Authority is the second book in Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach trilogy, a science fiction/dystopian series set in the near future. The story follows protagonist John Rodriguez, also known as “Control.” Control is the new director of the Southern Reach, a government facility and organization tasked with containing and understanding Area X, an ecological anomaly in Florida. Area X is a strange, mutated wilderness with a shimmering border. After 12 expeditions, Area X is still a mystery. Very few people sent into Area X make it out alive; the most recent exception is a biologist whom Control attempts to interrogate with little success. The weirdness rises to apocalyptic dread as the unexplained phenomena start to affect Control’s mind, making him wonder if the world is as it seems. What made Area X, and can it be reasoned with?

Among other accolades, the first book in the trilogy, Annihilation, won the Nebula Award and the Shirley Jackson Award. Annihilation was also adapted into a movie by Paramount in 2018.

This study guide refers to the 2014 Kindle e-book edition published by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.

Plot Summary

Protagonist John Rodriguez, who goes by the nickname Control, has been a military man since leaving high school. His grandfather, Jack, and his mother, Jackie, prepared him to follow them into a career in military leadership. Control’s latest assignment is at the Southern Reach, a government organization/facility on Florida’s coast. The facility oversees Area X, an ecological anomaly that appeared about 30 years ago. The Southern Reach has sent multiple expeditions into Area X to find answers, but hardly anyone has returned. Control reads reports from past expeditions, but he is disheartened to find no clues to what created Area X, why most people do not survive it, or what is inside. All the departments at Southern Reach—from the science division to linguistics—can give him are theories. Though they have hundreds of samples or flora and fauna, some video footage, and a few survivors’ limited, vague recollections, they do not have any objective answers.

As the new director, Control is replacing the prior director, Cynthia, who went on the last expedition to Area X but did not return. Grace, the assistant director, is an antagonistic force who denies Control’s constant questions. Instead, Grace tells him to read the files and interview the survivors.

The protagonist from the first book, a biologist who now wants to be called Ghost Bird, is one of three survivors from the last expedition. Control tells Grace he needs to interview her. Ghost Bird is defiant, quippy, and stubborn with him. Like the other survivors, she often states she does not remember much of Area X, but Control knows she does not have amnesia. He works hard to establish a bond with Ghost Bird to get her talking. She tells Control some interesting facts about the flora of Area X’s wilderness, but that is all.

Control uncovers more clues as he searches Cynthia’s office. He finds a map of Area X; an extensive line of text that looks like a sermon; and a plant from Area X growing in a locked drawer. He shows the plant to Whitby, a “loony” scientist, and his other colleagues. They inform him that the plant cannot be killed; they tried poisoning it and neglecting it, but it is immune. Like all the other samples from Area X, the plant cannot be contaminated by heavy metals or other toxins. The biologist and other survivors are completely pure and healthy, too.

After multiple sessions with Ghost Bird, Control begins to get some intel. Ghost Bird remembers the brightness inside the lighthouse in Area X, and that Area X is a pristine wilderness. One day, she tells him she cannot be trapped in her cell any longer. Then Ghost Bird yells that she is not the biologist, repeating the line over and over, which confuses and disturbs Control. The next time he interrogates her, he takes Ghost Bird outside for their questioning. He has become attached to her and feels guilty she lives in a tiny cell. She is more vulnerable and freer outside, and they play a game of back-and-forth questions and answers, taking turns.

One day, Control watches the footage of the first expedition, which was led by a man named Lowry, and which Grace warns him is disturbing. Lowry’s group turns from confident and joking into scared, mentally unstable lunatics in Area X’s wilderness. A few days in, the expedition leader suddenly has a clone. This copy terrifies Control.

Eventually, as he pieces together more clues, Control realizes he has been hypnotized by his direct supervisor in the government, a shadowy figured known only as The Voice. Whenever they would talk, The Voice would use keywords to erase Control’s memory or make him carry out specific tasks. Control finds the hypnosis phrases in Cynthia’s notes since she was a psychologist. Control swears at The Voice, who pushed him to ask the biologist certain questions that caused her to feel mentally off.

After Control’s fight with The Voice, Central, the government body in charge of the Southern Reach, relocates Ghost Bird. Grace tells Control his pet project is no longer there, warning him that she is in control. Soon after, Control uncovers Whitby’s secret shrine to Area X, which includes strange paintings of mutated animals. He realizes Whitby has lost his mind and plans to suspend him to get mental help. But as Control reaches for the door to the science division to tell the others, he realizes there is no handle. It is just a wall—a living, breathing wall. Area X is expanding. Panicked, he rushes to tell someone, finding Grace. He grabs her arm to run, but Cynthia, the prior director, arrives looking like an alien of flora and fauna. She drips emerald light, bringing Area X to them, and Grace willingly accepts it. Control rushes outside.

At his house, his mother Jackie is waiting for him. She reveals that The Voice was Lowry, the only survivor of the first expedition. Lowry wanted answers and used Control to get them. Jackie tells him Area X is dangerous; they have tried to contain and understand it, but they do not know its goals and cannot negotiate with it. Area X is spreading here and in other pockets of the country where the survivors were found. She tells Control that he was her weapon into Area X, as the biologist was to Cynthia. She reveals the biologist escaped from Central. Control decides to find Ghost Bird.

After a long journey, he finds Ghost Bird on a far northern coast. Though she almost shoots him, he promises he is not going to capture her. Instead, he says he believes her about not being the biologist. By now, he has learned that she is a copy of the biologist, but not a perfect one. She looks like the biologist and has some of her memories, but Ghost Bird is her own person. She is amazed that he believes her. Ghost Bird admits she lost her “brightness” from Area X, which has formed a lagoon with a door into Area X behind her. She needs to discover who she is, so she jumps into the lagoon, which portals her back into Area X. Control jumps in after her.