First published 2024
Area X has transformed the Forgotten Coast into something alien and incomprehensible. Before the Southern Reach began sending biologists and anthropologists into the zone, before anyone called it Area X, the first expedition crossed into this transformed landscape. VanderMeer takes readers back to witness that initial mission and two others that followed. Each expedition reveals new layers of the mystery surrounding Area X's origins and the people who helped create the conditions for its emergence. The three groups face different versions of the same impossible terrain, where reality bends and transforms everything it touches. Some expedition members seek answers about how Area X began. Others confront evidence that someone predicted this transformed world long before it appeared. The missions uncover connections between Area X and those who enabled its spread, while the landscape itself continues to reshape both the explorers and their understanding of what they thought they knew. VanderMeer weaves together the fates of these expeditions to complete the story he began with the Southern Reach Trilogy.
Genres: science-fiction, mystery, fantasy, horror
Vibes: atmospheric, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: mystery, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Area X, Forgotten Coast
Period: 21st-century
441 pages · Paperback · Fourth Estate
Content warnings: body-horror, violence