Customer Reviews

Axis

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I don't know if Axis is meant to be the middle book of a trilogy, but it certainly feels like it. It falls in the same trap as many other "middle stories", attempting to build upon the ideas and themes of the first novel, with stunning revelations of its own, but unable to fully flesh out its own purpose without bringing the entire arc to conclusion.

This may be up for debate, but I do believe reading Axis requires one to have read Spin. While the most of the primary players in Axis make their debut here, the story truly builds on the events of Spin. And let's just say the Hypotheticals (the galaxy-spanning artificial intelligence that set the Spin in motion) "remember" the events of the first novel.

This is not a great Robert Charles Wilson book...which is kinda like saying "this is a slow Ferarri". Wilson has been in a class of his own since "A Bridge of Years", writing character-driven sci-fi for geeks with a passing knowledge of cosmology and physics. To me, Axis reads a bit like Bios. Its short and to the point, hurtling along like a freight train toward a brick wall. Things feel like they won't end well. Characters get short-shrifted in service of the inscrutable plot.

But like most "middle stories" (I hate to say this, but I think "The Matrix Reloaded" is a good example), I think Wilson is building toward something huge. Spin was great because he expertly juggled big ideas, big science and great characters and the end of the book felt like closure. Things are much more open-ended in Axis.

I couldn't wait to read Axis. Wilson is one of my favorite writers, and a sequel to Spin would surely be awesome. It's hard to live up to expectations like that, though, and now that I'm done, I'm trying not to feel disappointed. On its own, Axis is a fine book, one of the few decent sci-fi novels this year. The problem is, I've come away from every other Wilson book going, "Wow, that was amazing!" With Axis, although I enjoyed it, I just wasn't blown away like I expected to be.

Wilson is an accomplished storyteller. He specializes in taking big, crazy "What-If" scenarios, making them plausible, and viewing them through the lives of credible human characters. What if Europe were suddenly replaced by a wilderness? What if gigantic war memorials began appearing from the future? In Spin, the Earth is enclosed in a barrier by an unknown alien power, nicknamed the Hypotheticals. After a few years inside the barrier, Earth emerges four billion years into the future, with a transdimensional gateway in the Indian Ocean that leads to a new, inhabitable planet, Equatoria.

Axis takes place thirty years later on the new frontier world. The story follows Lise, an intelligent, 30's-ish woman who is looking for clues to her father's disappearance 15 years earlier. Her search leads her into the shadowy world of the Fourths, humans who have illegally taken a Martian longevity treatment. The ultimate goal of the group is to establish contact with the Hypotheticals, through Isaac, a boy with special abilities. On the run from the authorities, Lise and her companions end up learning more about the Hypotheticals than they bargained for.

As with any Wilson novel, the writing is superb and the characters well-drawn. The ideas are interesting, and there's action and intrigue and romance. The story starts slowly, but builds to a ferocious climax. It's all good... yet it still seems smaller than his previous books somehow. It's like a kid in class who always gets 100%, and this time he got a 92%. It's still good work, and it's still better than almost all the other kids, but it's not quite the triumph you're used to. It's hard for a sequel to be as creative as its predecessor, and perhaps it's unfair to expect it to be. But there you go.

The verdict? I enjoyed Axis, and I recommend it. But if you're new to Wilson, start with Darwinia or Spin.

A solid sequel that suffers from middle-child syndrome (not getting enough respect or praise), AXIS is a much more intimate, smaller scaled novel when compared to the superb Hugo Award winning SPIN.

WARNING: SOME SPOILERS AHEAD:

Author Robert Charles Wilson deals with the post-SPIN world and where the arch that the Hypotheticals erected on Earth leads to combining two different narrative threads that ultimately converge. The first involves Lise Adams who is searching the new world for clues to the disappearence of her father a supporter of the Fourths who had a fascination with both their culture as well as the Hypotheticals themselves. Lise enlists a former lover Turk to help her find the last person who may have seen her father.

