Annihilation (+6 points)

 This week for the topic of "The New Weird" I read Annihilation. When I first started the book, I was honestly a bit confused. I felt myself trying to understand the characters and who they were, because I am so use to doing so when I read a book. I didn't understand why they were not telling me their names or their backstories. I was lost at first and it made me feel a bit uninterested. I'm a sucker for characters and I wanted to like the characters, but there was that disconnect there that made me feel a bit unsure.

As I continued to read though, I became more intrigued. I think what make this story so unique and interesting is because there is that disconnect and the fact that you don't know what's going on. There is so much "unknown" to this world they are searching. That is honestly what makes the novel scary. It is scary to not have any information and wander into a dark abyss full of endless possibilities. They do not know what truly lies in the "tower" or what caused the other team members to never return. The information that they do know is not enough to make any of it a safe situation. They know that there are mysterious creatures that can attack them and they know that many have not made it back alive. This unknown is a horror in this book and also a horror in the real world.

The fact that they had trouble trusting each other is also apart of the reason that this story feels so frightening and dreadful. Who do you trust? They all barely know anything about each other, and the main character discovers early on that one of them is using hypnosis on the others. It is all incredibly suspicious and that is also what makes this story such an eery one. 

The fear of the weird, strange and unknown is one of the scariest of all. We only know what we know and it is difficult for people to adjust to new surroundings and situations. In fact, the current pandemic has been a perfect example of that. It has changed the way people live, people have been sick and in hospitals, people have died even...it was a huge change and an "unknown" for people. This is sadly the case in many situations and is always a future possibility.