The Horror of The Crawler | Annihilation
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- Опубліковано 30 січ 2023
- Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer is one of my favorite sci-fi books ever! It's basically a modern Lovecraft story. The book details the account of "the biologist" who is a member of a group on an expedition into the mysterious "Area X" a realm governed by something incomprehensible.
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Please never change your intro theme, it makes me feel like you're about to take me on an amazing journey, and you always do. Thank you for what you do.
Yep. Quinn's intro music is absolutely perfect for his channel.
🙏🏻, and his videos in general are amazing! I’ve watched them all multiple times. Im waiting for the three body problem series can’t wait for those. All the books he talks about I want to read lol
@@gamingclipz7309 I admit TBP is also the one I have been most expectant of, it would be amazing if Quinn did the audiobook for it.
It reminds me of Dr. Who.
This was a good take!
"It's not like us... it's unlike us. I don't know what it wants, or if it wants, but it'll grow until it encompasses everything." - The most chilling line from the movie.
Which, ironically, is _exactly_ how humans and their civilisation behave, from the viewpoint of any other animal species.
@@carcharoclesmegalodon6904 Yes, exactly. I see this whole novel as mimicking the way humans have manipulated our own environment in unnatural ways to suit us.
@@carcharoclesmegalodon6904 I really dislike the separation between man and animal, as if we are somehow a completely different entity, and is if those very same animals would not act as we do if they had our intelligence.
@@EmeraldDreams7 not just humans animals in general, beavers build damns, ants domesticate aphids, boars uproot trees and destroy soil. I don't think its entirely limited to humans, I think the crawler is mirror to mother nature herself.
@@launcherx2044 no animal causes destruction on the scale we do
This book changed my life. After reading it I had the revelation that I wanted to become a biologist and returned to school. Eight years later I'm still a biochemist. The most interesting thing for me was that people I knew who read it considered it horror or "terrifying", however I never once thought of it that way. I was so completely engrossed in the idea of transformation and becoming absorbed by the natural world that it never once struck me as scary. I just felt a sense of awe and wonder that never let me go, and followed me through my years of study of biology. The world of cellular and subcellular biology can be just as alien and mysterious and it was Annihilation that left me constantly chasing this feeling.
That's awesome. I didn't read the book as horror either.
Your story is powerful. Would you recommend the next two in the sequel?
The concept isnt something I find particularly terrifying either. I have always been fascinated by the idea of transformation and surrendering to a metamorphosis into something alien. I think part of that is because it represents a negation of the social contract, like you aren't bound by the things that the codify what human civilization is anymore because you are no longer human. It evokes a profound feeling of ambivalence. I like what I am as a human, but with that nature I have to engage with civilization which is sometimes hostile to my identity, and becoming something else could be a concession which is less painful. Like the biologists transformation is into something which fundamentally enriches her experience of reality, even if what she metamorphosed into is foreign and incomprehensible to what she was before.
I was talking to someone about the movie and how it has a tendency to evoke different feelings in people. He was positing that the movie itself has a lot of symbolism about suicide, and people feeling about the movie are a reflection about their feeling about death. While I dont know if that is entirely true, as someone who has struggled with depression that resonated with me. Area X doesn't terrify me because at worst it represents death and at best it represents transformation. While I mostly have depression under control now, i feel depression can fundamentally alter the way you view death. I appreciate my life and what I have, but I dont view death as the worst thing that can happen.
Ultimately the biologists act of surrender symbolizes all of those things possibly and that resonates with me in a deep way.
Never thought of it as horror either but more like mystery. After all, the thing changing the environment was somewhat alive and it made me question a lot of what alive even meant or what truly mind-boggling life forms could be out there...
@@HLDMAD1CK yeah the book is super literary and belongs more in the lit section of a book store than scifi or horror. I mean it was much about her relationship to her husband as it was about area x.
In the movie, the music and art direction in the last 10 minutes transcends understanding. It is really a masterclass in cosmic horror.
The fractal monster is amazing.
I liked the movie, a lot, but I didn’t even realise it was a horror.
@@pokerynia psychological/cosmic horror is different than traditional horror. For example have you seen requiem for a dream? That could be considered psychological horror, without any sort of normal horror element being present.
@@jackalope_hunter
I have read and watched a lot of psychological horror that made me feel unknowable fear and uncomfortableness, the movie made me feel nothing of that.
The movie was terrible and the end was so stupid.
Annihilation is my favorite cosmic horror story, all because of the crawler. When the biologist draws the attention of the crawler, her human mind literally cannot comprehend it. The writing evokes overlapping and contradictory sensations from the crawler. I've read several cosmic horror stories over the years, and nothing has come closer to describing the undescribable than that scene. The crawler is truly something outside our human capacity to understand.
Made me very sad they chose not to include the crawler in the film but I think any attempt at adapting it would probably just be inherently disappointing because you can’t visualize the crawler and that’s what makes it so terrifying. But I’ve come to appreciate the film as a great standalone movie but a poor adaptation
@@jacobm6617 I prefer it this way, I can barely believe the crawler is so well represented in the books. In the movie it would not work but spoil the book in a way.
