Annihilation

A nameless biologist joins an expedition into Area X, a coastal stretch the government has sealed off and lied about for decades. Eleven teams went in before hers. The first paragraph tells you the tower is really a tunnel going down, and that one sentence resets your footing for the whole book. VanderMeer keeps the science precise and the dread vague, which is the trick. The biologist narrates like a field report, clipped and exact, even as the place starts rewriting her from the inside. You finish it without firm answers about what Area X is, and that is the correct amount of answer.