I loved the 2000s element of this book and thought the plot was interesting. While not my perfect book, it certainly was enjoyable.

-- This review is several years past the release date due to the many issues of 2020, but a huge thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an early copy of the book.

I think this was a fairly standard book. It doesn't break a lot of new ground, but it was enjoyable to read.
I really have enjoyed a lot of Ellis's contributions to the greater pop-culture sector of the internet. Her video essays were often phenomenal, although I haven't kept up with them since she left YouTube. Her publishing videos were great, and the Omegaverse videos? My goodness, there was a lot of enjoyment there.

And a lot of that translated over to this book. Ellis's voice is present, and that's enjoyable.

That being said, I think there were some mishaps along the way. I don't know if the book was over-written or under-written, over-edited or under-edited, but something doesn't quite add up. It feels like a couple of books wearing a trench coat, but also, not fully formed books wearing a trench coat, and maybe the bottom book is also just two books wearing a trench coat. It doesn't necessarily feel like three books mashed together but a book that was built around a mashup skeleton of older books that had the meat carved off and added back on.

That sounds really harsh, and it kind of is, but at the same time, I did enjoy myself while reading this. I haven't gotten to the sequel, though, and it's been a couple of years, so there's that. Solid 3.5 stars, and I always round up. Enjoyable, probably forgettable.

Axiom's End by Lindsey Ellis is a good science-fiction novel. I was drawn to it because I liked the look of what seemed to be a vintage style cover. I also appreciate it when women authors write in this genre because it seems to still be dominated by men. I look forward to reading the sequel, Truth of the Divine.

I did not finish Axiom's End and I believe it's simply because I was trying to get out of my comfort zone and read a book that I am not the ideal audience for. Although I like the idea of science fiction for the plot, oftentimes the writing style and details are too nerdy for me. In this particular case, I had trouble relating to the forced, specific 2007 references that were not my version of 2007, along with all of the video game and role playing references. I also struggled with the characters speaking in ways that seemed unnatural to me and having interactions with each other that didn't seem fluid and were only present for the sake of the plot/tension building.

That all being said, I did find the plot GOOD, fast, and fun. I just could not get over the writing style to stay on board with the superb suspense factor.

Amazingly rich science fiction. Lindsay Ellis knows how to pull at your heart strings and keep you on the edge of your seat. For fans of E.T. and Stand By Me.
I ugly-cried at the end.

I think this book could have gone way too weird very easily, but Lindsay Ellis walked the line pretty masterfully. It made me nostalgic for the 2000s while also feeling super relevant. And I was very entertained!

This is an incredibly imaginative opening to a first contact series, containing twists, fears, hopes, and untold results for humanity as we know it.

I wanted to like this so much more than I did. The concepts are very interesting but for me the character and storytelling just never quite gets there.

Not really my genre but I enjoy Lindsay Ellis' YouTube videos so figured I'd give it a shot. Didn't finish it so can't recommend or not recommend it.

Really fun and interesting approach to the classic sci-fi story of first contact. It's set just a bit in the future and revolves around a young woman, Cora, who finds that she is able to communicate with one of a group of extraterrestrials. Meanwhile, her father is a famous anti-establishment figure and pop culture hero, known for sharing government materials that otherwise would be kept secret. Did he stumble onto the alien arrival? Is she going to connect with her father to finesse the story after she gains the confidence of the alien creatures? Am I offering up storylines that might not be part of the book so you can still have a sense of discovery as you read? Maayyyybbeee. :-)

In any case, Axiom's End is a really enjoyable read that's sure to please hard sci-fi fans as well as those who enjoy stories about younger folk taking on The Man and the system so that they can follow their own moral compass. Recommended.

DNF Just could not get into this one. There were some basic things that turned me off at the beginning, writing no-no's that felt amateurish, so much so that I gave up on the whole thing.

AXIOM'S END is the first novel in the Noumena series, and is a well-written, engaging alternate-history, first-contact adventure. It is also a very assured debut novel. I enjoyed it, and look forward to reading the next book in the series.

Published by St. Martin's Press on July 21, 2020

Nils Ortega is a whistleblower or a nut or a combination of the two. In an alternate 2007, Nils is sort of a Julian Assange except his scoops involve claims that the government is hiding knowledge of aliens on Earth. He’s right, of course, but that doesn’t make life easier for Nils' family members who are harassed by the government or paparazzi or, eventually, aliens.

Nils’ daughter Cora has changed her last name to Sabino and deleted her profiles but still lives under the shadow of her father. Cora doesn’t know what to make of rumors about the Ampersand Event. Maybe an asteroid hit the Earth near Pasadena. Maybe it was an alien spaceship. Witnesses disappear and return days later with no memory of what happened. Some return with brain damage. Nils reported a leaked memo about captive aliens that has gone viral. Some of Cora’s friends think Nils is a hero. Cora thinks he’s a bad dad. She lost her scholarship in linguistics after the memo leaked. The government is working hard to shut down Nils and isn’t afraid to use his family against him.

Cora wants nothing to do with the controversy until she’s contacted by an alien who looks like a really big insect. She calls the alien Ampersand. The alien needs help communicating with humans. Cora, having knowledge of linguistics, seems like a good choice to be an intermediary, even if it isn’t a choice Cora would willingly make. Saving her family and possibly the planet eventually becomes Cora’s driving motivation. Cora’s mother, who knows more about aliens than she ever revealed, assures Cora that the aliens are incapable of communicating with humans. Cora eventually learns that it can be done, but communication comes with a price.

Axiom’s End makes the point that aliens will likely be so different from humans that understanding them may be impossible. Humans don’t even understand each other all that well, particularly when they come from different cultures. The aliens in Axiom’s End have a complex social structure. They aren’t very nice and they tend to be paranoid about potential threats, much as humans are. It may not be possible to bridge those gaps but Cora has the right blend of idealism and pragmatism to give it a try.

Novels about relationships between humans and aliens don’t usually take the topic as seriously as Axiom’s End. It’s as difficult to generalize about aliens as it is to generalize about people, which is presumably the lesson that Lindsay Ellis wants readers to internalize. Some aliens/humans are better than others. Some aliens/humans aren’t very good at all. And let’s face it, if aliens are too much like humans, either aliens will wipe out humans or humans will wipe out aliens because getting along isn’t in the cards. Maybe the only question is whether it will happen in the near or far future. But maybe communication creates at least the possibility of hope.

Through the struggles of both Cora and Ampersand to relate to each other, the novel suggests that it may be possible to have empathy for beings we don’t understand. Ellis made a strong effort to portray Cora as a decent but conflicted person who never knows if she is helping aliens or humans or if her efforts, either way, will make any difference. The alienness of Ampersand is convincing, although making him look like a praying mantis suggests a failure of imagination.

Characterization is the high point of a novel that, in the end, asks more questions than it answers. There’s nothing wrong with that in science fiction, a genre that encourages readers to ponder the unknowable. While Ellis sets up a plot that never quite takes off, the unanswered questions are sufficiently compelling to make the novel worthwhile.

RECOMMENDED

This was fun, unexpected, original, and supremely page-turning. I read it in one night! Lindsay Ellis' voice and narrative style ages like fine wine, and Axiom's End is her best work to date.

I loved the premise of the book, but it just didn't win me over. I felt the characters were a bit flat and at times, the book plodded along too slowly. I could see a certain niche of people enjoying this, but overall, it just was not for me.

A wholly unique and interesting alternate universe. Really enjoyed the world-building in this story even if the plot did meander a bit at times. Will be engaged to find out more about Ampersand and his world. Relationships in that world seem, well, otherworldly and I never truly cared enough about the Cora relationships to want more of those. Her family so far just seemed like a way for her to think of Olive in dangerous times in order to raise the stakes.

I will be excited to see where this series (just assuming) ends up going. My biggest desire would be more story about the aunt and the CIA agent, both separately and apart.

Axiom’s End by Lindsay Ellis follows Cora Sabino, an aimless former linguistics major, as she has the (mis)fortune of encountering an extraterrestrial lifeform known as Ampersand. As the government takes her family captive, she agrees to work as Ampersand’s translator and discover as much as she can about Ampersand’s people. Most of the book follows Cora’s increasing fears of xenocide against Earth as she learns about Ampersand and his past, with a conclusion that solves her immediate problems but doesn’t carry much weight.

Axiom's End is good. It's not great, but it never stops being good. The book is well structured and Lindsay Ellis clearly put a lot of hard work into making sure the rules and extraterrestrial lore all checked out and was interesting to learn about. However, this book fails in one of the most crucial elements of a captivating story. The main character is not very interesting. Ampersand, Nills, Luciana and her associates were all a lot of fun to read about. But the character they surround, Cora, does not spark joy.

We all wonder about Government coverups of contact with aliens. The news regularly approaches this topic.
This is the first book I have read that deals with the subject. I don't usually read science fiction, but thought
this book a worthwhile read.

I definitely was interested in this book mainly because I am a huge fan of Lindsay Ellis's video essays and wanted to support her first writing endeavor, and boy, was I not disappointed! This is a fantastic piece of science-fiction, full of amazing characters, world-building, and some ALIEN aliens. I was blown away with the level of detail put into the society and biology of the aliens, but also how Cora finds ways to relate to them anyway.

Definitely recommend if you are looking for a first-contact tale that is different than the usual fare (and plenty of fun government conspiracies as well). Looking forward to the next one!

I discovered Axiom's End through Ellis's YouTube channel, the contents of which I binged sometime early into quarantine. Her erudite visual essays gave their subject matter (most of which I was previously familiar) new light, and when she mentioned a book she had written about aliens, I thought, "Absolutely."
Axiom's End is very good, but far slower paced than I had anticipated. If you're hoping for easy explanations that open the door for simple conflict, Axiom's End is not for you – while the alien tech is cool, the book is not about any of that. It's far more interested in government and power, the ethics of secret-keeping, "culture shock" on an interstellar scale. It explores all these questions and more, while being clear in its intent to answer none of them.
While Axiom's End gripped me during specific portions, and I certainly gobbled up the ending, it took me a while to get through this book – I wouldn't call it a compulsive page-turner. That being said, I enjoyed the story immensely, and will likely read the sequel when it is released. 4/5 stars