I watched the movie first and I think is better this way. You get the visual aesthetics which are not that explicit in the books, at least until the third one. But you can still enjoy the books as they are not spoiled and have mystery to make you keep reading.
It's the spiritual descendant of HP Lovecraft's the color out of space, which he considered to be his best work, and Tiberium from the Command and Conquer Tiberium saga.
Well said all that and the fact that the book describes the crawler writing as looking like some weird vibrating motion.
It's a fabulous series. It kept scaring the pants off me and yet I couldn't put it down!
Sci fi horror is such a great genre. I figure it must take a talented writer to create a terrifyingly convincing interaction with something that ought to be impossible to imagine
Aye. Its an art form to trick your brain into coming up with the most fucked up shit.
Yeah, the annihilation movie and color out of space are pretty great examples
Sure, talent. Drugs be a hell of a drug too tho, so....
@@sentientmicrowave259 is are drugs what made you sentient too?
@@RUIN-ingYourFavoriteSongs Soooo many
The screaming bear was one of the most terrifying parts of a movie I've ever seen. I've watched it 10x at least (that part) - I loved the movie the 1st time, then I saw essays about it and I'm too dumb to notice so many things but I REALLY enjoyed it the 2nd time!
That bear and the fractal beast at the end were so otherworldly!
This is definitely one of those movies that got unnecessary hate. I loved it the first time and it was just as weird the second time around after a couple of years. Not a perfect movie by any means but it was weird in a good way and enjoyable (creepiest part for me was the found footage of the soldiers prior to them...the worms bro...those goddam intestine worms 🤮)
vandermeer has a thing for bears, it's kinda great.
Notice that the bear has a human face on the side of its face.
I was working nights when I tried to watch this movie. Put it on around 7AM, woke up to the bear attack.
As I approached the end of this book years ago I found myself in an almost fever state. Something about the writing and the strangeness of what was going on had a physiological effect on my body. As though I had consumed hallucinogens or something. It was a unique reading experience that I doubt could be replicated.
It's incredible what the mind is capable of
I experienced the same thing!
Your a nerd
Its called imagination.
Read the rest of the serie, if you have not done soo already. The first book is great but it also an introduction to the ultra subjective story telling style that get more extreme in the later books. Jeff coaches you in the two first book and than really lets it rip in the last book.
The entire Southern Reach trilogy is excellent in its creepiness. One thing that added even more to the horror was the fact that wherever one of the returned expedition members had appeared outside of Area X, like a disease, a new patch of Area X began to grow.
Is it even them that come back?
@@nunyabiznes33 they touch on this in the book but I don't want to say because it's a potential spoiler.
@@nunyabiznes33 Not really.
@@nunyabiznes33 Yes and no, at the same time. It'd be spoilers to say more.
There's an inevitability to the obliteration of civilization in that that is very satisfying. On a narrative level of course.
Something I don't think you mentioned is that those words of the Crawler, they aren't just the Crawler trying to communicate (if that is indeed what it is doing) but they are also (according to some Southern Reach analysts) remixes of the words of the Lighthouse Keeper. The Lighthouse Keeper was, before becoming a lighthouse keeper, a preacher, following in tradition of his own father, and the pattern and cadence of the words on the wall were a good match with records of the sermons the Lighthouse Keeper used to give.
The Crawler isn't simply keeping the Lighthouse Keeper with it arbitrarily, it's using what is left of the Lighthouse Keeper as a kind of translation device, drawing on his own experiences to form its records in a local method of communication. If those words are indeed its attempt to communicate and not just random scribbles plucked from the mind of the Lighthouse Keeper, then they're an example of its incomprehensible intellect filtered through a human language that struggles to adequately get across its alien concepts.
Yes!
He just read the first one so he doesn't know much or at all about the keeper.
Pd: which analyst? Would like to check him out
@@unaif.2171 I forget which specific character, but Control was speaking to him in the second book. He mentioned that the writings inside the tower had a close pattern match to the Keeper's sermons.
@@FearlessSonSorry, I thought you meant some analyst in real life.
Like the monster from the midnight episode in Doctor Who!
I'm not much of a reader. When I picked up this book I didn't put it down until I was done. I pulled an all-nighter because I couldn't stop. Such an incredible piece of work.
Me too! A coworker let me borrow it and less than two days later I finished it. Something about the mystery and cerebral nature of its storytelling was almost hypnotic to me
I read it in one day as well! The weirdness pulled me in.
I like how he manages to find something more inconceivably horrifying every time.
Yo I literally have 20 pages left in this book. I love the way the biologist is written.
It is an amazing series of books and I was surprised, that by the third book, the author does an amazing job of explaining some of the cool ideas he presents throughout the series and ties it up in a satisfactory way, in my opinion. I highly recommend his short stories called Ambergris as well.
Wow I didn’t even know it was a trilogy, now I gotta check out the other books.
