Axiom's End - Lindsay Ellis

   2020; 372 pages.  Book 1 (out of 2) in the “Noumena” series.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : First Contact Sci-Fi; Alien Invasion Sci-Fi.   Overall Rating: 7*/10.

 

    It isn’t easy being the daughter of a wacko conspiracy theorist.  Especially when said conspiracy nut abandoned his wife and children to devote his full time to promoting those wacko conspiracy theories.

 

    But Cora Sabino, the wacko's daughter, is coping.  She’s changed her last name as an act of defiance, and frankly doesn’t care if she never sees her father, Nils Ortega, again.

 

    Nils is telling everyone who'll listen that aliens from outer space have visited us, liked our planet, and decided to stay a while.  He says the government has tried communicating with them, but so far those ETs either cannot or choose not to respond.  Nils claims to have a copy of a top-secret government memo in his hands detailing this, but hasn’t said how he got his hands on it.

 

    Cora just tunes out all the hoopla.  As long as Nils leaves her and the rest of the family out of his farce, she’s content.  But hey, what’s that she just spotted outside in the dark?  No, it isn’t Nils.  And happily, it doesn’t look like some sort of CIA agent either.

 

    You know, it kinda sorta looks like an alien.

 

What’s To Like...

    Axiom’s End is Lindsay Ellis’s debut novel, where we get to gasp along with Cora when she unexpectedly meets up with an ET dubbed “Ampersand”.   That’s not a spoiler since the Amazon blurb tells you this is a First Contact Science Fiction novel.  Ampersand is on a mission, and there are forces, both terrestrial and otherwise, who are out to stop him.  Or her.  Or it.  Whatever.

 

    The story's pacing is good.  The first challenge in any human-ET partnership must be to figure out what makes the other one tick, and that naturally takes time.  Cora discovers that a.) at least some parts of Nils’s conspiracy claims are true, b.) that others in her family have had dealings with ETs, and c.) that a government relocation program dubbed ROSA, which stands for Refugee Organizational and Settlement Agency, is not dealing with political refugees from places like Iran or Ethiopia.

 

    The aliens (yes, there’s more than one of them) do not have the ability to speak out loud, and for the most part, do not understand any terrestrial languages.  I was impressed with the way Lindsay Ellis handles this; it was really easy to keep track of when a human was speaking, when an alien was telecommunicating, and when either of them were just cogitating.

 

    The music references were plentiful and included such newer acts as Neko Case, Fergie, Panic! At The Disco, Avril Lavigne, My Chemical Romance, and Ani DiFranco.  A few groups like Pink Floyd, Nickelback, and the Beatles were thrown in for geezers like me.  It was neat to learn about “The Great Filter” theory, which addresses the issue of: why, if there are so many stars, planets, and galaxies out there, do we see zero evidence of intelligent life anywhere?

 

    The ending is okay, but straightforward and without any twists.  As things built towards it, I really couldn’t think of any other plausible way to wrap things up.  There is a sequel, Truth of the Divine, but I haven’t picked it up it yet.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Chyron (n.) : an electronically generated caption superimposed on a television or movie screen.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.4*/5, based on 4,181 ratings and 488 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.73*/5, based on 21,093 ratings and 3,407 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    “I saw this sliver of white from over the hedge across the street, and I assumed my mind was playing tricks on me.  But then I saw it again in the living room, and I didn’t stick around to get a look at it.”

    Bard sucked on the inside of his lips, considering.  “How do you know it wasn’t a white person?  Like a white human person?”

    “I don’t mean white as in a race; I mean white as in the color white.”

    “White’s not a color.”

    Why did it have to be Bard? Cora lamented.  Why does Luciana need to surround herself with such pedants?  (pg. 55)

 

    “Were it my choice, for that reason alone, I would have sought another planet.  I do not know why they chose to seek asylum on a war-torn planet populated by seven billion flesh-eaters.”

    She looked around, feeling like she was missing something.  “You mean . . . us?”

    “You do eat flesh,” he said.  “You did it in front of me.  Yesterday.”

    It took her a moment to realize he was referring to the burger she’d gotten at In-N-Out just outside of Sacramento.  “That’s . . . beef,” she said gently.  (pg. 102)

 

Black olives.  The answer to the eternal quandary of what if one were to combine snails and old tires into a foodstuff.  (pg. 97)

    There are some nits to pick.  There’s a fair number of cusswords—12 of them in the first 10% of the book—and in a broad variety, including a couple of f-bombs.  I wouldn’t call that excessive, nor did it distract from the story itself, but those who like their sci-fi “clean” may be turned off.

 

    There were a few typos, such as “tooth brushing” instead of “toothbrushing”, and “ill advised” instead of “ill-advised”.  I tend to forgive these in self-published books, but I was reading the hardcover version, put out by St. Martin’s Press, a publishing company large enough to have its own Wikipedia page.  The proofreaders must’ve been having a bad day that day.

 

    The main issue, which has been noted by other reviewers, is with the writing style.  I won’t call it “weak”; but it felt clunky at times.  Some of the metaphors felt forced, ditto for a couple of “rule of threes” usages.  Google it.

 

    But hey, let’s cut a bit of slack here.  As a debut novel, Axiom’s End is an above-average effort, and I’m sure even Shakespeare’s first manuscript was rough around the edges.  It may not be the most polished sci-fi book I’ve ever read, but it still kept my interest.

 

    7 Stars.  One last shout-out, this time to the use of “lorem ipsum” in the story.  Anyone who is familiar with the esoteric language from which this phrase is derived, will smile when they come across it here in Axiom's End.