This was a painful read. I had hope after the first 2 book but was worried that there was no way to conclude the trilogy without a Deus Ex Machina move and I was right. VanderMeer does not do a Deus Ex Machina move to conclude the book to his credit but he failed to conclude the book. There are more open thread at the beginning of the book that at the end. I was very disappointed because we spent so much time on the obvious (Saul becoming the crawler) and had so many unanswered question (Who is Henry? What is Severance doing with S&SB? What happened to Control? Why do the biologist look the way she does? etc.) that it left a bad taste in my mouth as I finished the book. I guess we must accept that VenderMeek has no idea how to finish and complete the trilogy so he does. He does not even define what is Area X. As I said earlier, a painful read.
When I finished Authority I mentioned I was worried about how VanderMeer would be able to wrap this up, and it turns out I was kind of right. There was just something about this book that didn't work as well as the first two, which grabbed me by the throat and refused to let go until I had read them basically in one go. Maybe part of it was just that this was a return to Area X, and as a return it didn't present the same kind of unknown horror as when we were first in it in Annihilation. I don't think the ending wraps things up in a bad way, it just turned out to be a little less satisfying than I had hoped. But then, I'm not sure how else you could have ended it. I think he kind of wrote himself into a corner on this one and finished it up as best he could.
All this to say Acceptance is still a good read and VanderMeer's writing is unbelievable. It's worth reading the series for the first two books alone.
All this to say Acceptance is still a good read and VanderMeer's writing is unbelievable. It's worth reading the series for the first two books alone.