So glad to see a annihilation video! I feel like the crawler used the lighthouse keeper as a lense to recreate the world around it. In the later book we see a flashback of the lighthouse keeper going into a very similar speech as the writing on the wall in the tower. We also learn the lighthouse keeper was a preacher before coming to the lighthouse, and the writing in the tower is sort is a sermon.
Another interesting detail about the writing in the tower: Vandermeer literally came up with it during a fever dream. He was pretty sick with something-or-other, and those words popped up in his dreams. I don't know how he remembered them well enough to write them down once he woke up, but the effect is wonderfully creepy. Just when you think you're beginning to get the sense of it, it changes.
Yeah I like this interpretation. It's also implied that what arrived to earth wasn't a complete entity, having barely escaped the annihilation of its home world, so using a "native" being to complete itself and continue its purpose would make sense.
@@RingoLoadagain Hmm, I hadn't thought of it like that - thanks for the new idea!
the entity wouldn't understand english when it arrived here
so most likely it's using the lighthouse keeper to translate it's thoughts into english
which is why the writing is so similar to what the lighthouse keeper would say/write
@@Karin_Allen That's a bit like Samuel Taylor Coleridge waking from an opium sleep and writing down the incomplete but phenomenal Kubla Khan, which he dreamed.
The second and third books, Authority and Acceptance are wonderful. They will answer some of the questions you have and provide more questions. I don’t want to spoil them for you. They are necessary for the complete arc of area x. Also, the second book, Authority dives deep into the Southern Reach, where the third book, acceptance gives you the back story of the light house keeper. I strongly strongly recommend them. Jeff Vandemeer has said that he wants to write a fourth book too. I also recommend his crazy crazy wonderful novel, Borne.
This book has by far the best "title drop" moment Ive seen in a book. My jaw was on the floor the whole scene.
What is a title drop? Could you elaborate?
@@alexanderkulaev541the title of the book or movie said in the book or the movie
@@greatvaluecrunchynuggets6918 Okay, thanks!
“This is it, our annihilation” -John Annihilation. this was an absolutely chilling scene i literally cried after reading it
@@logangant7732Bro annihilated all over the place. Truly one of the annihilations of all time 😭
Aaah, nothing like some good old lovecraftian horror in the morning.
I, too, enjoy my coffee with existential despair.
@@matthewkemp594 You should switch to the _perfectly balanced_ beverage that is tea.
These books are worthwhile. The author really found a way to describe the otherworldly in a new way. I enjoyed "Hummingbird Salamander" by the same author as well. Weird stuff.
The 3rd book does not have a real ending. It just stops. The 2nd and 3rd books were clearly rushed to meet deadlines that were set by the publisher. NONE of the questions that are set up get answered. NONE of the blatant mystery boxes have a payoff. We get it. “It’s a metaphor for cancer & human’s fear of the unknown, and we need to accept the unknown, hence the name of book 3.”
1. That’s Pretentious. 2. We didn’t need 3 whole books to make that point.
@@t.k.1319 that's a shame 😕
Strange fiction, or Lovecraftian fiction is extremely hard to pull off, but this author has more than proven capable.
@@t.k.1319 You're right that stuff doesn't get explained, but I still kept turning the pages and enjoying the ride the whole time, so I didn't mind so much. I only expect so much from a cosmic horror story; which among them has much of an ending?
I don't judge all book series so easily. For whatever reason, I reacted to books like The Golden Compass series in much the same way you are reacting to these books. Maybe I was just more demanding way back when I read them, or maybe those books really did have a poopy ending (I remember thinking so for sure). But to each their own! Sorry you didn't like'em duder.
@@t.k.1319 I think folks will have different reactions to these books depending on their tolerance for ambiguity. For me, I was happy to get deeper and deeper mysteries without being given an answer. It made the whole series linger in my mind long after I read them. I savored the mystery, giving me answers would have spoiled it. The very end of book 3 made me tear up a bit, and I thought it was a great way to conclude the inconclusive.
YES! So glad you're covering Annihilation. When I finished the trilogy, I was bummed out for a solid week because I didn't want to leave the world it built. It's such a rich and alluring book. It's like a bad psychedelic trip that's all real. Boundary dissolution writ large. Boundaries between beings, the environment, things, and even concepts, all merging and dissolving together.
I got good news for you - book four is in progress of being written.
Oh damn. Book four. Jesus
I love how the book focused on the nihilism of cosmic horror. I know the biologist encountered the crawler at least once but it was never really made clear whether the crawler was a result of the area or the cause of it. It really emphasizes the idea of something so large and incomprehensible that you can't even begin to understand the overall picture of the situation.
Please do cover the whole series. I found it fascinating and strange.
I read the book after seeing the movie and was delighted at the differences. I wonder if I would have been less pleased going from book to movie...
FWIW, I read the whole trilogy before watching the movie, and I was *not* pleased with the movie. I feel like I would have loved it if I hadn't read the books already, but I ended up feeling like Alex Garland (whom I otherwise love) scraped the plot of the novel down to its bare bones and then draped an entirely new story over those bones. It made me a little angry, to be honest.
