Axiom's End by Lindsay Ellis

Chase Goldberg Friedman, 

11th Grade

I've been a fan of YouTube media critic and Hugo award nominee Lindsay Ellis, for years, so when I heard she was publishing a book, I was thrilled! I pre-ordered it immediately, got a signed bookplate, went to a virtual author event, and stalked Lindsay on Twitter for updates and information. I was downright hyped.

And then I read it.

Axiom's End follows Cora Sabino, daughter of Nils Ortega. Years prior to the novel's events, Ortega leaked a memo revealing that the government was harboring alien entities, and fled the country; but most, including Cora, wrote it off as a hoax. However, soon after a mysterious crash in the desert, Cora encounters a creature, whom she names Ampersand, that proves the memo is completely true. The novel follows Cora and this creature across the desert, then to a US military base, in which Cora becomes his interpreter for human kind. Ampersand and his clan are fleeing from other members of their species, as Ampersand and his group possess a gene which their species feels they must eliminate. When powerful members of the species land on earth, Cora must help Ampersand to protect his genetic group.

The main problem I have with Axiom's End is its fundamental lack of content- not a lack of plot, as there is one, but more of a lack of things to do within that plot. A simplistic plot, like the one here, is operable in many instances, but it always needs to have some addition. For example, in a typical first-contact-with-extraterrestrial life story, it is an ordeal for humans to understand the aliens, and much remains unknown long after contact. In Axiom's End, the truth about the aliens is quickly revealed without much struggle, accompanied by the revelation of a staggeringly empty universe: Ampersand says that there are only three sentient species he knows of, including humans. The ease with which alien life is understood could work if there was any sort of drama on the plot side, but there is a profound lack of it. 2007 is not distant enough to make an engaging and interesting period piece, nor is it futuristic enough to be exciting. The aliens just aren't interesting creatures, especially because they don't require any special treatment or care.

Cora, our protagonist, could have elevated the story if she had any attributes besides caring about her family. What really weighs on my mind is how little we see any characters interact. Cora interacts with her mother and her siblings once at the beginning of the book; her father never; two FBI agents a couple of times, mainly for expository purposes; her aunt, exclusively to move the story along; Ampersand; the alien villain; and nobody else. The story is told from Cora's point of view, which means that we, too, interact with those people and those people only. This makes the simplistic plot painfully apparent and forces the book into a series of repetitive and monotonous encounters.

It's also hard to get to know someone when you can't hear their thoughts (the story is told in past tense third person) and don't see them interact with anyone or, really, do much of anything. Cora only seems to matter because of her relationship to Ampersand, which is the best part, both of the book and her character. The swapping of alien and human culture and their strange, taboo romantic chemistry, while not perfect, do provide several interesting moments. However, dramatic tension in Axiom's End comes exclusively from information that was not told to us, and then is told to us, which does not a dramatic moment make. For example, we learn that Ampersand has been keeping a terrible secret, and then that the villain has been keeping a terrible secret, and then that the government has been keeping Ampersand's terrible secret, etc. The villains have little-to-no presence and such a clear-cut and uninteresting motive that they could be replaced with literally anything antagonistic of similar strength (the US military, Darth Vader, Godzilla, me, but 400 feet tall, etc.) and have the same effect.

As I read, I was struck by how little I wanted to keep going. I did not care for any characters, I was not intrigued by the plot, and I simply wished for the book to end. If I had not previously chosen this as my book to review, I would have stopped reading. It's flatly unengaging and remarkably unremarkable.

Ellis is known for her love of the series Transformers. And the more I read, the more I was struck by how abjectly inspired it was by Ttransformers: a number of non-organic aliens crash-land on earth, pursued by alien persecutors of the same species, and there is also a sentient-ish planet. The elements of the universe are so unashamedly pilfered that the novel feels cheap. Ellis needs to explain transformers to us without using words like "alien robots," which is frustrating to readers who can't quite grasp what she means unless they realize she's referring to things which are not Transformers but may as well be. The writing does not help: while it's mostly competent, there's a lot of unintentional negative space where the language is empty, filled with superfluous descriptions and adjectives.

The ending is thoroughly unsatisfying, and the book feels unfinished. I will say, however, I am glad there was not any more book left, as I don't think I would've been able to go on. Do you know that feeling when you've got a cold and you're hungry and really tired? Imagine that - for about 350 pages - and you've got a good idea of what reading Axiom's End is like.