Spinning on its AXIS Robert Charles Wilson's sequel may be smaller in scale but it's still a fascinating...

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	• Axis Robert Charles Wilson Tor Books, 2007 - 304 pages average customer review:based on 21 reviews view larger image
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Spinning on its AXIS Robert Charles Wilson's sequel may be smaller in scale but it's still a fascinating well written novel

A solid sequel that suffers from middle-child syndrome (not getting enough respect or praise), AXIS is a much more intimate, smaller scaled novel when compared to the superb Hugo Award winning SPIN.

WARNING: SOME SPOILERS AHEAD:

Author Robert Charles Wilson deals with the post-SPIN world and where the arch that the Hypotheticals erected on Earth leads to combining two different narrative threads that ultimately converge. The first involves Lise Adams who is searching the new world for clues to the disappearence of her father a supporter of the Fourths who had a fascination with both their culture as well as the Hypotheticals themselves. Lise enlists a former lover Turk to help her find the last person who may have seen her father.

Intertwined with that story we also learn about Issac a boy specifically bred to communicate with the Hypotheticals by an off-shoot of the Fourths led by a former collegue of Lise's father. All of this is topped off with the threat of ash falling from the sky that appears to be the remains of Hypotheticals (biological, mechanical or both...we're not really given a clear answer on this)and the bizarre creatures that sprout out of the soil when they settle on the planet's surface.

AXIS is much more character driven and smaller in scale than SPIN was. Lacking that story's grander story makes it appear that AXIS is somehow a lesser novel but that's not the case at all. We may not make huge strides in finding out who the Hypotheticals are, what they want and what their interest is in humanity but we are given some answers even if many of them aren't quite as conclusive as we'd like. It appears that Wilson is setting the stage for a third more comprehensive novel with AXIS.

No doubt there will be those who will be disappointed by AXIS (I'm not one of them)and I'll probably earn negative votes for my opinion of the novel (although that's not what the voting here is for--it's to help those who haven't READ the novel make an informed decision as to whether or not it will be of interest to them NOT if someone who has read it agrees or disagrees with that opinion)but I found the novel interesting and a very good read that made up for the smaller scale in richer, detailed character development. AXIS may not provide the big answers to the questions raised in SPIN but it does make for an entertaining and enjoyable adventure.

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Excellent series

I really enjoyed this book. It did not have the great suspense and characters that Spin had. I do not hold that against Axis, spin is a hard act to follow. Very enjoyable book, keeps you interested throughout. Highly Recommended.

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Enjoyable follow-up to _Spin_ if not as epic or quite as good

_Axis_ is a sequel to Robert Charles Wilson's absolutely excellent novel _Spin_, which to me is one of the finest science fiction novels ever written. Picking up with events several years after the end of _Spin_, the novel took place entirely on the shores and deserts of Equatoria and its chief (and pretty much only) city, Port Magellan (Equatoria being a vast largely arid continent on the Earth-like world that the extremely mysterious Hypotheticals linked to Earth by the poorly understood Arch).

The novel does not - at first - involve any of the characters from _Spin_ but rather introduced the reader to a new cast. The main protagonists included Lise Adams, a young woman trying to research the disappearance of her father twelve years ago, a quiet family man whose interest in the mysterious Fourths (products of - on Earth - illegal Martian biotech, essentially products of drugs that greatly extend human life and reshape the body in many ways) may have lead to him either dropping out of sight and off the grid and joining them, or perhaps an unfortunate early demise by those opposed to the Fourths. Other characters included Turk Findley, a down on his luck bush pilot and former sailor and drifter, struggling to make ends meet, who had a brief romance with Lise years ago on an earlier attempt to uncover what happened to her dad and who gets caught up in her quest once again; Brian Gately, Lise's ex-husband, a earnest man who works for the Department of Genomic Security, which among other things is assigned to keep tabs on and shut down operations relating to and producing the illegal Fourths; Avram Dvali and Anna Rebka, two Fourths living in a cloistered community in the remote Equatorian desert, who have raised a strange boy by the name of Isaac, hopefully to communicate with the Hypotheticals; and Sulean Moi, a Martian on Equatoria (unknown to Earth authorities or anyone in Port Magellan), who is seeking out Isaac. All of these individuals have their fates intertwined when a mysterious ash-like precipitation rains down over Port Magellan and Equatoria, a bizarre substance that is soon discovered to be remnants of the Hypotheticals, a weird, alien "snow" or ash-fall from deep space.

