Description:

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 Axis, 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.

**

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. In this outstanding sequel to Wilson's Hugo-winning Spin (2005), we are taken to the mysterious planet Equatoria, a world apparently engineered for humanity by the inscrutable machine intelligences known as the Hypotheticals. Turk Findley, a man with a criminal past, runs an aeronautical charter service on the newly settled planet. Lise Adams, who hires Turk, is a would-be journalist searching for her vanished father, a scientist obsessed with the Hypotheticals and their illegal life extension technology. Meanwhile, young Isaac, genetically manipulated by rogue scientists so that he may become a conduit between humanity and the AIs, is coming of age, and something enormous and unknown is assembling itself far underground. The various science and thriller plot elements are successful, but this is first and foremost a novel of character. Turk and Lise, who might well be played by Bogart and Bacall, are powerfully drawn protagonists, and their strong presence in the novel makes the wonders provided all the more satisfying. Those unfamiliar with Spin may flounder a bit, but Wilson's fans will be ecstatic. (Sept.)
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From Bookmarks Magazine

Critics enjoyed Axis as much as they did Spinâ€"but suggested that readers embarking on the second novel in the series may wish to start with the first, which introduces Robert Charles Wilson’s compelling, fully developed characters and provides a context for Earth’s time warp. Be warned: this is the second book of a planned trilogy, and it has that getting-deeper-in-our-world-without-resolving-everything approach at which middle books excel. But even for readers unfamiliar with Equatoria, Axis is a suspenseful, smart, and well-crafted book with characters who, even amid alien, AI creatures, face real-life dilemmas. Although Axis provides very few answers to questions raised in Spin, it starts to fit the details of life and life quests on Equatoria (which somewhat resembles Australia) into a larger framework. In sum: another masterful addition to the series.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.