Jeff VanderMeer with Kim Fu — 'Absolution'

Third Place Books is delighted to welcome author Jeff Vandermeer to our Lake Forest Park store for a conversation about his final Southern Reach book, , in honor of its paperback release. Jeff will be joined in conversation by author Kim Fu.

This event is free and open to the public. For important updates, RSVP is highly recommended in advance. This event will include a public signing and time for audience Q&A. Sustain our author series by purchasing a copy of the featured book!

This event is co-sponsored by the North Cascades Institute, a nonprofit conservation organization working to inspire environmental stewardship through transformative learning experiences in nature. Learn more at ncascades.org.

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This event is free to attend. RSVP is recommended in advance.

The surprise fourth volume in Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach series—and the final word on one of the most provocative and popular speculative fiction series of our time.
When the Southern Reach trilogy was first published a decade ago, it was an instant sensation, celebrated in a front-page New York Times story before publication, hailed by Stephen King and many others. Each volume climbed the bestseller list; awards were won; the books made the rare transition from paperback original to hardcover; the movie adaptation became a cult classic. All told, the trilogy has sold more than a million copies and has secured its place in the pantheon of twenty-first-century literature.
And yet for all this, for Jeff VanderMeer there was never full closure to the story of Area X. There were a few mysteries that had gone unsolved, some key points of view never aired. There were stories left to tell. There remained questions about who had been complicit in creating the conditions for Area X to take hold; the story of the first mission into the Forgotten Coast—before Area X was called Area X—had never been fully told; and what if someone had foreseen the world after Acceptance? How crazy would they seem?
Structured in three parts, each recounting a new expedition, Absolution is a brilliant, beautiful, and ever-terrifying plunge into unique and fertile literary territory. There are some long-awaited answers here, to be sure, but also more questions, and profound new surprises. It is the final word on one of the most provocative and popular speculative fiction series of our time.

Jeff VanderMeer is the author of , the novels (Borne, The Strange Bird, and Dead Astronauts), and (Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance), the first volume of which won the Nebula Award and the Shirley Jackson Award and was adapted into a movie by Alex Garland. He speaks and writes frequently about issues relating to climate change as well as urban rewilding.

Kim Fu is the author of, most recently, the story collection Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century, winner of the Washington State Book Award, the Pacific Northwest Book Award, and the Danuta Gleed Literary Award, as well as a finalist for the Giller Prize, the Ignyte Awards, the Shirley Jackson Awards, and the Saroyan International Prize. Stories in this collection have been selected for Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy and Best of the Net, featured on Levar Burton Reads and Selected Shorts, and optioned for television and film. Fu's third novel, The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts, is forthcoming with Tin House in March of 2026.

Founded in 1998 in Lake Forest Park, Washington, Third Place Books is dedicated to the creation of a community around books and the ideas inside them. With locations in Lake Forest Park and Seattle's Ravenna and Seward Park neighborhoods, Third Place Books is proud to serve the entire Seattle metro area. Learn more about their event series at thirdplacebooks.com/events.

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