Absolution

In Absolution, the unexpected fourth installment in his acclaimed Southern Reach trilogy, master weird-fiction author Jeff VanderMeer gives fans longtime and new alike an expansive and thrilling look at the world of Area X and its inhabitants--in all their forms. Split into three sections, Absolution tells the stories of three early expeditions into the Forgotten Coast: a team of ill-fated biologists; a Central investigator named Old Jim who, years later, is determined to unravel the mystery of what happened to those biologists; and Lowry, a member of one of the initial teams to enter the area after the border goes down.

Like the other Southern Reach novels, Absolution delights in its intricate eccentricities. Due in particular to its three-part, nesting-doll structure, the novel seems to be posing as a puzzle-box mystery, but the more readers attempt to slot its pieces into place, the more confounded they may become. Ultimately, VanderMeer uses the novel's neo-noir trappings--especially in the second section, in which Old Jim plays detective as he uses misleading archival documents to track down answers--to remind readers that this set of mysteries cannot (or maybe should not) be untangled. While Old Jim's Sisyphean task of interpreting garbled histories and morphing landscapes guides most of the novel, VanderMeer has yet another surprise in store for readers in the third part, which follows the most unlikable and yet perhaps funniest character to have appeared in the series yet. Irreverent and foolish, entertaining and yet horrifying, Lowry and the fever dream of a finale he creates gives even VanderMeer's biggest fans something new to experience. --Alice Martin, freelance writer and editor

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