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A review by fake_gyllen
Axiom's End by Lindsay Ellis
1.0
I’m a huge fan of Lindsay Ellis. Her video essays on YouTube make it clear that she understands what makes or breaks a story, at least from a screenwriting standpoint, so when I first started reading Axiom’s End, I was excited to see how her sharp and witty commentaries would translate to an original story, especially knowing her influences and inside jokes.
Unfortunately, none of that could salvage this book. It’s clear from the very first page that she would’ve rather written a screenplay, resulting in prose that is downright unreadable. It’s chock-full of adverbs, it spends way too much time describing small interactions, and the writing has no rhythm or flow.
The story itself is derivative, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing and can easily be compensated for with strong characters and good worldbuilding, but sadly, none of these characters are interesting enough to root for, and the mythos is uninspired.
It gives me no pleasure to write this. I wanted it to be good, but sadly, I can only recommend it to aspiring authors because it’s a great example of everything you should NOT do when writing your first book.
Unfortunately, none of that could salvage this book. It’s clear from the very first page that she would’ve rather written a screenplay, resulting in prose that is downright unreadable. It’s chock-full of adverbs, it spends way too much time describing small interactions, and the writing has no rhythm or flow.
The story itself is derivative, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing and can easily be compensated for with strong characters and good worldbuilding, but sadly, none of these characters are interesting enough to root for, and the mythos is uninspired.
It gives me no pleasure to write this. I wanted it to be good, but sadly, I can only recommend it to aspiring authors because it’s a great example of everything you should NOT do when writing your first book.