Authority is the second book of a book trilogy called Southern Reach written by Jeff VanderMeer. The first book, Annihilation, was adapted as a feature film in 2018. The story in this second book continues the saga with a brand new protagonist. John "Control" Rodriguez is appointed as a new director of Southern Reach, a frontier organization in the study of Area X. After another failure expedition inside Area X involving the first book's protagonist, Control must find a way to rebuild the organization while also find the truth behind Area X.
This book takes a great departure from its predecessor. If you're intrigued by the alluring and dangerous wilderness of Area X, you're going to be hugely disappointed by this book because most of the plots happens in an office. Not much of Area X at all, unlike the first book. The only similar things that I can think of from the two books are the unreliable narrator point of view and the protagonists that experience the same journey of discovering themselves through their involvement with Area X. Learning how to deal with their past and such.
To be honest, the whole book is pretty boring. Especially, if you're not invested in Control's story. And unfortunately the book doesn't offer many other interesting things beside that. There's no feeling of a high stake that I felt when I read this book. Everything just happens without any real consequences. The expansions and revelations of the lore behind Area X that was promised in the synopsis seem pretty meh to me. And it ends with a cliffhanger, which sucks. I'm fond of the first book when I first read it, but now I don't know if I want to read more from this series.
---
P.S. This is SBR number #75! Yeay! Ultra yeay! 25 more to go!
