M F ALFREY

The Sci-Fi animation Scavengers Reign caught my eye a while back and has been on my to-watch list ever since. After finally getting round to watching it, I’m certainly glad I gave the series my time. Before I talk about the series itself and why it was so worth it, let’s look at what exactly it was that caught my attention in the first place.

Ever heard of Jeff VanderMeer, author of the Southern Reach trilogy? No? Maybe you’ve heard of the film adaptation of the first book of the same name, Annihilation, starring Natalie Portman and Oscar Isaac? If not, then I highly recommend both book and movie. Why am I talking about them? Well, the imagery. That’s what grabbed my attention in the Scavengers Reign trailer. It reminded me so much of the beautiful yet macabre vistas and scenes in Annihilation. The movie took my breath away when I saw it. The flora and fauna were simply divine in how it was portrayed on the screen. Even the instances of death were depicted in a stunningly artistic manner akin to a fusion of modern impressionist art and Victorian anatomical drawings. It was discovering the movie was adapted from a book that led me to VanderMeer in the first place. So, off I popped to Waterstones for a copy which I promptly devoured in a couple of days.

Why was I attracted to the book after having seen the movie? Surely that would spoil it, right? Well, despite their similarities in terms of plot and what happens on screen and on the page (they are fairly similar), it was the medium that piqued my curiosity. As a writer, I really wanted to see what kind of prose prompted the imagery in the movie and wondered how a book could convey the atmosphere and imagery as well, if not better. I wasn’t disappointed. Jeff VanderMeer’s style is sublime and creates a truly unsettling alien world. In my opinion, the book wins hands down, though that’s not to diminish the movie in any way at all, it’s simply a different medium. However, the effect was one of inspiration and I wanted to have a crack at writing something equally as alien, which is when I drafted Feeding the Gods, a short story which is now featured in a speculative sci-fi collection entitled Symbionts, in which an alien spore puts humanity to sleep and reshapes our planet altering the flora and fauna.

This is why, when I saw the trailer for Scavengers Reign, I got very excited. The animation style, that floral palette of colours and the sheer random diversity of the flora and fauna, not to mention the symbiotic relationships the planet’s denizens have with each other and any lifeform unfortunate (or fortunate) enough to be stranded there. It was exactly how I imagined Earth in Feeding the Gods. I binged the series fairly quickly, and that was due to the various character plots threaded through the narrative. It’s not only pretty to watch, but there are enough speculative elements there to keep fans of such fiction engaged. This world these castaways find themselves on is brutal. But so was their world before, working in deep space for a company only too happy to exploit them, again carrying that through line of symbiosis. A through line the writers double down on in the series, which in turn I think prompts you to reflect on the symbiotic relationships present in our own modern lives.

I don’t want to give away any spoilers (for any of the above-mentioned fiction) so I won’t go into the details of the storylines. But if you enjoy fiction that is on the boundary of bizarre, with the potential of inducing mind-expanding self-reflection on the human condition, then you might enjoy Scavengers Reign. And if you enjoy that, then definitely go check out the Southern Reach trilogy and Symbionts too.