If you liked the ‘Annihilation’ movie, you absolutely NEED to read the book

There is frequently a disclaimer that accompanies Alex Garland’s new movie Annihilation: it’s nothing like the book.

At first glance, based on the trailer, the movie positions itself as a fight against creepy things that go bump in the night. Natalie Portman, playing Lena the biologist, must go into “the shimmer” with a team, to solve a mystery that’ll save her dying husband, who went into Area X previously. And then things get (very, very, very) weird.

In the book, the struggle is much more ethereal — it’s a quest to understand the un-understandable, to fight to hold onto one’s self in the face of extreme uncertainty, a quest to live in a landscape that seems to be fighting back. Read more…

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