I've only watched the movie and felt like it was an absolutely shameless ripoff of the Strugatzkis Roadside Picnic with a bit of Lovecraft's The Colour out of Space and some mutated creature horror mixed into it.
But that's a good hint of you, I might read the books now if they are so different from that nonsense movie.
The second book is hands down the worst book I've ever read. Nothing happens. It's pure office gossip and petty drama.
@@Karin_Allen Garland purposefully only read the book once and never consulted it, or read the rest of the series, when adapting the screenplay. I also didn't like it the film as I did the book (due to many choices, like making all the expedition members' reason for being in Area X be dependent on men), but I understand and respect his approach in wanting to make it his own.
@@RoboKestrel I have to disagree, although I can completely understand why it's not for everyone. It's almost a satire of bureaucracy. It's a story of the most structured organization trying to understand and apprehend unstructured chaos. It's an impossible task. Ambiguity is anathema to bureaucracy.
This really makes me think about the War Against the Chtorr books with the environment being changed to something we are entirely unfamiliar with.
I really wish that series would finish
@@khthonik I know the feeling :( At least GURPS (A Tabletop RPG system) had a War Against the Chtorr book, so we can all get a kind of catharsis in beating the Chtorr (or not) with a nice game and some dice.
@@khthonik Sadly, I think Gerrold wrote himself into a corner with Jim's, let's say, "realization" about himself in book 5's excerpt, and he hasn't figured out how to reconcile it.
You are so different than other YTer's. They make videos saying "I like this book" or "I don't like this book" or "this book EXPLAINED"... but you create documentaries that inspire - akin to Reading Rainbow!
Can't wait to read your next book! I'm on the list!
Quinn really writes a well researched essay each time he produces quality every time and I always see something new after listening to him!
I read these books. I imagine the creeper as a benevolent form of "The Thing" species, whereas the Thing is like a criminal from their world.
I like this idea Quinn. It’s crazy to see how far you have grown since just before the first Dune movie released. That series changed your life, congrats!
The movie is a masterpiece in how it weaves all the complicated story threads into a simpler story about a character's change and imminent discovery at the end of the chaotic rainbow. Just a very cool reinterpretation of the text.
"The movie is a masterpiece" That is very debatable.
No
@@colin8696908Disagree. I'm tired of people not hearing out Alex Garland's particular brand of genius. He's one of the finest sci fi directors we have who doesn't simply make popcorn movies. I hear criticism of the acting but they're literally supposed to be confused as if they exist in a place beyond time (because they do). Any "weakness" you can find with the movie just works out in its favor imo
Annihilation is such a good story and is exceptionally well written. So many cosmic horror or fantasy horror stories are just "big bad thing gross and hard to understand, scary icky" but the book feels eerie and the descriptions are very visceral, and honestly disgusting. The lighthouse scene and chase sequence felt so intense and tangible.
I’ve been a huge Vandermeer fan since Veniss Underground and Ambergris. The man is a genius and I’m so glad to see him get the recognition he deserves. Great video. The other books are really amazing and build up so much
agreed!!
I'm reading Ambergris right now and god damn is Vandermeer an expert in tone and atmosphere. I'm both incredibly hooked and incredibly creeped out.
Such a great vid. By the way, Vandermeer always reacts annoyd to the comparison with Lovecraft, but he cites The Color out of Space as Lovecrafts best story. The other books are just as terrifying and poetic as the first one. Southern Reach is a modern masterpiece in cosmic horror.
Thank you Quinn for covering this novel! I read this in a southern literature class and fell in love! It was interesting to read Jeff VanderMeer’s take on cosmic horror.
The Crawler is oddly named, because in all three books, I don't remember it actually crawling. I think of it as the Writer or the Preacher, because of the deranged "sermon" it wrote in moss on the walls of the Tower.
The whole Area X trilogy is a gorgeous, mind-bending read, and I hope you do videos on the other two books soon.
could be he doesn't mean it literally it's more of a "mind crawler"
Ooooh yessss I'm so excited to see you dive into this series! It's the most enigmatic series of books I've ever read. So much so that I read the whole series twice in half a year! Please do more videos on this strange and interesting world. PS: I just signed up for your patreon!
YES! I've been waiting so long for Quinn to cover this. The movie is great but I LOVE the book, VanderMeer knows how to write a good lovecraftian horror.
The middle book of the series might test your patience. I believe it pays off if you can muscle through. I look forward to hearing what you think about the others.
Authority became one of my favorites after I reread it. So much reveals itself on the second read of the series.
Weirdly I thought it was the most straightforward one of the trilogy.
@@Scimarad kind of a Spy novel.
The middle book is different, but it's got its own charm if you come into it with the right frame of mind.
Personally, I like to think of it as something akin to the SCP Foundation or Control. How do you get a group of people to study something that is, by its nature, incomprensible to the human mind? What does that do to a person who studies it for long enough? What does that do to an organization of people? How do you even *begin* to figure out such an organization let alone the thing it was formed to study?
