![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
2015 Book Reviews #66 and #67
Oct. 25th, 2015 02:37 pmAuthority by Jeff VanderMeer. Rating: 4. I wasn't sure that coming out of Area X was going to continue to work--generally in horror, the more you know, the less scary it is. But VanderMeer does a nice job of changing the playing field from an unknown land that morphs people terribly into a bureaucratic jungle that changes people in subtler ways. He also manages several reveals that recategorize what we learned in the last book without actually making things more clear (in the best way possible.)
Acceptance by Jeff VanderMeer. Rating: 3. Unfortunately, here's where things fall apart a bit. Still creepy, but we've now hit the "we know too much" point without actually answering any questions in a useful way. We learn a bunch more about exactly what happened to a number of characters for the first two books, but none of it is actually that revelatory--it doesn't change what we knew from before in a meaningful way. There are some better guesses as to the nature of Area X, but not particularly satisfying explanations. However, while I found this book to be a bit disappointing, it does not in the slightest subtract from the excellence of the previous two.
Acceptance by Jeff VanderMeer. Rating: 3. Unfortunately, here's where things fall apart a bit. Still creepy, but we've now hit the "we know too much" point without actually answering any questions in a useful way. We learn a bunch more about exactly what happened to a number of characters for the first two books, but none of it is actually that revelatory--it doesn't change what we knew from before in a meaningful way. There are some better guesses as to the nature of Area X, but not particularly satisfying explanations. However, while I found this book to be a bit disappointing, it does not in the slightest subtract from the excellence of the previous two.
