Area X (Jeff Vandermeer) - Farrar, Strauss and Giroux - 2014 - 595 pages

Author Vandermeer released the story as three books ("The Southern Reach Trilogy") in 2014.  For me, this was a hard volume to read.  I am generally not entertained by doomsday scenarios for mankind.  After many stops and starts, I finally ended my agony.  At times I going only read 5-10 pages in a sitting because I found it to be so depressing and repetitive.  I wanted to know the secret of it all knowing all along that the author was never going to explain it.  I suppose there is some overriding concept of Nature reclaiming its own.  Or, maybe it's some all-powerful alien force that nobody could really understand.  Stephen King and others seemed to like this "series" but I just don't get it.  From the very beginning it seemed to me that the author was making it up as he went and had no idea where it was going.  I am very happy now to be free of Area X and able to read other stuff.  [JAM 7/20/2018]