Authority

I can't think of another book where my expectations and the execution were more mismatched. I was so disappointed! I really loved the poetic strangeness of Annihilation, and was expecting more of the same. Instead, what i read felt like a watered-down generic Michael Crichton novel, except wihtout even much suspense or charisma. The book centers around a main character who I found totally uninteresting, if not downright unlikeable. The absurdly (and very obviously) named "Control" takes over the agency in charge of containing/monitoring/studying the mysterious Southern Reach intrdouced in Annihilation. Control, serving as a barely-inflated audience stand-in, ploddingly investigates the mysteries of the Southern Reach, interspersed with lots of flashbacks to Contorl's past, clearly intended to add depth to his milquetoast personality (and to add, a little, some extra tidbits to the superfluous backstory of the SOuthern reach). And in the end... frankly doesn't really discover anything really that interesting or illuminating beyond what was already presented in Annihilation. Certainly nothign that justiifed the length of the book, whcih was like 4 times longer than it needed to be. In the whole book, there were a handful of scenes that really echoed the striking weirdness that pervaded Annihilaiton. And I guess the end of the novel was necessary to set up the third installment. But overall, I didn't feel like it was worth the time I spent reading it.