Annihilation

Four unnamed women, a biologist, an anthropologist, a psychologist and a surveyor, cross the border into Area X, a stretch of coast that has been closed to the public for three decades. They are the twelfth expedition; earlier ones ended in disappearances, suicides, aggressive cancers and mental trauma. The story is told through the biologist’s field journal.

Her husband belonged to the previous expedition and came home unable to explain his return. Soon after arriving, the team finds an unmapped structure with a staircase spiralling into the ground and strange writing on its walls. Annihilation is the first book of the Southern Reach series.