Published: Tor, 2007
Series: Book 2 of the
Spin Sequence
Awards Nominated:
John W. Campbell Memorial Award
The Book:
“In Spin’s direct sequel, 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.”
~WWEnd.com
This is the third book I’ve read by
Wilson, after Spin and The Chronoliths, and I am planning to eventually
read the final Spin Sequence novel, Vortex, which I have already purchased. I think I hold a minority opinion, but
I enjoyed Axis as much as if not more
than Spin.
My Thoughts:
Axis is a sequel in the same universe as Spin,
but it follows an almost entirely new cast of characters. One could argue that the story is still
about ordinary people attempting to cope with unexplained (and potentially
unexplainable) phenomena, but that would also be a fair description of every
Robert Charles Wilson novel I’ve read to date. The main active unexplained
phenomenon this time is the ashfall, though humans are also still coping with
the Arch that connects the Earth to the planet that has been named Equatoria. In terms of the new planet, I enjoyed
reading about what kinds of people moved there and what sort of organizational
infrastructure developed. It was
kind of interesting how ordinary such a strange thing can become when it is a
constant in everyone’s lives. The ashfall was more disruptive and undeniably
strange, and attempts to understand it drive most of the plot. In the end, I felt like the story was
more about the ways people approach the search for understanding, rather than
the answers they may or may not find.
The many ways to search for meaning were
illustrated by the many viewpoint characters, each of which was trying to find
or understand something. Lise was a recently divorced woman who was trying to
learn what happened when her father vanished years ago. Her ex-husband Brian provided a viewpoint
from within a questionably corrupt organization, and he was set on his own path
of discovery by Lise’s inquiries.
Lises’s sometimes-lover Turk aided her in her search, while also trying
to figure out his own future.
Their investigation led them into a Fourth community, a group of people
who had taken the Martan longevity treatment to gain a fourth stage of
life. This Fourth community was
focused on the idea of communication with the Hypotheticals, with the Martian
Sulean Moi and Avram Dvali supporting opposing views on the path to accomplish
this. In addition, there was the
wonderkid Isaac, who some hoped would play an important role in understanding
the Hypotheticals. With so many characters, there was naturally a bit less time
to develop them all. For this kind
of story, though, I think it was more valuable to have many perspectives on the
situation than to know one or two characters especially well.
The story may revolve around the search
for the answers to various questions, but I think the novel was more concerned
with the process of their search and the value of what they are able to
understand. In short, one should
not really go into this novel expecting to get a definitive answer about the
nature and purpose of the Hypotheticals.
There is some progress on this front, but much is left unexplained. I was pretty satisfied with how the
story wrapped up, both in terms of many of the characters’ arcs and with the
new direction that it looks like the final novel will take. I’m looking forward
to seeing the final conclusion of the series, in Vortex!
My Rating: 3.5/5
I thought that Axis was an excellent sequel to Spin,
though it is a very different sort of book. Axis is the story
of many characters over a short time span, most of which characters are newly
introduced in this novel. The characters may not be as deeply explored as in Spin, but I appreciated having many
different perspectives on the events of the story. I enjoyed seeing what happened with the world through the
Arch, and how humanity managed to make this new marvel feel commonplace. The ashfall and a Fourth community’s
goal to communicate with the Hypotheticals provided a new mystery, and the
ending still left many questions unanswered. I am curious to see how the final
novel will (or maybe won’t) answer them!
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