Amen! Sadly, a lot of people I know gave up on the series somewhere in the midst of Authority. I wish they'd hung on until things start to gel - and until the biggest creep-out scene I've ever read makes the hair on their necks stand up. And then that ending! Yeah, Authority is a mind blower in more ways than one.
I'm so glad you read Annihilation! I can't wait til you read the other two. I have become a big fan of Vandermeer and would love seeing more Quinn videos on this series especially!
Color out of Space is probably my fav cosmic horror story of all time, or at least the consept of it, and this series is clearly inspired by that original idea, just greatly expanded upon and made even more intense. Maybe I should actually sit down and read this series for myself.
I was thinking the same thing
I am excited to read this series now. I love a good Lovecraftian horror. It's so cerebral and terrifying. My first Lovecraft book was in high school and I still think about it 40 years later.
You could read the trilogy in a day, but you remember it forever.. great book amazing story. Fantastic movie
He did say he hasn't read the whole trilogy in this video. This review perfectly encapsulates the horror of the crawler as described in the first book.
I'm curious of which key scenes you're referring to. Quinn makes several inferences as to the nature of the crawler and its origin that are later explained in the sequels. These are great guesses, and I think that he hits the most important points of what makes the crawler so horrifying. Namely the lighthouse keeper suspended in time yet seemingly aware, the ever expanding Area X, and the strange 'doubles' that appear in place of their originals. I read the trilogy once in 2016, so I admit my knowledge is dated, and it's hard to remember exactly what is and is not explained in the first book. If you're being deliberately obtuse as to avoid spoilers in the comments, I do respect that.
I can't describe how happy I am that I found this channel. There's a lot of other channels that do a similar type of book reviews but this is easily the best one. The voice narration & production is so professional Im shocked it's on UA-cam for free
Easilyy
I loved this trilogy! I listened to it and all my other favourites at work and you've covered every single one in your videos. You do a really good job with them too. It feels like I've found a community that understands. Thanks quinn!
Always a treat to listen to your videos, whether I'm driving, cleaning, cooking or lifting keep it up and thank you
Quinn is a delight.
VanderMeer is such a difficult author to explain. You articulated this book really well. Kudos. I'd love to see you try covering some of his other work, he creates such a cool and vivid world build.
It sounds like the crawler could be a reflection of humanity and now we are left watching from the perspective of the helpless animals as our world changes into something unfamiliar
Yeeeeeeeeeees...about time. This was one of the most existentially terrifying series I have ever read. Please cover the whole series in depth!
You def need to read them all. Authority is a slow burn , but amazing and Acceptance completes the Ouroboros that is Area X. I listen to the complete trilogy as audiobooks in sections every night and have for a couple of years now. Helps stimulate dreams…
Sadly, a lot of people I know gave up on the series once they got into Authority. It *is* hard to read at first, but it's meant to be. The audience experiences what Control experiences, which is total confusion. I wish those people had continued to reach the part when Control figures out what the hell is going on - and the new goings-on that happen after *that*. Acceptance is amazing - and like you said, it does solve most of the mysteries. But readers can't understand it without the information Authority provides.
The hypnosis twist hit me pretty hard. Couldnt even imagine a more terrifying breach of trust, magnified by the fact that theyre exploring the absolute unkown.
And all they know about it is that people here die
The variation in the voices throughout your narration are sick man. I do the exact same thing when I read, you have more courage than me. I can’t imagine doing that in front of others
I enjoyed all three books, even the second book Authority, which people seem to feel like is "the slow book where nothing happens." It messed with my head because I worked in an office similar to the Southern Reach and I felt the slow creeping madness of both the sketchy government bureaucracy and the external cosmic horror they intended to investigate. I also appreciated that the protagonist was more or less in over his head and acknowledged that.
Happy to see you are covering this series! I really liked Dead Astronauts from thr same author, even though it was completely different in style and even felt bizarre at points. Still a good read in my opinion.
Finally someone is covering this masterpiece of a series, please do the other two books because man is it a strange journey with a ton of questions and theories
I was really stoked to see you talk about this. Annihilation and the other two books are definitely some of my personal favorites.
Even this rough summary of the story made me feel legit suspense, so, as someone who's never read this, I can only imagine the anxious tension reading it would make me experience.
Thanks, This is one of my favorites too. I have the signed Area X edition with all three books.
Love that you covered this book. I had forgotten about it and not realized there was a series!😊
You’re one of the only channels that when you say, stop here if you haven’t seen/read the source material that I actually stop the video, go out and read the source material, and then come back and watch the rest. Thanks for the awesome recommendations and analysis. Keep up the great work
Would love to hear you talk about the other books! Love this video!
I remember seeing annihilation in the theater and I walked out confused and kind of disappointed but I couldn't stop thinking about it. I bought the blue ray and the more I watched it the more I liked it. It displays alien life in its most frightening form. It and what it's doing is so completely incomprehensible. How do you fight or understand it? You cant
I just wanna say how great this channel is. The topics you cover, your passion for scifi, the way you narrate. All 10/10.
