The Southern Reach

I'd long been aware of the writing of Jeff Vandermeer, but had always avoided it, having somehow gained the impression that it was going to be irritatingly wacky in a "Gosh, I'm Just So Crazy" way. That his own publishing company is called Cheeky Frawg didn't help matters.

But I was intrigued by the pre-publication blurbs for his Annihilation, the first book in a trilogy about a weird, possibly alien-infected, zone of danger and peculiarity and the people attempting to get to grips with it: a development of the ideas from the classic Strugatsky brothers' novel Roadside Picnic (filmed as Stalker). That all three books in the trilogy were already written and being released over a period of only nine months helped--no waiting around for years to read the end of the story, with the added worry of the author dropping dead before they finished writing it.

Annihilation was in fact very good indeed, and now I'm reading the newly released second book, Authority (the final volume comes out in September), which may be even better. I seem to have sorely misjudged Vandermeer, and I apologise.

it doesn't hurt that all three books, published by FSG in the US, have beautiful  cover designs by Charlotte Strick, making use of unsettling illustrations by Eric Nyquist. The line art is printed with metallic ink, which is very effective in the flesh. (Click all images for bigger versions.)

Nyquist is also responsible for the end papers to each volume, picturing the lush and weirdly wrong wildlife of Area X.

Nyquist has even animated the three covers for added freakiness.

 

The books are published in the UK by Fourth Estate, and have the misfortune to have perfectly good cover designs that are kicked completely into the shade by Nyquist and Strick's work.

So Pretty!

Always late for the bandwagon, that's me. At the end of last year, Roberto Bolaño's posthumously published 2666 was released in its English translation, and started gathering rapturous reviews by the wheelbarrow-load.

2666 itself is made up of five shorter books, and there is some contention about how it was meant to be publised. Bolaño knew he was dying as he wrote it, and as a way of ensuring some financial security for his family, he wanted the five books published separately, one per year. His family, on the other hand, felt that the five together made one cohesive whole, and decided to have it published as a single work.

In the US and the UK it was released as a big, fat hardback. This is as you might expect. However, the US publishers (Farrar, Straus & Giroux (FSG)) also decided to produced an edition in a different form: three separate paperbacks in a box. The first paperback contains the three shorter, novella-length books, while the two other paperbacks each contain one of the longer books.

This boxed set, designed by Charlotte Strick, was so handsome and so nicely done that it quickly sold out, and people like me who'd waited a bit before deciding to buy 2666 were left empty-handed. But now a second printing has been produced, and I finally got my hands on one. So here it is! Click for bigger versions.








Here's the panel from the bottom of the box with the details of the illustration elements.



For comparison, here are the US and UK hardcovers.




And finally, some other attractive Charlotte Strick book designs.