The Terrifying Uncertainty in Jeff VanderMeer’s Sci-Fi

In Jeff VanderMeer’s best-selling series Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy, an unknown force infiltrates a coastal village and begins to transform the nature of everything living in a domain called Area X. A government-backed scientific research group, the Southern Reach, sets up at the border of the disturbance to research its mysterious cause and effects. Gradually the invisible force in Area X unravels and alters the Southern Reach scientists.

With smart, poetic prose, VanderMeer plants readers in a natural world that breathes. We are entranced by the colors of a ripple on the ocean water, as the characters are hypnotized by the sense of foreignness in the familiar landscape around them. VanderMeer uses color to ground the trilogy; shifting hues denote morphing environments in Area X. The