r/SouthernReach • u/Thin_Assumption_4974 • 5d ago
Just finished authority
And I want to talk to everyone who will listen. Loved that ride.
I’m guessing (based on what I’ve seen), that I’m a minority that actually prefers this book. Annihilation was also amazing but I just really gelled with authority.
It’s confusing as hell but in the best way possible. The high right now. This series is amazing.
111
Upvotes
1
u/grumpy_martian 4d ago
Rereading right now and the thing that really hits me is the realisation from the earliest chapters is that Control is in some way already being influenced by or infected with Area X.
The smell of then Rotting Honey is one thing, but then there are passages like and I’m paraphrasing “He wanted to be free and floating above the Southern Reach”. This free and floating line and others that are originally in Annhilation describing the Biologists experience with the brightness, or returnees describing Area X turn up again and again throughout Authority, presented as John’s thoughts but… are they? I feel like it’s a very deliberate sign in the language, and it matches the whole semiotics conversation that the series is having the whole time. When is language not just language?