We're pleased to announce that Absolution, surprise fourth volume in Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach series―and the final word on one of the most provocative and popular speculative fiction series of our time.
When the Southern Reach trilogy was first published a decade ago, it was an instant sensation, celebrated in a front-page New York Times story before publication, hailed by Stephen King and many others. Each volume climbed the bestseller list; awards were won; the books made the rare transition from paperback original to hardcover; the movie adaptation became a cult classic. All told, the trilogy has sold more than a million copies and has secured its place in the pantheon of twenty-first-century literature.
And yet for all this, for Jeff VanderMeer there was never full closure to the story of Area X. There were a few mysteries that had gone unsolved, some key points of view never aired. There were stories left to tell. There remained questions about who had been complicit in creating the conditions for Area X to take hold; the story of the first mission into the Forgotten Coast―before Area X was called Area X―had never been fully told; and what if someone had foreseen the world after Acceptance? How crazy would they seem?
Structured in three parts, each recounting a new expedition, Absolution is a brilliant, beautiful, and ever-terrifying plunge into unique and fertile literary territory. There are some long-awaited answers here, to be sure, but also more questions, and profound new surprises. It is the final word on one of the most provocative and popular speculative fiction series of our time.
The Subterranean Press edition includes:
- The full text of the novel;
- A full-color dust jacket;
- Full-color endsheets (different images, front and back);
- Four full-page full color interior illustrations;
- Roughly 30 small line art illustrations;
- A bonus section consisting of a related short story, “The Birdwatchers,” never before published in its completed form.
Limited: 500 signed numbered hardcover copies: $175
From Publishers Weekly (Starred Review):
“Drawing heavily on bioresearch and scientific extrapolations, 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.”
From Booklist (Starred Review):
“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.”
From Kirkus:
“Does VanderMeer resolve lingering questions from the previous novels? Not really. But the main theme of the trilogy was always unknowability—untrustworthy leaders, reckless wildlife, and complicated humans are his constant focus, and here he cannily balances the strangeness with the terror of confronting it.”
