Book Synopsis

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
Locus Awards Finalist

ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF THE YEAR:
The New York Times, The Washington Post, New York magazine, Time, Kirkus, Literary Hub, Goodreads

Featuring a new introduction by award-winning author Julia Armfield.

Absolution opens decades before Area X forms, with a science expedition whose mysterious end suggests terrifying consequences for the future--and marks the Forgotten Coast as a high priority for Central, the shadowy federal agency that monitors extraordinary threats.

Many years later, the Forgotten Coast files wind up in the hands of a washed-up Central operative, Old Jim. He starts pulling a thread that reveals a long, troubling record of government agents meddling with forces they clearly cannot comprehend.

Old Jim's investigation culminates in the first Central expedition into what has now been labeled Area X. A border has come down, and a full team has been assembled to find Area X's "off switch" somewhere in the volatile, dangerous terrain that has defied all attempts to be explored, mapped, or controlled.

Absolution converges the past, present, and future in unnerving, ecstatic, and mind-bending ways. It is the final word on one of the most provocative and popular speculative fiction series of our time.

Review Quotes

"Some of VanderMeer's best writing...deserves to be mentioned alongside Poe, Chesterton and Borges's other exemplars of the unheimlich, whose confrontation with the uncanny is central to the mission of speculative fiction."
--Alec Nevala-Lee, The New York Times Book Review

"Againt all odds, Absolution is. . . just as good as the first three novels. It works for the same reason the others did. It manages, once again, to find that rare balance between revealing (the task of the novel) and revealing too much (the danger horror must avoid). Even when it threatens to settle down into the established pattern of its predecessors, it veers, in its final third, into something entirely more alien and alienating. . . Absolution could have dragged the series' many monsters and mysteries into a clarifying light. Instead, it sticks to the shadows, just where the best horror belongs."
--Jess Keiser, The Washington Post

"Absolution is the latest and last installment in the lush, eerie series covering an unknown biological phenomenon known as Area X. . . Absolution marks the conclusion of a weird and wonderful journey involving an assortment of biological abnormalities and government secrets. In the meantime, it seems as if the unusual world that VanderMeer wrote about and the one that we live in today are growing closer and closer."
--Siri Chilukuri, Mother Jones

"An eerie and evocative coda to [Jeff VanderMeer's] Southern Reach horror-fantasy trilogy . . . This foray into the human cost of bureaucratic paranoia and the abandonment of logic to 'hope, prayers, and blessings' provokes, mystifies, and challenges readers in turn. VanderMeer's horrifying declaration of the impossibility of knowing the other is a knockout."
-Publishers Weekly, starred review

"With [Absolution, ] VanderMeer lures readers back into the hallucinatory clutches of Area X . . . Three linked stories explore the years leading up to the Area X Event, weaving deftly in and out of the timeline established by the trilogy, obliquely referring to key characters and moments that will reward careful readers . . . No character escapes with their sanity intact, though their madness may reveal greater truths that have far-reaching implications for the series. Still, VanderMeer understands that the mystery is the point, and, as told in beautiful prose infused with bizarre and disturbing images, Area X remains as fascinating and unknowable as ever."
-Booklist, starred review

" Not unlike David Lynch going back to Twin Peaks, Absolution is simultaneously unlike anything else VanderMeer has done and also perfectly in line with the works that came before it."
--Drew Broussard, Literary Hub

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