I must thank you. I have held off from subscribing for so long because I can't keep subscribing to every channel that holds my interest, but the reason I have to thank you is that some of your videos, including this one, Have been helping me stay inspired as I work on a fantasy novel of mine.
I don't know what I'd do without you, Quinn. So glad you keep making videos. Gonna sign up for patreon today. Thank you so much.
Annihilation is one of my favorite movies of all time! So excited to see this!
You always present your videos so well! SciFi books in the late 1950s & 60s ( my childhood) through to mid 1970s was my mainstay. I have not read any relatively new scifi authors, so I do enjoy your content!
Been waiting for years for someone to talk about the Crawler/ The Southern Reach trilogy, and I'm so glad it's you. Love your work, thank you so much
Yep, it's on my list! I haven't heard it described as a sort of cosmic horror before, and I'm even more intrigued now.
Of the trilogy, Annihilation is my favorite. It have reread it three times since originally reading it. The movie is great as well, although it is different in a lot of ways. It’s the rare situation where the movie adaptation isn’t bad in comparison to the book. The movie actually made me love the series even more.
In the middle of binging every video you've ever done just want to say you might have the greatest channel ever wish I found it years ago and like many people have commented just the way you narrate and speak is incredible you should do audio books my guy. Love you.
I love these videos! I read about 50 sci-fi and fantasy books every year, but I never have a good way to discuss them. This channel is like my book club!
I work so much and can’t really read with all my other hobbies, but I’ve been listening to “the three body problem” thanks to you. I think I’m gonna switch to this book now. Thank you so much for sparking my interest in this genre. Normally I listen to stories about skin walkers or creepy people encounters, this however is 20 times better. I love thought provoking concepts
Finish 3 body problem dude. Annihilation is great but having read both you'll be doing yourself a huge disservice if you don't finish 3 body problem for the sake of Annihilation.
The dark forest
I wonder what you'd think about the novel Worm (the term "parahumans" makes it easier to search). It does have striking similarities to this concept, and it is also very scary.
Thank you for going over this book. It is such an eerie unsettling series, and I feel like I don't see a tremendous amount of discussion around it. I remember reading the part where the Biologist first gets to the top of the lighthouse, and being alone in a dark room with the rest of my family asleep and being incredibly unnerved.
I think the crawler is so intelligent that it doesn’t need a reason or method or explanation as to why it does what it does. It’s not malice, it’s not pity, it’s not anything, it’s purely indiscriminate will.
I loved this book and the movie adaptation! I plan on reading it again this year. But for whatever I couldn’t get through the sequel. I think I stopped half way when I realized the biologist won’t be the main character. I like her a lot. The ending of Annihilation is worth the read alone.
Thank you Quinn for covering this book.
If you stick with it, you'll see the Biologist again. As the book goes on, Control becomes increasingly certain that locating and meeting up with the Biologist is the key to unraveling the mystery.
First & second book come together in the third though. I get what you're saying but I'm glad I finished the trilogy. I don't want to spoil anything so I'll leave it at that
I couldn't agree with you more, I hated the second book. In fact, I put it down half through and didn't come back to start and finish again until a year later. I am glad I finished it, and then the third book, as this series is now one of my all time favorites. The second book is such a departure in every way from the first and third. It does start to get back to its spooky scifi fiction towards the latter half, and I can't recommend trudging forward enough, the third book is amazing. Upon my recent rereading of the series, I appreciated the 2nd book much more, and I was reminded how short it is.
@@HArryvajonas okay... I have the whole trilogy on audio and paperback. I like switching back and forth... Idk why. I'll give the second book another chance. I don't remember much from the second book except I didn't like it. I'll keep the fact it gets better and the third, Acceptance, is worth going through Authority.
Besides, I'll probably enjoy reading Annihilation again. I really enjoyed the Biologist. She was a weirdo. Freaks tend to be more interesting than normies... ya know.
@Brian Andrews Have fun, the second book does start to go back to the spooky scifi of the first and third towards the end, and it is required reading for the third book ( one of the main characters is setup in the 2nd book). I do the same as well, for some hard to read books, having the voice of an Audible Narrator in your head helps. In Fact, I never enjoyed reading Lovecraft, until I found a couple great British Narrators on Audible of his work; ever since then, I read his stories in they're voice, and it just works.
How about a thumbs up if you think Quinn should do the reading of audiobooks...He has the VOICE for it..
Stopped it around three minutes in because I realized I need to read this book. Thank you Quinn
You bring me to start reading many books and I must say I found this one really engrossing. Wish we had more like it.
Hello Quinn. A most excellent synopsis of Annihilation !
When Alex Garland went about turning this challenging novel into a film, he did indeed read all of the Far Reach Trilogy. He took what he remembered from the thousand plus pages and recounted it is as if it were a 'dream.' Its just as well, because the remaining books are altogether more detached and much less straightforward - confusion reigns.