The novel lacked the hugely epic quality of the earlier novel and didn't quite have its breathless pace, but it was still very enjoyable. Those there were still many questions left unanswered as to what the Hypotheticals are, why they did what they did, and how they operate or are constructed/evolved, some answers are provided. Mostly though the mystery deepened and perhaps that is not an altogether bad thing. I would have liked more fleshing out of the nature of the Fourths and of the Martians, though I liked Wilson's portrayal of Equatoria, of what it was like on the continent both in terms of human settlement and native fauna, flora, and climate.

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Good, but not nearly as satisfying of a reading experience as its predecessor

Axis is entertaining and expands on Spin's novel idea, but seems incomplete. By the time it really starts to pickup and get interesting, it ends rather abrubtly. It doesn't exactly leave at a cliffhanger but it doesn't exactly answer all of my questions either. Good thing wikipedia shows a sequel in the works, Vortex, so I know we'll still have more to look forward to.

As always, Wilson writes good characters. The main character, Lise, actually seemed a tad underdeveloped, but her companion Turk was definitely interesting. One of my favorite aspects of Wilson's writing is that he always takes the time to focus on the characters and how they mould to the events that take place around them. His books always read like character dramas where the theme happens to be sci-fi. In my opinion, that is a trait of a good writer. Care about your characters first and make your reader care about them and the events and plot that surrounds them will seem more believable and engrossing. The characters here didn't quite have the depth that they did in Spin, but that could be becaue the book is shorter than Spin and focuses on more characters. Still, that's a definite strong point here.

I do wonder, however, whether we may have been better off waiting until this story was complete, with Axis and the next installment simply as one book, even it it were a lenghty read. I don't want to get into any spoilers, but the events that happened at the end of this book didn't quite seem... monumental enough to warrant writing an entire book about it. Wilson definitely shows us a new and bizarre aspect of the hypotheticals, but not much has really changed by knowing this. At least not yet. it felt like a pit-stop on the way to an even greater revelation that we've yet to know about. I'm sure that'll be revealed in Vortex, but who knows when that'll be out?

Also, seeing as how the book takes place entirely on Equatoria (the newly colonized world given to humans by the Hypotheticals), we don't really learn that much about the planet. It almost seems... boring really. A group of the characters lived in the desert on this planet, but the environment isn't described for any of the other characters with the exception of the major city, Port Magellan. Are there large plains areas or large forests or rivers or anything like that? Because of this, I pictured the entire planet to look like a large, mostly-empty desert. I'd also love to hear if there was any wildlife native to the planet that they'd discovered or if wildlife from Earth had been brought there and how they'd adapted. These little things aren't necessary to the story, but would help to make this new world believable and interesting.

Also, concepts of the story that seem important and pretty interesting are barely touched on at all. Like the arches. Not only is there an arch leading folk from Earth into Equatoria, but there's another arch on Equatoria that leads to yet another world and one from that world to another and so on. It's explained briefly that there are expeditions into the other world but it's just a barren rock. So there's not much there, but after several decades wouldn't they have found something? Doesn't anyone wonder why this barren planet was linked to theirs? These are things that I'd like to hear more about.

Another thing that bothered me was a character from Spin that makes an appearance. I won't say who, but this almost seemed cheap, like an added attempt to keep us interested in the story. The character makes a cameo at first and I liked that; just a nice reference to Spin to remind us that we're reading about the same world. But then the character becomes a major player and I didn't feel that the character was very distinguishable from many of the others in the book and I wasn't entirely convinced. Just one more thing that could've been expanded on to make the book fell more complete.

I did enjoy this book, for all I complained about it. The ashfall scenes were creepy and Wilson instills a sense of realism, even with something so strange as ash and decaying machinery dumping from the sky. He does a great job of making you feel like you are there. The ending of the book isn't bad. It's definitely interesting, but still I left wanting so much more. Granted, Spin is a hard act to follow and is also one of my favorite books of any genre, so maybe that's why I'm being so picky here. I'll still be buying Vortex as soon as it's out.

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reviews: 1, page 2, 3, 4, 5

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