After thirty years, the secret government agency known as the Southern Reach has been unable to solve the mysteries of Area X, a seemingly malevolent landscape wiped clean of human civilisation. Or is "pristine wilderness" a better description? Expedition after expedition has failed to come up with answers, often disastrously. The Southern Reach, in the process, has become a backwater agency, forgotten and underfunded despite the urgency of its mission. Following the tumultuous twelfth expedition chronicled in the first book, the agency is in complete disarray. Enter John Rodriguez (aka "Control"), the Southern Reach’s newly appointed director. Working with a distrustful team desperate for success, Control must navigate a maze of frustrating interrogations, a cache of hidden notes, and hours of profoundly troubling video footage. What does it all mean? Can he reach some kind of understanding before it’s too late?