Others: Negative From the publisher--- It is winter in Area X, the mysterious wilderness that has defied explanation for thirty years, rebuffing expedition after expedition, refusing to reveal its secrets. As Area X expands, the agency tasked with investigating and overseeing it--the Southern Reach--has collapsed on itself in confusion. Now one last, desperate team crosses the border, determined to reach a remote island that may hold the answers they've been seeking. If they fail, the outer world is in peril. Meanwhile, Acceptance tunnels ever deeper into the circumstances surrounding the creation of Area X--what initiated this unnatural upheaval? Among the many who have tried, who has gotten close to understanding Area X--and who may have been corrupted by it? In this New York Times bestselling final installment of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy, the mysteries of Area X may be solved, but their consequences and implications are no less profound--or terrifying.
Genres: science fiction, horror, thriller
Lists: …
Jeff VanderMeer
2014 · 341 pages · 1 review
Others: MixedFor thirty years, a secret agency called the Southern Reach has monitored expeditions into Area X, a remote and lush terrain mysteriously sequestered from civilization. After the twelfth expedition, the Southern Reach is in disarray, and John Rodriguez is the team's newly appointed head. From a series of interrogations, a cache of hidden notes, and more than two hundred hours of profoundly troubling video footage, the secrets of Area X begin to reveal themselves.
What made the match, strongest first
Agustina Bazterrica
2015 · 224 pages · 15 reviews
Others: Leaning positiveWorking at the local processing plant, Marcos is in the business of slaughtering humans—though no one calls them that anymore. His wife has left him, his father is sinking into dementia, and Marcos tries not to think too hard about how he makes a living. After all, it happened so quickly. First, it was reported that an infectious virus has made all animal meat poisonous to humans. Then governments initiated the “Transition.” Now, eating human meat—“special meat”—is legal. Marcos tries to stick to numbers, consignments, processing. Then one day he’s given a a live specimen of the finest quality. Though he’s aware that any form of personal contact is forbidden on pain of death, little by little he starts to treat her like a human being. And soon, he becomes tortured by what has been lost—and what might still be saved.
What made the match, strongest first
Chuck Tingle
2025 · 272 pages · 3 reviews
Others: Overwhelmingly positiveLucky Day is the latest from Chuck Tingle, USA Today bestselling author of Camp Damascus and Bury Your Gays, where one woman must go up against horrifying odds to save the world. Four years ago, an unthinkable disaster occurred. In what was later known as the Low-Probability Event, 8 million people were killed in a single day, each of them dying in improbable, bizarre ways: strangled by balloon ropes, torn apart by exploding manhole covers, attacked by a chimpanzee wielding a typewriter. A day of freak accidents that proved anything is possible, no matter the odds. Luck is real now, and it's not always good. Vera, a former statistics and probability professor, lost everything that day, and she still struggles to make sense of the unbelievable catastrophe. To her, the LPE proved that the God of Order is dead and nothing matters anymore. When Special Agent Layne shows up on Vera’s doorstep, she learns he's investigating a suspiciously—and statistically impossible—lucky casino. He needs her help to prove the casino’s success is connected to the deaths of millions, and it's Vera's last chance to make sense of a world that doesn’t. Because what's happening in Vegas isn't staying there, and she's the only thing that stands between the world and another deadly improbability...
What made the match, strongest first
Stephen King
1978 · 352 pages · 17 reviews
Others: Mostly positiveNovelist Paul Sheldon has plans to make the difficult transition from writing historical romances featuring heroine Misery Chastain to publishing literary fiction. Annie Wilkes, Sheldon's number one fan, rescues the author from the scene of a car accident. The former nurse takes care of him in her remote house, but becomes irate when she discovers that the author has killed Misery off in his latest book. Annie keeps Sheldon prisoner while forcing him to write a book that brings Misery back to life.
What made the match, strongest first
Waubgeshig Rice
2023 · 320 pages · 2 reviews
Others: MixedIn this gripping sequel to the award-winning post-apocalyptic novel Moon of the Crusted Snow , a brave scouting party of hunters and harvesters led by Evan Whitesky must venture into unknown and dangerous territory to find a new home for their close-knit but slowly starving Northern Ontario Indigenous community more than a decade after a world-ending blackout. For the past twelve years, a community of Anishinaabe people have made the Northern Ontario bush their home in the wake of the infrastructural power failure that brought about governmental and societal collapse. Hunters and harvesters, they have survived and thrived the way their ancestors once did, but their natural food resources are dwindling, and the time has come to find a new home. Evan Whitesky volunteers to lead a dangerous mission south to explore the possibility of moving back to their ancestral home, the “land where the birch trees grow by the big water” in the Great Lakes region. Accompanied by five others, including his daughter Nangohns, a great archer and hunter, Evan begins a journey that will take him through the reserve where the Anishinaabe were once settled, the devastated city of Gibson, and a land now being reclaimed by nature. But it isn’t just the wilderness that poses a threat as they encounter other survivors. Those who, like the Anishinaabe, live in harmony with the land. And those who use violence to fulfill their needs. . .
What made the match, strongest first
Waubgeshig Rice
2018 · 224 pages · 12 reviews
Others: Mostly positive"A daring post-apocalyptic novel from a powerful rising literary voice. With winter looming, a small northern Anishinaabe community goes dark. Cut off, people become passive and confused. Panic builds as the food supply dwindles. While the band council and a pocket of community members struggle to maintain order, an unexpected visitor arrives, escaping the crumbling society to the south. Soon after, others follow. The community leadearship loses its grip on power as the visitors manipulate the tired and hungry to take control of the reserve. Tensions rise and, as the months pass, so does the death toll due to sickness and despair. Frustrated by the building chaos, a group of young friends and their families turn to the land and Anishinaabe tradition in hopes of helping their community thrive again. Guided through the chaos by an unlikely leader named Evan Whitesky, they endeavor to restore order while grappling with a grave decision. Blending action and allegory, Moon of the Crusted Snow upends our expectations. Out of catastrophe comes resilience. And as one society collapses, another is reborn."--provided by publisher.
What made the match, strongest first
Not a fanI didn't enjoy acceptance too much but I do respect immensely that in the volume two and three in this series and Vandermeer didn't just rewrite her valuation all over again but it did something completely different and that's praiseworthy for sure
