Southern Reach trilogy

A single-volume collection of the Southern Reach Trilogy, that tells the stories of three tropical expeditions.

Four scientists, all female--an anthropolotgist, a surveyor; a psychologist who is the leader; and a biologist, the narrator--infiltrate Area X, the twelfth expedition into this Edenic paradise that has claimed the lives of the previous eleven expedition members. However, it is the secrets these four women take in, rather than what they find there, that will likely be their downfall.

Area X is expanding, threatening the humans who have tried with little luck to explore and understand it. Winter rolls in causing even more peril for the last desperate team trying to reach a remote island inside the border, where they hope answers to Area X's origins will be found.

Area X has claimed the lives of members of eleven expeditions. The twelfth expedition consisting of four women hopes to map the terrain and collect specimens; to record all their observations, scientific and otherwise, of their surroundings and of one another; and, above all, to avoid being contaminated by Area X itself.