Annihilation

""I can't think of a contemporary novelist anywhere whose work reflects the mood of the times so acutely [Houellebecq] seems to anticipate events; or any other writer who is so willing to show us the world as he sees it, not as we'd like it to be."" --Melanie McDonagh, The Evening Standard ""A compassionate, deeply affecting novel about love and death and the way we treat the dying . . . A novel of massive ambition, worthy of Balzac, deeply embedded in the reality of France, telling truths that come, in the end, straight from Pascal."" --David Sexton, The Spectator ""Annihilation may present itself as a political thriller, but at its heart is a far more intimate catastrophe . . . In the end, Annihilation leans neither towards hope nor despair, but towards a transcendent serenity--an eerie peace that arises, as everything arises in this novel, in the space to which warring forces give shape."" --Sam Byers, The Guardian ""I like to think Houellebecq is an optimist deep down, and this new novel supports my gut feeling . . . but there's still plenty of his trademark black-humored venom . . . The final part of the book is a deeply poignant, theistically suggestive masterpiece."" --Oskar Osprey, Artforum ""[Houellebecq] has become an undisputed literary titan . . . [In Annihilation] we're given Houellebecq at his most tender-hearted and vulnerable . . . Politics, the conspiracy at the heart of the book, all the rest of it--everything fades away. And all that's left, all that matters, is embracing the one you love."" --Camilla Grudova, The Telegraph