Absolution

by VanderMeer, Jeff | Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)
Published 22/10/2024 by HarperCollins Publishers (Fourth Estate Ltd) in the United Kingdom
Hardback | 528 pages
146 x 224 x 43mm | 568g

Ten years after the publication of Annihilation, the surprise fourth volume in Jeff VanderMeer’s blockbuster Southern Reach Trilogy.

TOP SECRET: A clear and present threat exists. Open-ended. Existential. Confirmation via uncanny op. Nature of same: Unknown. Initiating entity: Unknown. Priority: High.

Ten years after the publication of the bestselling Annihilation, Authority and Acceptance – the first the basis of a now-classic film – Jeff VanderMeer brings us back for a surprise fourth and final foray into Area X.

Absolution opens decades before Area X forms, with a science expedition whose mysterious end suggests terrifying consequences for the future – and marks the Forgotten Coast as a high-priority area of interest for Central, the shadowy government agency responsible for monitoring extraordinary threats.

Many years later, the Forgotten Coast files wind up in the hands of a washed-up Central operative known as Old Jim. He starts pulling a thread that reveals a long and troubling record of government agents meddling with forces they clearly cannot comprehend. Soon, Old Jim is back out in the field, grappling with personal demons and now partnered with an unproven young agent, the two of them tasked with solving what may be an unsolvable mystery. With every turn, the stakes get higher: Central agents are being liquidated by an unknown rogue entity and Old Jim’s life is on the line.

Old Jim’s investigation culminates in the first Central expedition into what has now been labelled Area X. A border has come down, and a full team – well trained but eccentric – has been assembled to find Area X’s 'off switch' somewhere in the volatile, dangerous terrain that has mysteriously defied all attempts to be explored, mapped or controlled. A landscape that, one way or another, seems to consume all who enter it.

Sweeping in scope and rich with ideas, iconic characters and unpredictable adventure, Absolution converges the past, present and future in terrifying, ecstatic and mind-bending ways. It is the final word on one of the most provocative and popular speculative fiction series of our time.