Intertwined with that story we also learn about Issac a boy specifically bred to communicate with the Hypotheticals by an off-shoot of the Fourths led by a former collegue of Lise's father. All of this is topped off with the threat of ash falling from the sky that appears to be the remains of Hypotheticals (biological, mechanical or both...we're not really given a clear answer on this)and the bizarre creatures that sprout out of the soil when they settle on the planet's surface.

AXIS is much more character driven and smaller in scale than SPIN was. Lacking that story's grander story makes it appear that AXIS is somehow a lesser novel but that's not the case at all. We may not make huge strides in finding out who the Hypotheticals are, what they want and what their interest is in humanity but we are given some answers even if many of them aren't quite as conclusive as we'd like. It appears that Wilson is setting the stage for a third more comprehensive novel with AXIS.

No doubt there will be those who will be disappointed by AXIS (I'm not one of them)and I'll probably earn negative votes for my opinion of the novel (although that's not what the voting here is for--it's to help those who haven't READ the novel make an informed decision as to whether or not it will be of interest to them NOT if someone who has read it agrees or disagrees with that opinion)but I found the novel interesting and a very good read that made up for the smaller scale in richer, detailed character development. AXIS may not provide the big answers to the questions raised in SPIN but it does make for an entertaining and enjoyable adventure.

Axis is entertaining and expands on Spin's novel idea, but seems incomplete. By the time it really starts to pickup and get interesting, it ends rather abrubtly. It doesn't exactly leave at a cliffhanger but it doesn't exactly answer all of my questions either. Good thing wikipedia shows a sequel in the works, Vortex, so I know we'll still have more to look forward to.

As always, Wilson writes good characters. The main character, Lise, actually seemed a tad underdeveloped, but her companion Turk was definitely interesting. One of my favorite aspects of Wilson's writing is that he always takes the time to focus on the characters and how they mould to the events that take place around them. His books always read like character dramas where the theme happens to be sci-fi. In my opinion, that is a trait of a good writer. Care about your characters first and make your reader care about them and the events and plot that surrounds them will seem more believable and engrossing. The characters here didn't quite have the depth that they did in Spin, but that could be becaue the book is shorter than Spin and focuses on more characters. Still, that's a definite strong point here.

I do wonder, however, whether we may have been better off waiting until this story was complete, with Axis and the next installment simply as one book, even it it were a lenghty read. I don't want to get into any spoilers, but the events that happened at the end of this book didn't quite seem... monumental enough to warrant writing an entire book about it. Wilson definitely shows us a new and bizarre aspect of the hypotheticals, but not much has really changed by knowing this. At least not yet. it felt like a pit-stop on the way to an even greater revelation that we've yet to know about. I'm sure that'll be revealed in Vortex, but who knows when that'll be out?

Also, seeing as how the book takes place entirely on Equatoria (the newly colonized world given to humans by the Hypotheticals), we don't really learn that much about the planet. It almost seems... boring really. A group of the characters lived in the desert on this planet, but the environment isn't described for any of the other characters with the exception of the major city, Port Magellan. Are there large plains areas or large forests or rivers or anything like that? Because of this, I pictured the entire planet to look like a large, mostly-empty desert. I'd also love to hear if there was any wildlife native to the planet that they'd discovered or if wildlife from Earth had been brought there and how they'd adapted. These little things aren't necessary to the story, but would help to make this new world believable and interesting.

Also, concepts of the story that seem important and pretty interesting are barely touched on at all. Like the arches. Not only is there an arch leading folk from Earth into Equatoria, but there's another arch on Equatoria that leads to yet another world and one from that world to another and so on. It's explained briefly that there are expeditions into the other world but it's just a barren rock. So there's not much there, but after several decades wouldn't they have found something? Doesn't anyone wonder why this barren planet was linked to theirs? These are things that I'd like to hear more about.

Another thing that bothered me was a character from Spin that makes an appearance. I won't say who, but this almost seemed cheap, like an added attempt to keep us interested in the story. The character makes a cameo at first and I liked that; just a nice reference to Spin to remind us that we're reading about the same world. But then the character becomes a major player and I didn't feel that the character was very distinguishable from many of the others in the book and I wasn't entirely convinced. Just one more thing that could've been expanded on to make the book fell more complete.

I did enjoy this book, for all I complained about it. The ashfall scenes were creepy and Wilson instills a sense of realism, even with something so strange as ash and decaying machinery dumping from the sky. He does a great job of making you feel like you are there. The ending of the book isn't bad. It's definitely interesting, but still I left wanting so much more. Granted, Spin is a hard act to follow and is also one of my favorite books of any genre, so maybe that's why I'm being so picky here. I'll still be buying Vortex as soon as it's out.

I hate to begin a review of a book by comparing it with a predecessor... but in this case I think that's what makes sense. Axis is the follow-up novel to the story that Robert Charles Wilson began in the book "Spin" which told an amazing story of Earth being enshrouded in some sort of bubble that causes time within it to pass very slowly relative to the rest of the Universe. The events of Spin deal with the human reaction to such a strange event and told the story of several characters who played key roles as Earth made it's way through the Spin-years and the discovery of the "Hypothetical" beings who caused those events.

Axis takes place thirty years after the Spin ended and centers around several characters who are located in a New World (sometimes called Equatoria) that was made accessible to the people of Earth through the Arch artifact that appeared in the Indian Ocean at the end of the first book.

Lise Adams is looking for her father who disappeared 12 years before while researching Fourths - people who have used the life-extending technology provided to Earth by our Martian descendants and who are living in their "Fourth" age which follows adult-hood. Turk, a bush pilot, finds himself as Lise's advisor, guide and protector during the development of events in Axis. Isaac is a child living in an apparent desert commune and is noted for his strange affinity with the Hypotheticals - the machine intelligences that caused the Spin event and the opening of the Arch to Equatoria. Sulean Moi is a spry but cronelike woman, possibly a Fourth, who befriends Isaac but is shown to have inscrutable and obscure interest in his connection to the Hypotheticals.

The story unfolds around a strange ash that unexpectedly begins to fall heavily upon the New World during the meteor shower that takes place annually each August 34th (yes, the 34th) on that World. The ash shows strange life-like traits and forms and seems to have a very strong effect on Isaac - causing him to feel a strong pull to the desert west of his home. Eventually all of these characters - and one of the characters from the events of the first book - are drawn with him to that desert to witness whatever it is that is calling to him.

As a basis of comparison, Spin was a story that blended strong science fiction with an interestingly human plot. The unfolding of the Spin and the development of the characters as they react to the disappearance of the stars with fear, indifference or fascination was endearingly human and therefore interesting to me as a reader. However, I did find that the characters were somewhat thinly veneered onto the overarching story involving the terraforming of Mars and the growth of insight into the true nature of the Hypotheticals. Honestly it isn't a huge problem for me... it just seems like a certain depth is missing at times, especially in how characters relate to each other. A key point is that the awesome backdrop of the Spin events more than made up for the emotional gap left by the characters.

Moving forward to the events of Axis, the story has changed but the depth of the characters has not. The strange events of this book are focused around the ash-fall and the "presence" in the west. There is nothing too awe-inspiring about these events - even as we begin to get insight into how they interact with Isaac. If anything the ash is inconvenient for the characters and much of the book is spent alternately watching people rush to get indoors during ash-fall and then waiting as they fixate on effect of the ash and the shapes that form within it. We do learn a little bit more about the Fourths and about Martian society (which is something that I'd be fascinated to learn about in-depth) but much of the story is simply confused people hiding from the alien ash-fall while also dodging a quasi-governmental group that is apparently half-heartedly tracking down Fourths in the New World.

The wrap-up to the story left me feeling very empty. I think the precise word is "Whaaat?" I had to sit there for a minute and try to determine what just happened. Why is the book called Axis? What happened to some of the minor characters who were chasing our somewhat boring heroes? And what was this strange, singular and mystical event related to the Hypotheticals? And what do I care?

My conclusion is this: There has to be a third book. The events of Axis are centered around awesome entities of inscrutable mentality and vast means to create world-changing events across interstellar space. So the apparently pointless (to humans) events that unfold in Axis have to be resolved in the next phase. I hope that I'm correct in assuming that axis refers to a midpoint around which the story revolves. I sincerely hope that this story is simply a cliff-hanger chapter that leads to the final story that Robert Charles Wilson wants to tell.

