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A review by ketreads
Axiom's End by Lindsay Ellis
medium-paced
3.0
Axiom's End is Lindsay Ellis' (yes, the video essay creator) debut book which is an ambitious and unique take on first-contact set in modern day America.
I hadn't heard much about this book, other than it being compared to other media I've previously enjoyed, and that it follows a translator as a main character.
Minor Spoilers:
This book follows the main character of Cora as she takes on the role of alien translator. Instead of being a well respected and earning of her role (as I was lead to believe by the blurb), it turns out she is actually a college dropout. To say this was a disappointment was a bit of an understatement. Ellis' writing, while not offensively bad, did initially feel more juvenile than I was expecting. This fact doubled with the fact that I felt mislead on the crux of our main link to the first-contact story, did have me judging the book harsher than I should have for the first half. While Cora isn't a compelling character, the way she is written does feel refreshingly real. She doesn't go from college dropout to alien-hero. She's a young adult who spends most of the book in way over her head and I appreciated the reality of it all.
The aliens themselves are the best part of this book. It's clear Ellis has spent a lot of time and effort crafting both a unique biology, but also society that functions VASTLY different from our own. Having the creatures be so close to our understanding, only to whip that rug from underneath us with every new reveal of their culture and alien-ness was well done. Though, sadly, this also had (maybe intended) effect of confusing the hell out of me. I'd often find myself relying upon our main characters' ability to explain information we had just been presented. Otherwise, I would barely understand it. This may just be my bad reading comprehension, or it may be a debuted authors flaw with such an ambitious project.
Overall, the story was mostly anti-climatic. While I did enjoy the story by the end, I did find myself expecting more in a lot of scenes. I may continue with the series just to see how Ellis' style progresses as it has major potential!
I hadn't heard much about this book, other than it being compared to other media I've previously enjoyed, and that it follows a translator as a main character.
Minor Spoilers:
This book follows the main character of Cora as she takes on the role of alien translator. Instead of being a well respected and earning of her role (as I was lead to believe by the blurb), it turns out she is actually a college dropout. To say this was a disappointment was a bit of an understatement. Ellis' writing, while not offensively bad, did initially feel more juvenile than I was expecting. This fact doubled with the fact that I felt mislead on the crux of our main link to the first-contact story, did have me judging the book harsher than I should have for the first half. While Cora isn't a compelling character, the way she is written does feel refreshingly real. She doesn't go from college dropout to alien-hero. She's a young adult who spends most of the book in way over her head and I appreciated the reality of it all.
The aliens themselves are the best part of this book. It's clear Ellis has spent a lot of time and effort crafting both a unique biology, but also society that functions VASTLY different from our own. Having the creatures be so close to our understanding, only to whip that rug from underneath us with every new reveal of their culture and alien-ness was well done. Though, sadly, this also had (maybe intended) effect of confusing the hell out of me. I'd often find myself relying upon our main characters' ability to explain information we had just been presented. Otherwise, I would barely understand it. This may just be my bad reading comprehension, or it may be a debuted authors flaw with such an ambitious project.
Overall, the story was mostly anti-climatic. While I did enjoy the story by the end, I did find myself expecting more in a lot of scenes. I may continue with the series just to see how Ellis' style progresses as it has major potential!