Axis

By: Robert Charles Wilson

Narrated by: Scott Brick

Wildly praised by readers and critics alike, Robert Charles Wilson's Spin won science fiction's highest honor, the Hugo Award for Best Novel.

Now, in Spin's direct sequel, Axis, Wilson takes us to the "world next door"—the planet engineered by the mysterious Hypotheticals to support human life, and connected to Earth by way of the Arch that towers hundreds of miles over the Indian Ocean. Humans are colonizing this new world—and, predictably, fiercely exploiting its resources, chiefly large deposits of oil in the western deserts of the continent of Equatoria.

Lise Adams is a young woman attempting to uncover the mystery of her father's disappearance ten years earlier. Turk Findley is an ex-sailor and sometimes-drifter. They come together when an infall of cometary dust seeds the planet with tiny remnant Hypothetical machines. Soon, this seemingly hospitable world will become very alien indeed--as the nature of time is once again twisted, by entities unknown.

©2007 Robert Charles Wilson (P)2008 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

“The long-anticipated marriage between the hard sf novel and the literary novel, resulting in an offspring possessing the robust ideational vigor of the former with the graceful narrative subtleties of the latter, might finally have occurred in the form of Robert Charles Wilson's Spin.…Wilson does so many fine things, it's hard to know where to begin to praise him.” —The Washington Post

Much enjoyed

If you like the end of the world type of books this one is a winner. I loved the characters and the story was entertaining and well narrated.

Not really "Spin 2" but I found it worthwhile

If you want to read about the continuing life stories of the characters from "Spin" you are mostly out of luck. This one explores some of the IDEAS presented in the first book and takes the reader into the world beyond the arch - a place both mundane and fantastic. As in "Spin," big weird stuff happens in the sky - an image which I always find compelling. Also as in "Spin," plenty is left unexplained. I have come to love Scott Brick's narrations, and he does a fine job here. I'll say what someone else said in their review as well - it is much better than most science fiction out there.

Good first one was better.

Good book. First one was better mostly because I found it a bit difficult to keep track of the different characters. At the beginning as the story kept jumping around from place to place.

hypothetically speaking it's a great series

I listen to the trilogy and enjoy it every time. Spin is better but this carties on. vortex continues to the end.

OK but not terribly exciting

3, maybe 2.5 stars. I had difficulty maintaining my interest in Axis. It just seems very slow and tedious. I often felt like saying, "Enough already with everyone's thoughts and feelings, tell me more cool sci fi shit." (But I never actually said that out loud.) RCW has ideas. I would like a novel from him that is a little shorter and loaded with cool, weird ideas. Despite my low/avg review, I will read Vortex some day.

Scott Brick is an OK narrator, but his phrasing can be a little monotonous and irritating at times.

imaginative. Narration a bit over the top.

the core idea is quite interesting characterization good sometimes excellent. descriptive language is excellent and the novel flows quite well. Could be a little faster paced in places

Hard to follow up a masterpiece like Spin.

While a good addition to the spin universe, this one felt less polished, with a bit more filler. The crisis didn't seem as immediate, not much in the way of character development, and the revelations telegraphed well in advance.

Not the kind of sequel I look for.

SPOILER SPOILER(Kinda) If you read Spin and are looking for additional material on Tyler Dupree and his life as a fourth, your out of luck. It seems to me he is treated as an afterthought where he is only discussed for a few paragraphs. Diane is in it more in the later chapters but more as an auxiliary character. Read the summary and expect nothing else because you wont get it. But it is a decent book with more info on the hypotheticals. The ending is a bit of a letdown the climax was less than insightful an more or less just a restating of what was discussed by Jason Lawton. Robert Wilson should have just finished Spin with one word END.

Enjoyable Sequal but much less compelling.

I loved Spin, I enjoyed this book, but it wasnt nearly as interesting and the characters were also a little less compelling. But i still liked it.

Enjoyed learning more about the hypotheticals

It was nice learning a little more about the hypotheticals in this book. while overall the book was enjoyable, it feels like a little story with stretched along way