The release of a fourth book in this series made me realize I had waited too long to read the second. In this book a new Director of the Southern Reach tries to systematically understand the events of the first book while getting undermined and misled by superiors and staff, being stymied by the unknowability of Area X, and revealing his own generational trauma along the way. A series as vivid as it is  bewildering, I will not wait as long to read the next one.