at the Southern Reach, the agonizing and constant fear of failure or worse, the price of that ⦠all of it leaking out into the sand beside you in gritty red pearls.