Jeff VanderMeer is writing a fourth Southern Reach novel

Just like Area X itself, the mindbending Southern Reach story is set to grow even larger. Jeff VanderMeer has confirmed that he’s working on a fourth entry in the series, which to date has included the books Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance. (The first was turned into a film by director Alex Garland.) In keeping with the alliterative titles, the new book will be called Absolution. It’s due out on October 22nd.

Absolution is coming around a decade after the series first started, and it’s billed as a prequel to the original trilogy, which followed a mysterious, dangerous, and expanding phenomenon known as Area X. There aren’t a lot of details about what ground the new book will cover, but VanderMeer had this to say in a statement:

Absolution is the most uncanny, heart-stopping, and, yes, fun novel I’ve ever written. I didn’t plan to write a new novel in the Southern Reach series — which is now a quartet! I was happy to be finished and done with it a decade ago, although there were always a few ideas about Area X that wouldn’t leave me alone. And then I had a series of revelations over the past couple of years that opened it back up for me, and pulled me back in with a force I couldn’t resist.

The experience was so powerful that I wrote without stopping, all day, every day, until one week I looked around in a daze and realized it was finished. It was exhilarating. Something about the characters and situations had made it easy, even irresistible, for me to just go for it. I’m excited for readers to come back to Area X with me — I think they’re going to be really surprised and sometimes shocked by what they find out.

As part of the announcement — as well as the series’ 10th anniversary — the first three books are also being released with new covers to match Absolution. VanderMeer books tend to have excellent cover art, but even by those standards, these new reissues from illustrator Pablo Delcan and art director Alex Merto look great. They’ll be available on July 30th, and you can check them out in the gallery below: