The alternate history first contact adventure Axiom's End is an extraordinary debut from Hugo finalist and video essayist Lindsay Ellis.
Truth is a human right.
It’s fall 2007. A well-timed leak has revealed that the US government might have engaged in first contact. Cora Sabino is doing everything she can to avoid the whole mess, since the force driving the controversy is her whistleblower father. Even though Cora hasn’t spoken to him in years, his celebrity has caught the attention of the press, the Internet, the paparazzi, and the government—and with him in hiding, that attention is on her. She neither knows nor cares whether her father’s leaks are a hoax, and wants nothing to do with him—until she learns just how deeply entrenched her family is in the cover-up, and that an extraterrestrial presence has been on Earth for decades.
Realizing the …
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
The alternate history first contact adventure Axiom's End is an extraordinary debut from Hugo finalist and video essayist Lindsay Ellis.
Truth is a human right.
It’s fall 2007. A well-timed leak has revealed that the US government might have engaged in first contact. Cora Sabino is doing everything she can to avoid the whole mess, since the force driving the controversy is her whistleblower father. Even though Cora hasn’t spoken to him in years, his celebrity has caught the attention of the press, the Internet, the paparazzi, and the government—and with him in hiding, that attention is on her. She neither knows nor cares whether her father’s leaks are a hoax, and wants nothing to do with him—until she learns just how deeply entrenched her family is in the cover-up, and that an extraterrestrial presence has been on Earth for decades.
Realizing the extent to which both she and the public have been lied to, she sets out to gather as much information as she can, and finds that the best way for her to uncover the truth is not as a whistleblower, but as an intermediary. The alien presence has been completely uncommunicative until she convinces one of them that she can act as their interpreter, becoming the first and only human vessel of communication. Their otherworldly connection will change everything she thought she knew about being human—and could unleash a force more sinister than she ever imagined.
So much dialogue!! I found myself annoyed. It started so great but by the end I found the main character annoying and her actions weird…. iykyk. I didn’t like it and I felt like it had a lot of potential. Not going to read the next one.
So much dialogue!! I found myself annoyed.
It started so great but by the end I found the main character annoying and her actions weird…. iykyk.
I didn’t like it and I felt like it had a lot of potential. Not going to read the next one.
Axiom's End is a delightful race from a first contact to the beginning of understanding on a very individual, even intimate level.
I have been, as I assume many of the early readers have, a long-time follower of Ellis' works. Of course, going from video essays on film theory to a novel is quite a leap, so I still went into this not quite knowing what I expected. I knew that there were aliens, I think? And it took place in the Bush years? Not much beyond that.
Well, there were indeed aliens, and as promised, there was indeed W in the world. Beyond that, however, was some pretty dang good action, some emotional heaviness that I very much was not expecting, and a question of how well one can truly empathize with someone different from you on a so fundamental a level as planet-of-origin (as well at trying to …
Axiom's End is a delightful race from a first contact to the beginning of understanding on a very individual, even intimate level.
I have been, as I assume many of the early readers have, a long-time follower of Ellis' works. Of course, going from video essays on film theory to a novel is quite a leap, so I still went into this not quite knowing what I expected. I knew that there were aliens, I think? And it took place in the Bush years? Not much beyond that.
Well, there were indeed aliens, and as promised, there was indeed W in the world. Beyond that, however, was some pretty dang good action, some emotional heaviness that I very much was not expecting, and a question of how well one can truly empathize with someone different from you on a so fundamental a level as planet-of-origin (as well at trying to empathize with other humans, too, which we have a hard enough time doing as it is.)
The prose was a bit coarse at the beginning, but quickly smoothed out. I suspect if I were to reread the book, I may even revise this assessment, too. Ellis' writing is well suited to both action- and emotion-filled scenes; though the prose itself never really wowed me it still very much worked. I got notes of Orson Scott Card (without the zealous homophobia), Cixin Liu (without the what-if-women-were-bad-actually), and Dan Simmons (with less John Keats) from the page, all authors whose writing I enjoy for their ability to get me wrapped up in a book. I may have stopped reading Card and Liu, but I'm definitely looking forward to more Ellis!
