This is the third time I’ve annotated Southern Reach text at Genius.com—this time from the beginning of Acceptance. I went a little metafictional this time, a little bit “found object,” too. I repurposed some scene fragments that didn’t make it into the trilogy and added some new text in the form of entries from Whitby Allen’s personal journal. In a potentially risky move I also included some of science director’s Mike Cheney’s shambolic novel-in-progress “Control,” in which he tries to make sense of the new director of the Southern Reach . . . although I think he’s really trying to make sense of his own experiences. Last but not least, no annotations would be complete without a reappearance of the Séance & Science Brigade.
But that’s not all! I invited Tom Abba from the U.K. to create a “shadow page” of annotations that depict what might’ve happened to Southern Reach staff left behind at the end of Authority. Abba is a director of Circumstance, which develops methods to link physical books to codependent digital content. 2015 will see publication of the first in a series of anthologies—‘a Volume of Circumstance’, containing work made in collaboration with Audrey Niffenegger, Tom Pollock, Nick Harkaway, Stark Holborn, and Lauren Beukes.
—Jeff VanderMeer
Previously: Annihilation, Annotated and Authority, Annotated
Acceptance is the third volume in Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach Trilogy, which was published throughout 2014. Area X, the hardcover compendium of the three books, was released in November.
Add your own fictional annotations to this excerpt on Lit Genius and win Southern Reach books.
Related:
Jeff VanderMeer and Sean McDonald in Conversation
Foreign Editions: The Southern Reach Trilogy
Jeff VanderMeer is an award-winning novelist and editor. His fiction has been translated into twenty languages and has appeared in the Library of America’s American Fantastic Tales and multiple year’s best anthologies. He writes nonfiction for The Washington Post, The New York Times Book Review, the Los Angeles Times, and The Guardian, among others.
For more, visit www.SouthernReachTrilogy.com.
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