Detailed plot synopsis reviews of Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance |
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Control finds the nonsense words from the Tower about the strangling fruits and spends pages and pages thinking about that as well.
Control's deputy is named Grace and hates Control. Control hates her back. Control also hates his boss Voice. This is actually what most of the book is about. What does this have to do with Area X? Nothing! Exactly!
Control learned that the barrier around Area X is only penetrable in one place. In an effort to weaken the barrier, the Southern Reach tried to send several thousand rabbits over the barrier. Control thinks a lot about the rabbits, for many pages, over and over and over again. Does this make any sense to you? No? Good!
Finally, the Biologist, who likes to be called Ghost Bird (don't ask), tells Control exactly one useful thing: that she is not the Biologist, that she is an alien duplicate, and that she has alien crap inside of her that she calls "brightness". It takes 200 pages for Control to learn what we already knew on page 1.
Click here to see the rest of this reviewControl has a flashback to an undercover mission he was on where he banged some terrorist's girlfriend. The terrorist learned that Control had banged his girlfriend, found out that Control was a spy, and killed his girlfriend. Control talks about this story many times in the book. Do you see the connection between this story and Area X? No? Good!
Control finds out that his predecessor, the Director who was also the Psychologist from the last book, actually went to Area X twice, once right before the last expedition and then on the last expedition itself. Having been crazy enough to go there once and survive, she felt compelled to return there a second time.
Control realizes that every time he talks to the Voice he has blackouts where a lot of time passes. So the next time he calls Voice he yells "fuck fuck fuck!" and has a bullhorn blast every few seconds. Control has realized that Voice has hypnotized him. Does that make it clear why he keeps yelling "fuck fuck fuck!" over and over at Voice? No? Good!
Control talks to his Mom and basically calls her a bitch for having him hypnotized. His Mom said he needed to be hypnotized to be able to do his job well. This is a persistent theme in this book, how the good guys "need" to be hypnotized to be able to do their jobs.
Control hates his Mom for having him hypnotized. He demands to know who Voice is. His Mom tells him Voice is Lowry, the only survivor of the first expedition. Yes, amazingly someone survived the first expedition and returned without being a monster duplicate. He, Lowry, went crazy from his exposure to Area X, so he got promoted and now he's in charge of Control. Does this make sense to you? No? Good!
Lowry, who is crazy, is the one who has insisted that they keep sending small expeditions into Area X to be slaughtered. He's nuts, but he's in charge.
Control talks more about the words on the wall of the Tower, again. He talks more about finding the Biologist in the empty lot, again.
There's some more office politics with his assistant, Grace, who gets the upper hand, which is especially irrelevant, as the entire Southern Reach is about to disappear.
Control finds a secret room belong to Whitby, a crazy scientist, which has drawings of the monsters from Area X. Whitby is there too, staring at him like a crazy man. Control leaves the room but does nothing about Whitby. Does this make sense to you? No? Good!
The border of Area X expands suddenly, taking in the HQ of the Southern Reach. Does it make sense that the HQ of the Southern Reach is right near the border, which they know expands from time to time? No? Good!
The Psychologist reappears, only it's an alien monster copy of the Psychologist. Everyone at the HQ decides it's a good time to get the f out of there, including Control.
Control realizes that the former director, the Psychologist, knew the guy who managed the lighthouse, the same guy who turned into the Crawler monster. I guess this is supposed to explain why the Psychologist was so interested to return to Area X, to find out what happened to her lighthouse friend, but curiosity about a friend is not a convincing reason to risk one's life.
Control's mommie tells Control that the Biologist, actually the alien monster duplicate of the Biologist, who calls herself Ghost Bird, has escaped. Control finds Ghost Bird at the sea shore. She vomits some shit out of herself that turns into a doorway in the water. Apparently alien monster duplicates can vomit shit that opens interdimensional doorways into Area X. Are you following any of this?
Ghost Bird dives into the doorway to go back to Area X, and Control hears a hypnotic command in his head telling him to do the same, so he does.
The end.
And now we proceed to Book 3....
Book 3: Acceptance
(As in, "Acceptance that you won't get any satisfactory answers in any of these books").
This book has a lot of flashbacks. One of them focuses on Saul, the homosexual light keeper. Saul touches an alien plant and gets stabbed in the finger. He doesn't know it yet, but he is going to be turned into a space alien who writes nonsensical shit on walls made out of fungus.
The book also picks up the story of Control and Ghost Bird. Ghost Bird is the alien duplicate of the Biologist. They have both swam into an interdimensional portal which brought them back to Area X.
They find the skeleton of the moaning creature who chased the Biologist in Book 1. They realize it is a person who has been turned into a monster. Ghost Bird realizes she was created by the Crawler monster when the Biologist came to the Tower and gave the Crawler a blowjob.
We read about a flashback to the Psychologist on her previous visit to Area X. Before she went there with the Biologist and the other two, she went alone with the scientist Whitby, to the Tower. Remember that the Psychologist was also the previous Director, but I will just call her the Psychologist so you won't get confused. Why she went alone with Whitby in such a vulnerable small group of two makes no sense, but then nothing in any of these books makes sense.
The Psychologist realizes the Tower is alive and fleshy on the inside, like a v_gina. The Psychologist goes down into the tower and finds the Crawler monster. She recognizes him as her friend Saul, the homosexual lighthouse keeper, who now has been turned into a monster.
Saul, who is still part human, tells the Psychologist to get the f out of there.
There is another flashback to when Saul was managing the lighthouse. He lets some guy named Charlie squirt him with foreign liquids, kind of like what the alien lifeform does to him, except Charlie does it in Saul's ass.
Saul has a friend, a kid named Gloria who is also named Cynthia who grows up to become the Director and the Psychologist. We are supposed to think that the Psychologist keeps risking her life to come back there because of her concern for her homosexual friend. This is the "big reveal" of this story.
In another flashback we learn why Whitby went crazy. He fought with an alien duplicate of himself in the lighthouse. This is why Whitby is crazy. This is also supposed to be another great revelation of this story.
We are also left with doubt if the real Whitby won, or if the Whitby who survived is an alien duplicate. But since we don't see Whitby again much in this story, it is hard to care very much.
Control and Ghost Bird find Grace, the Deputy Director. She got sucked into Area X when Area X expanded to encompass the Southern Reach HQ. When that happened an alien duplicate of the Psychologist appeared. Grace said she shot the alien duplicate in the head. Grace says there is no way back across the border, that they are trapped in Area X now.
The other members of the Southern Reach who had been trapped in Area X were mostly dead.
