I enjoyed Axiom’s End. It wasn’t an absolute page turner, but it definitely kept me engaged enough to finish it rather quickly. I feel like Axiom’s End is a book that does a lot of things quite well, but nothing really stands out. The plot is decent, the characters are a little flat but not enough to really bother me, and the writing is fine but at times a little clunky. There is a lot of lore about alien species that the reader is asked to process, and I must admit that that’s really not my strong suit.

I might have enjoyed the book more (or less?) if I hadn’t been so familiar with the author’s other work. Lindsay Ellis is a prolific media critic, whom many will know from Youtube. I really enjoy her videos, and whilst I usually don’t expect much from Youtubers-turned-Authors, I had higher expectations from Lindsay, as talking about stories is basically her job. Add to this the fact that she mentioned that she’s been working on this book for about ten years, let’s just say I was definitely biased going into it. Unfortunately, the book didn’t quite deliver. I feel like Axiom’s End lost some of the spark it may have had over the ten years that it’s been in production.

After finishing Axiom’s End I was very much open to reading the sequel. However, I recently realised that it’s been out for a long time and I really haven’t bothered to pick it up. At this point, I’m certainly not against reading it if it ever crosses my path, but I don’t expect it ever will.