Axis

By: Robert Charles Wilson

Narrated by: Scott Brick

Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's summary

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

An entertaining story with no end.

The first 7/8 of this book is thoroughly entertaining. The end makes one wonder if the author believed the novel was finished or if instead he simply ran out of paper and didn't feel like traveling to the shop to get more.

Nice Sequel

This book is a good follow up to "Spin". I think it got a pretty werid at the end, but alot of sifi books do. Scott Brick is one of my favorate narrators.

A satisfying listen

Whatever the poor reviews say, this middle book provides a satisfying explanation of the Hypotheticals. The characters are not quite as well-developed as in Spin, but neither do they need to be. We already know Diane, and the others are given enough to make them sympathetic. If you enjoyed Spin, you should give this one a listen.

Great sequel, audio sounds off

If the the narrators voice didn't fade in and out on each word I might could have gotten past the first chapter. Get the Kindle.

Good followup

Not as good as Spin but a descent followup. Felt it ended a bit suddenly, looking forward to Vortex.

Appealing in a different way

I can understand why many did not enjoy Axis as much as they did Spin. Axis goes much further into the bazaar than Spin did. Though the human story element isn't as strong in this book, for those like me who want to delve deeper into the Hypotheticals, though, I believe you'll enjoy it. It would have been nice, however, if the character links between the two books were stronger.

Not as bad as some say

But not as good as first book in triology either. Story runs short on substance.

chapter error

it says chapter 5 in the middle of the chapter 2 audiobook. needs to be fixed

Not my favorite book sequel ever

Whereas the first book was brimming with intrigue about an incredible celestial and unstoppable event, this story seems to do a lot of world building and character narrative that I felt ultimately did not pay off.

Perfectly good sci-fi, but not for me.

Spin off Axis

What was happening when the author wrote this sequel? I listened intently to every word and tried to imagine the characters as they were introduced but they were not as fully developed as the first set of characters in "Spin". The unresolved issue of the Hypothetical s was, to say the very least, disappointing. I had in my mind's eye foresaw the ending a different way and felt cheated with the ultimate outcome. Why leave the readers with no loose ends tied up? The explanation was like the name suggests...hypothetical. No-one knew, no-one was willing to fully explain and no-one seemed to care after 2 books and a dozen or so characters were possessed with finding an answer. It seemed like a least one would have been given the answer to all the mysteries and held on to the info maybe for another sequel.
I did enjoy listening to Scott Brick read this novel and at times I was on the edge of my seat in anticipation, but not often enough.
Note to writers: please don't ask readers to invest in novels that even you don't know how it should end.