What we have here is a book that will long outlast its peers by simply not providing answers. To my mind, the clues were there in the sea life described in some detail in all three books : A tiny rock pool with all the life or death interactions for anyone to observe if they have the time and inclination.
What does the entity want ? I think the answer is simply to exist - to live.
Is it sentient ? Yes absolutely.
Does it have Godlike intelligence and a plan ? No I don't think so. The entity can manipulate space/time just as an amoeba 'knows' when do deploy its fronds to feed.
Once again thank you for your wonderful series on youtube !
I'd love to see you cover the whole trilogy. Some of the most interesting sci-fi I've read in a long time
Hey Quin! I’ve been following your channel for a while now, I think you’ll LOVE the rest of the series- Area X and the beings in it are as scary as the Shrike and I think it’ll be your new favorite😊
I love how you set the mood for the media you discuss using images, music and tone of narration. Keep it coming please ;-)
I recently reread the Southern Reach Trilogy. On my first go through of the series I loved the first book, despised the second, and thought the third was one of the best final books of a series I had ever read ( still not as good as the first book). On my second go around, I appreciated the second book a great deal more, and I think the trilogy might be the strongest overall Scifi series for me; as far as all of the books being enjoyable, and I can only think of Dune as a comparable series that ties up its story and ideas in a satisfactory manner. I highly recommend the Authors Ambergris series, it is a collection of short stories set in a Lovercraftian universe with a race of little mushroom people. it is really cool.
I agree, Authority blossoms like the strange flower that is not for everyone to see. Borne by Vandemere is interesting as well, but not as fun to me.
Yeah, I don't know why people bounce off the second book. It might actually be my favourite.
@@Scimarad It's all context, I think...each book is a deeper dive than the one before IMO.
@Scimarad Well, it is mostly a political drama. It is a huge departure from the first book, and although I appreciated it more on second reading, more so as being a necessary setup for the third book. I don't think it compares to the first and third book. To each their own, if anything, it is a testament to the authors ability to write in different styles and genres.
@Gary Seven Very true, which is why I think the three books taken as a whole, might be my favorite series. It is very rare that an author is able to elaborate and expound on the first book in a series ( that usually has the most interesting ideas); more often than not, they end up contradicting prior facts, or go off in a direction that makes you realize how special the first book was ( Hyperion). I also agree, the second book adds to the overall story, even though I am not a fan of the change in story and presentation. If it isn't obvious, I appreciate stand alone stories, and I lement the now standard, multiple novels, that so many authors seem to be beholden to now.
You're a great story teller.
I so love your voice when you quote from the various works. I wish my inner monolog was the Quinn narrator lol. Awesome video...thank you so much. Cheers
So excited to see you covering this. I highly recommend you read the other two, they answer, affirm, and contradict your statements. You'll love them.
Makes no sense that the crawler, if it really is so incomprehensible, would write biblical lovecraftian whispers on the walls of its "tower".
God decided people couldn't figure it out themselves, so a dimensional rift that humans couldn't stop was the logical choice.
the lighthouse keeper was a preacher, so it might be his mind translating something he dont understand into words he knwos
Didn't realize that it was based on a book, it's now on the list... Thank you!
The movie took a few key ideas from the first book and made them the focus. But the book is much... broader... than just the movie. There's more going on in the book, more ideas to contemplate, and it sets up a context that gets explored even further. The movie was smart to pair it down for adaptation, but the book... it's an experience.
@@FearlessSon Thanks for the info, there is a copy at my local library!
I’m addicted to your videos bro!! I’m still waiting for the book series to come in I can’t wait. I love the way you tell it almost like I’m there. The way you describe it and the tone in which you do makes it very enjoyable thank you
Yes please! There is little to none content on the other books in the series. Read them in such a fast pace years ago to find answers and I left with of course more questions, and no one in my social life online, or otherwise who has read these books (or pretty much any book). P.S. Love your content. Found your channel last night and I feel like I'm home.
I really liked how little you delved into details this time. I feel like I wanted more details from the three body series but this time it hit just right.
I actually loved the Southern Reach Trilogy, the second book was my favourite. It has so much weirdness in it. It also was an inspiration for the game Control by Remedy Entertainment, a game that is also very lovecraftian and weird in nature. Have you ever considered talking about video games on your channel?
Was it really an inspiration for control? Huh, now you've said it, it makes so much sense... neat! That's one of my favourites of his too!
hey Quinn did you ever heard about the book and the two movies adaptation "solaris"? It's one of my all time fav!
Its themes and atmosphere of uncertainty is quite similar to those from VanderMeer
Same author did "Stalker" no? Which may have inspired this series
@@BoycottChinaa nope, the movie versions were by the same director, Tarkovsky, but solaris is by stanislaw lem and stalker(roadside picnic) by the Strugatzky brothers
@@matteodigallo561 ahhh right, but Roadside Picnic and later Annihilation have the same basic concept, no?
