Authority

"I wonder what this strange area and its subtle corruption is doing to the governmental body that is organizing these expeditions?"

Authority follows Control, the new director of Southern Reach, the governmental agency tasked with containing and studying Area X. His problems and mysteries are now your problems and mysteries.

Where Annihilation was firmly in the explore-creepy-places subgenre, this is the I-wonder-about-the-bureaucracy companion subgenre. No doubt that it is slower than Annihilation and its tension contains a healthy dose of frustration, but the mood was so purposeful and precise that I can't help but be enthralled by the world VanderMeer has created. Like the last volume, I feel like I could leave the story here and be ok, I don't need to know what happens to Control next, but I want to know. I want this feeling again of being played like an instrument by the author.