Authority by Jeff VanderMeer

From the Paperback:
After thirty years, the only human engagement with Area X-a seemingly malevolent landscape surrounded by an invisible border and mysteriously wiped clean of all signs of civilization-has been a series of expeditions overseen by a government agency so secret it has almost been forgotten: the Southern Reach. Following the tumultuous twelfth expedition chronicled in Annihilation, the agency is in complete disarray.
   John Rodriguez (aka "Control") is the Southern Reach's newly appointed head. Working with a distrustful but desperate team, a series of frustrating interrogations, a cache of hidden notes, and hours of profoundly troubling video footage, Control begins to penetrate the secrets of Area X. But with each discovery he must confront disturbing truths about himself and the agency he's pledged to serve.
   In Authority, the second volume of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy, Area X's most disturbing questions are answered... but the answers are far from reassuring.

"His first full day was only four hours old and he already felt contaminated by the dingy, bizarre building with its worn green carpet and the antiquated opinions of the other personnel he had met. A sense of diminishment suffused everything..."

This second book was a little tougher to get into than the first, I enjoyed it as much as the first though. Authority had a different feel to it than Annihilation. This book felt like a spy book: paranoia, mind control, and politics. It was just as unsettling as book one, but in a completely different way. The synopsis says "questions are answered," and they are somewhat. I ended up with just as many questions given the new insights at the end. I highly anticipate the final book Acceptance coming out in September 2014. I can't wait to see what form the final volume in this trilogy will take, hopefully a fun mix of the first two.