Seconds, For Good and Bad

Book Review: Authority by Jeff Vandermeer

2.5 stars

Check out that cover, people -- a crazy-looking, hare-like rabbit (a modern March Hare?) with a broken cell phone.  Intriguing, isn't it?  Especially given how much I enjoyed the first book in this trilogy (Annihilation), I was excited about this book.

Then I opened the book and started reading it.  This is why you don't judge a book by its cover.  Sometimes the cover is way, way more interesting than the book.

It's hard to describe this book and everything that was disappointing about it, but it was sort of like a spy thriller meets The Office only without any intrigue or humor.  One of the reviews on the cover made a comparison to the Lost TV series, and I get that it was similar in the sense that there is something mysterious going on with Area X that our protagonist is trying to figure out (perhaps like people on Lost were trying to figure out WTF was going on in their bizarre world smoke monsters and buttons you have to push), but otherwise, um, nope.  Not seeing it.  One main difference is that things actually happened on Lost.  A second main difference is that the audience was also confused and curious about the mysterious events on Lost.  A third main difference is that the characters in Lost were interesting (if annoying--like Jack and Kate) and we cared about at least some of them (Hurley!!!).  In Authority, there were possibly two facts that were revealed, one about the protagonist's experiences within the organization that employs him to direct the researchers investigating Area X -- this was a great big DUH -- and another about Area X itself -- another DUH that was also kind of strangely vague.  Before that was all kinds of boring things.  Even the parts that were obviously supposed to be suspenseful and surreal and eerie were just...blah.  Whatever.  I really didn't care who put that cell phone there if only for the love of god something would happen!  The characters were not well-developed, and despite having spent a lot of time in our protagonist's head, it wasn't clear what he was thinking or what was motivating him much of the time.  But this book and Lost do have one big thing in common: the ending was confusing and a let-down.  (In the case of Lost, a major let-down.  In the case of Authority, only a minor let-down because, well, the whole book was a let-down so you were hopeful that things would get really good there at the end but you weren't really expecting it.)

There was one funny thing, when one of our protagonist's colleagues made a weak joke that the hole/tunnel into Area X is this many rabbits tall and this many rabbits wide, and that was only funny because I look so favorably on mentions of rabbits and I was so desperate to find something appealing about this book. 

This said, I will push on to read the last book of the trilogy and see if it makes up for how dull this book was.  

Not invested in the Southern Reach trilogy but intrigued by the "strange events in the workplace" concept?  I have read much, much more enjoyable books about people working in bizarre, fucked-up, eerie settings.  May I recommend Kings of Infinite Space by James Hynes (4 stars)?  This is straight-up "it sucks to be working for the Texas Department of General Services in the (Austin-like) city of Lamar, TX, oh shit, now it sucks even MORE" satirical fiction/horror.  By the same author, The Lecturer's Tale (4.5 stars) was a real prize in the skewering academia humor/horror category.  And I cannot pass up this opportunity to plug The Ax by Donald Westlake, a strong 5.5 star powerhouse of dark humor, page after page of it, about the job search.

So that was a second book failure in my opinion.  Let's see if I can do better with a second outfit.  (Yep, I am a master of the subtle transition.)

Day 10: Repeat Item (from the previous day) -- Wednesday, 11/12/14

I make a point of not repeating items from one day to the next, so this was a bit of a stretch for me.  I took the easy route and wore the same plain black pants as the day before.  I kept things simple and low-key with a black/cream/dark green color palette and gold accessories, but I think my outfit was much less boring than the book Authority (even though I wore it in a much less intrigue-imbued office) so I declare victory.  (OK, being more interesting than Authority is a pretty low bar, but whatever.)

Black pants (thrifted)
Cream/black polka dot blazer (thrifted, Target) -- I love the black around the edges and the fact that this is a relatively warm jacket
*Dark green T (Hanes--shortened by me)
Black buckle flats by Me Too [imagine them worn with black socks]
Gold chain link necklace (Ann Taylor)

Verdict: This was comfortable and I felt sharply dressed.  (A crisp blazer will do that to ya.)  I could have stood it had I worn a long-sleeved t-shirt underneath it on this unseasonably wintry day (8 degrees in the morning and up to 22 by 5 p.m.) but I was not quite so chilled as to feel cold at work, just intermittently a little on the cool side.  Wearing this blazer again later in the season, I'll need to wear long sleeves and possibly a scarf.