Authority

Deep in the vegetative abyss of Area X, within the walls of a blood spattered lighthouse, a foreboding heap of forgotten journals lay moldering and unread, their owners long submerged into the ecology of the nebulous terrain. This journal is not part of that pile. This journal is my weak attempt to be different in a world where everybody already reviewed this series months ago.

WARNING! SPOILERS AND DEAD MOSQUITOES AHEAD!

STAGNATION

Day 6: I've started the second book. The style is different, more vivid. The characters are deeply drawn. I realize the dryness of the previous book was a stylistic decision to mirror the dehumanizing toll of the Area X expeditions. I get it, but I think I'll enjoy this book more.

Day 7: I've read nearly half of it before I realize I'm bored again. It's time for Control to free Ghost Bird and breach Area X, but instead he just mopes around Southern Reach puzzling about a plant.

I ask the librarian if something is going to happen soon. He says at the end. I roll my eyes.

Need a break. Reading The Bone Clocks.

Day 8: People keep tweeting an article about how this series is likeLost, but with a more satisfying ending. I hope so. If this sucker ends with a giant slug slithering off into a white light with its friends, I'm going to post VanderMeer a dead mouse.

Day 8.5: Shit, it's scary again. A smashed mosquito on a window should not be scary, but it is.

Day 9: I'm noticing a pattern with these books. I get swept up by the evocative mood, followed by frustration when the arc plateaus on descriptive imagery. Time to go back to Area X, people. All of this bureaucratic meddling is dull.

I miss the dead mosquito.

Day 9.5: The narrative talks about pocket universes. I picture myself in other pocket universes dropping the book and never returning. Why do I keep going?

Day 10: Holy Whitby on a shelf. I'm back in.

Day 10.5: Finished. ermphhh.

I can't believe they never went back to Area X. Fans will call this installment a bureaucratic interlude. Detractors will call it another 10 bucks.