Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer

Sometimes I find our language severely lacking. I need a word that means - the knowledge that a book is good without ever wanting to talk about it. In the case of Annihilation I don't want to talk about it because it is seriously creepy and mind bendy. Some books are simply designed to make the reader uncomfortable. Goal achieved Mr. Vandermeer.

That said, I intend to read the rest of the trilogy. Creepiness aside, it was an intriguing read. The premise is that we are reading the field journal of a biologist who is investigating the mysterious Area X with a team of scientists and other professionals. This is the twelfth such mission. All the previous mission have either ended with deaths, disappearances, or with members mysteriously showing up at there homes.

The biologist is something of an odd one. She seems both intelligent and emotionally closed off. The intelligence draws the reader in, but the emotional distance is off putting.There is some suggestion that she may be an unreliable narrator early on which adds to the tension as things start to go wrong. The linguist doesn't make it over the border into Area X and it is all down hill from there. As things devolve, more of the mystery is revealed. By the end of the book I wasn't any more sure things than I was in the beginning.

I really want to know what's going on, therefore I will read the next book.

Incidentally, there might not be a word in English that meets my needs, but we have borrowed plenty of words from other languages with specialized meanings. My favorite is tsundoku borrowed from Japanese that means, roughly, the process of buying books and not reading them; or letting books pile up unread.

Great word.