With that, I'm giving this book three stars... a middle-of-the-road review. I will say though, that a final book could redeem it all and improve my overall rating of this series. We'll just have to wait and see.

I was actually kind of surprised to see that this book has generated some very lukewarm reviews. I have to admit that in several respects, I liked it quite a bit better than Spin. It isn't perfect, and I'm going to note that it has a certain forgetability. It was a bit more than a month ago that I read it, and I had trouble remembering how it ended. This is bad, because the ending is kind of important for the world that Wilson is building.

There are some now-familiar themes in the book: distributed alien machines, singularity, the nature of immortality. I find it so interesting that no matter how the vehicle changes with the current science, life extension remains such a preoccupation in science fiction. I was a *little* less taken with the characters than I was in Spin-- this book felt more about the story than about the people. Perhaps why it was more forgettable?

One thing that I do remember well is that Wilson used some horror tropes here to entertaining effect. Nicely done genre-busting, in any case.

I would recommend this to people who enjoyed Spin as long as they keep their expectations in check. I am also looking forward to Vortex.

As some of the other reviewers noted, this is the middle book in a trilogy. This book builds on the ideas and themes that Wilson first introduced in Spin. As such, you absolutely need to read Spin to understand what is happening in this book. The point of Axis, in my opinion, is to elaborate on the hypotheticals (read Spin if you don't understand what they are). He also sets up some ideas near the end of the book that will almost certainly be explored in the final book of his trilogy. While this book does drag a bit in the middle of the book, it serves its purpose well. If you liked Spin, I would recommend this book. But do not expect closure at the end of the novel. Hopefully we will have that whenever Wilson closes this saga.

For me the author finally warmed to his subject in this book. I did not enjoy SPIN nearly as much as AXIS. I almost didn't finish SPIN. The characters seemed like emotional stick figures with no intrinsic being or motivation which did not further the plot. In AXIS the story and the world Mr Wilson is creating just kind of bloom. The characters are well developed and have lives that made sense. The story has an effortless flow. I am very sorry that I have to wait read the next novel, but it did not have a cliff hanger ending for my money. It is compulsively readable and it's hard to put it down when it's over, but that is a different matter.

If you liked SPIN at all, this is a must read!

Continuing the theme that presences larger than the human species must, therefore, be gods of some kind, the Hypotheticals now treat humanity to even more weirdness. This weirdness is interpreted by the various characters differently: there are skeptics and true believers, pragmatists and ascetics, all interacting with one another during a journey into the desert to learn the true nature of the Hypotheticals.

Although the story was somewhat enjoyable, this sequel does not carry the same weight and scope of "Spin". "Axis" reads like a mystery novel with elements of "Hyperion" woven in. The plot develops slowly, with teaser lines that never fully deliver. The characters from "Spin" make their appearances but are not central to the plot. Some of the new characters are sympathetic, but they don't quite throw any emotional switches in the reader. And the ending is somewhat anticlimactic.

Still...I enjoyed the book overall as an exploration into the complex nature of belief systems. It is a reasonable sequel to "Spin" but does not provide closure to "Spin's" concepts. I doubt that the story will end here.

Axis is the sequel to the 2006 Hugo award winning science fiction novel Spin. What I remember about Spin, is it being a BIG novel. Not in page counts or size, but in feel. It was full of big ideas. Big questions of morality, and science and ethics. Packing such themes in his story, you would expect the characters to become cardboard one dimensional passengers. Yet, despite the bigness of the story, Wilson tempered that bigness with wonderful look at the relationship between three friends, who aren't just along for the ride but are helping to influence events. That is where Spin really succeeded. The people guiding you through the tale, despite their flaws, were people you could understand.

With Axis, Wilson tries the same formula. Yet, while the ideas are still big, their is a briskness to the tale. The main characters aren't huge minds, big players on the scene, but normal people, stuck in a strange event. Here Wilson expands the story, taking it beyond what we understood in the first book, yet, without a "been there done that" feel.

Axis may not meet the level of the first book Spin. It definitely keeps giving readers what they are looking for. Compelling characters, and complex, yet comprehensible science fiction events.