Third and last part of the Southern Reach series, Acceptance is meant to give closure to a narration that is, by its very nature, elusive and disconcerting. Once again, I went in expecting no answer, but ready to enjoy all of its impossible questions.

Soon after finishing Annihilation, I went and picked the second book of VanderMeer’s trilogy – not just because I had included it in my monthly plan, but because I had to find out what else the author had in mind. With this I am not saying that I expected any form of clarification to the first novel’s outcome – instead, I was looking forwards to see how its madness could be expanded even further.

The second entry of this month’s special list of creepy stories isn’t strictly speaking a horror novel: Annihilation, in fact, is perhaps more often described as a science fiction book, and more accurately as a typical expression of the New Weird – a literary movement that crosses the boundaries between other types of speculative fiction, playing with their tropes to new and surprising ends. Or, in other words, something I definitely must read.