Eight horror books about the power of nature & the environment

Leah Rachel von Essen is an editor, writer, and book reviewer. She is a copyeditor and fact-checker at Encyclopedia Britannica, as well as a contributing editor, Adult Books, for American Library Association’s magazine Booklist. She writes regularly for Chicago Review of Books and is a senior contributor at Book Riot.

At Book Riot she tagged eight horror reads about the power of nature and the environment. One title on the list:

Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer

Nature is absolutely trying to kill you in the Southern Reach novels (it’s a series, but you can read this one on its own as well). Four female explorers are part of the 12th expedition to attempt to explore the menacing Area X, a place that nature has fully reclaimed. Why did previous expeditions go mad? What lurks in this dark swamp of a past, in the lighthouse, in the tower? Mystery, decay, horrible insects, a green that infiltrates you, a mold that can write. It’s full of shudders and Lovecraftian horror, the kind that you feel in the pit of your stomach when confronted by the uncanny.

Read about another entry on the list.

Annihilation is among Nina Allan's top ten strangest alien invasion novels, Martin MacInnes's top ten visionary books about scientists, John Searles's five novels set in abandoned places, Rin Chupeco's five top stories where nature does its best to kill you, and Nicholas Royle's ten top lighthouses in fiction.

--Marshal Zeringue