I mentioned that Sunday I was going to make my first trip out of the house with my daughter’s family heading down to a local wildlife sanctuary. What I didn’t realize was that the sanctuary had been the model or Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach trilogy. Yes, I spent the afternoon in Area X, right next to the Lighthouse.
If you enjoy contemporary speculative fiction that doesn’t rely on abnormal sex or extra gaseous appendages, VanderMeer’s trilogy is recommended. However, if the New Weird is your direction, much of VanderMeer’s earlier work is probably more to your liking (Veniss Underground comes to mind). Like many authors through the years and around the world, VanderMeer moved from the early vigor of literary rebelliousness to a more mainstream narrative form, albeit about a mysterious and dangerous part of a future United States.
A Celebration of Reading 