and remote behind its intangible border - an environmental disaster zone, though to all appearances an abundant wilderness. But suddenly, it's beginning to expand. The Southern Reach, a secretive government agency, has sent eleven expeditions to investigate Area X. One has ended in mass suicide, another in a hail of gunfire, the eleventh in a fatal cancer epidemic. Now four women embark on the twelfth expedition. Their mission is to map the terrain and collect specimens; to record all of their observations, scientific and otherwise, of their surroundings and of one another; and, above all, to avoid being contaminated by Area X itself. Get the trilogy that inspired Annihilation, the most anticipated motion picture of 2018, and uncover the dark secrets at the heart of Area X.