Rather than picking up where Annihilation left off, we're introduced to the workings of the Southern Reach and it's attempts to make sense of the latest expedition into Area X. The new director, going by the name of Control, has an extremely hard time trying to gather credible information from a host of strange subordinates and an Assistant Director who is fiercely loyal to the former director and hell-bent on making Control's job as hard as possible. 
 Most of the story was extremely frustrating to me. There are a host of crazy new characters, but we learn almost nothing about them. Instead the story progresses thru a series of vague dialogues and seemingly red herrings. Things start to come alive in the last section of the book and I'll reserve my judgement of the series until after I've read the final installment. Let's hope we can get back to the Area X that was so intriguing in the first book!