@@BoycottChinaa yes although stalker/roadside are more involved with the social and inner consequences of the surreal situation, especially the movie (which was also written by the Strugatzky bros)
Quinn, thank you for being the number one source I can look to to find fascinating, mind-blowing material. In my group of friends I’m usually the one that’s always digging for great books, films, etc and it’s sort of come to be expected of me to find great things and then present what makes them great, and then the others read/watch whatever it may be. I’ve never had someone play that role (and do that work) for me in the same way until I found your channel, and damn, do you do it well! We are all currently reading the Three Body Problem thanks to you and I can not wait to read this series. Saw the film Annihilation a few years ago and pushed that one on them but never got to the source material. Btw, has anyone else noticed we went through a phase of some really amazing Lovecraftian films in the late 2010’s? Seems like that era has ended sadly. But from around 2016-2019 it seemed like out of nowhere, Lovecraft, or at least the concepts we associate with him; Eldritch Abominations, Indifference to humanity, gods and alien life beyond our comprehension etc., had this wild resurgence in popularity that I don’t think has ever occurred before in the mainstream except maybe indirectly as an influence on Steven king. If anyone cares to remember, the early 00’s were obnoxiously teaming with all things vampire related, and around 2012 zombies were everywhere in horror. I found a lot of that off-putting but once the Lovecraft trend picked up steam, I was more excited about genre works than I had been in any period since I’ve been alive (born 83). Alongside the Lovecraftian, was also a trend in social commentary based horror like Get Out and Under the Skin and overlapping with both were a large amount of Folk Horror, which was exciting since it’s been hardly touched upon since the Wicker Man. Not sure why i just wrote out my view of recent horror history lol but I suppose it’s because it was a very exciting time and I felt like a teenager being exposed to so many cool things at once. I’m not sure what caused such a vast creative bubble in genre films during this time period, maybe political instability? Maybe cross pollination and cross inspiration? Or maybe even this exposure to Lovecraft on so many writers and film makers like we have never seen before and during a time when the future feels very unknowable yet we are bored with tech themes and needed something more….spiritual? Anyway, I think the fun may be over or at least we are past the critical mass of such works but I’m sure there’s tons of work from that era to look into still and of course art never stops, it just gets a little more difficult to find sometimes.
This is the first vid of yours I've seen, and I am honestly so excited to hear your thoughts on the other books in the series. They are so different from Annihilation, and add so much more depth to the mystery of area X.
I would love to hear you revisit some of the dope ideas you have in this video when you read the second and third books (and possibly 4th someday!) in the series. The way the story evolves from different perspectives leaves the reader unstable in any of their assumptions, and the slow disturbing unfolding of new information was my favorite part of reading the series the first time through.
Good luck! And now to spend hours watching your entire back catalog
Wondrous author. The Ambergris books were masterful.
Movie didn't come close to the book, here. Although it was still a great movie.
I really like the first two books in the trilogy. They're each very, very different, but I liked them a lot. I'll admit, I didn't "get" the third book. I plan to re-read it someday and see if maybe I understand it more. Sadly, when I read it, nobody else I knew had, so I had nobody to discuss it with.
I loved the first, somewhat enjoyed the third, and absolutely, furiously hated the second. Hard series to recommend to anyone, despite how good it is.
@@CorpsmanPrivateer same, I loved the first and third but didn't like the second at all, but I respect Vandermeer for trying to pull off such a weird change in tone.
"Where lies the strangling fruit that came from the hand of the sinner I shall bring forth the seeds of the dead to share with the worms that gather in the darkness and surround the world with the power of their lives while from the dimlit halls of other places forms that never were and never could be writhe for the impatience of the few who never saw what could have been..."
The description of the tower/tunnel and the organisms contained within are unlike anything I've read in any other sci-fi/horror story.
My favorite part of the trilogy is when The Biologist interacts with the crawler in the tower; absolutely mind-blowing stuff!
Oh my goodness, I am so happy to have found your channel. UA-cam has been lacking in proper analyses of this book and you've knocked it out of the park!
I've finished Annihilation, and I just recently completed the 2nd book in the trilogy "Authority". Given the end of this video, I'm guessing you haven't completed it yet. But I have to say, there's a particularly horrifying part in the later half of that book that I think you'll have a great time analyzing.
Keep up the good work!
SPOILERS FOR ANNIHILATION AND AUTHORITY.
I think that the crawler is something completely different. It's stated that the lighthouse keeper was a pastor long before he moved to the coast where area X is. He had found a glowing sliver on the ground and when he reached down to pick it up, he felt a sharp pain on his finger, but the sliver was gone. Even after having it checked by the local doctor, there was no sign of any wound. He then became ill and it is unknown at what time the crawler came about, but I think that the crawler used the mind of the lighthouse keeper as a template, and the writing on the walls are his past sermons, and the actions the crawler takes are its interpretations of the lighthouse keeper's sermons.
also loved this book. The rest of the trilogy not so much.
It’s all good, you just can’t expect the same food in every course of the feast.
I can’t remember how I stubbles upon your channel but every since I can’t miss a video. I believe it was a three body video. Keep doing what you do 🤟🏼
Ooo very excited to see you're making videos about this series, please keep it up!