Truth of the Divine

A good read and better listen as a well voiced audiobook. A bit overwrought at times but the perspective is fresh and the themes and messages are in line with the aspirations of who we should want to be as a species. An interesting blend of scifi, politics, cosmology, metaphysics and philosophy. If you appreciate the idealism and conundrums of star trek you'll likely dig the main story line. The emotional and cerebral writing is dramatic and impactful while the action descriptions could use some further refinement but is serviceable. The author has always been an interesting personality and brings signature phrases topics and humor. Of course the ending is only a natural pause and setup for the sequel in which Ellis promises to give us hot human on alien smut so there's even more to look forward to. Obviously you should have read the first in the series before tackling this one. And if you want something even more absurd and hilarious by this author please look up Awoken for more incredible girl on inhuman weirdo romance.

I quite enjoyed the second of this series by Lindsay Ellis. I think it developed both the characters of the first novel and the philosophical ideas that were raised. We spend a significant portion of the narrative outside the perspective of Cora, the POV character jn Axiom’s End, which I think helps with the growing world we find ourselves in. I do think the book suffers a little bit from “middle of a trilogy” syndrome, with lots of things left open for a potential third novel. The themes of the novel and what it means to be human absolutely resonate with what is happening in our world today, and even though it is ostensibly a period piece (set in 2008) it feels like these are arguments that could be happening today. I don’t know what that says about us, that things haven’t changed all that much in 10+ years.

I was given an advance copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.