(no subject)

[skygiants]

Would you believe I have never actually gotten around to watching a Lindsay Ellis video and thus I had no idea that Axiom's End was Transformers fic with the serial numbers filed off until I hit an author's note at the end?

Anyway: Axiom's End is a first contact book featuring several largely-inorganic aliens who arrive on Earth as a result of the complex and messy political situation that an ongoing war and attempted genocide has triggered on their home planet, and some of them might be exes, which I have very vaguely osmosed might be the Transformers story? Or at least the Transformers story as represented on the AO3?

It does take a little while to get around to this; the first part of the book introduces protagonist Cora Sabino, a depressed late-Bush-era Millenial from right at that point in history when all of us just thought we were individually underachieving and full of ennui and had not yet quite put together the fact that we were a bit generationally fucked. Cora has the additional disadvantage of the fact that her father is a famous whistleblower with an enormous cult following and a narcissistic personality, who bounced off to find asylum in Germany a few years ago and is, unfortunately for everyone, correct about the government cover-ups. In a potentially related fact, Cora's cool aunt used to work for the government in a classified position and is now just as underemployed and depressed as Cora, which has put a new and stressful twist on their relationship!

All of this background ends up placing Cora in exactly the right place at the right time to encounter, get kidnapped by, and end up forming a tentative alliance with a Questing Alien that develops over the course of the book into an intense and complicated platonic-romantic codependency, complicated by language barriers, intentional and unintentional omissions of information, and the fact that Cora can't quite be certain that her new alien comrade actually regards humans as people, per se. Also complicated of course by the government that wants to continue covering up, as well as the other, more murderous aliens.

You might enjoy this if you like:
- intense and complicated human-alien platonic-romaantic codependencies
- sci-fi linguistics
- messy family dynamics
- messy First Contact ethical conundrums
- action-movie vibes
- Transformers, probably?

You might not enjoy this if you dislike:
- lots of deaths occasionally including cute sympathetic entities
- remembering the Bush era

Comments

[sovay]

Would you believe I have never actually gotten around to watching a Lindsay Ellis video and thus I had no idea that Axiom's End was Transformers fic with the serial numbers filed off until I hit an author's note at the end?

I'd never heard of Lindsay Ellis, so, yes.

[ambyr]

...same.

[evelyn_b]

Hah, I have also never heard of Lindsey Ellis and know nothing whatsoever about the Transformers except that. . . they were toy robots that existed at some point? So I have no trouble believing you and would be hard pressed to pick up on the signs of something being Transformers fic.

[skygiants]

I have osmosed some things about Transformers from fandom but most of it, as one might expect from fandom, is "some of the robots are in love, and some of the robots are divorced?"

[skygiants]

The book group for which I read this was a gradient "yes, I've watched all her videos!" to "I have never heard of her at all;" I had heard of her, but had no idea she was a novelist and not just a famous YouTuber until this book was picked.

[vass]

You might enjoy this if you like:
- intense and complicated human-alien platonic-romaantic codependencies

Well, shit. *reaches for wallet*

[skygiants]

It COMMITS!

[neotoma]

I'm going to have to buy this, I see. Or maybe I'm lucky and the library has a copy I can borrow...

[skygiants]

I hope your library comes through!

[cinaed]

While I love Ellis' videos, this book didn't work for me because I got a little frustrated with how the concept of gender was handled with the aliens, but I did think the actual alien biology and Cora's relationships with the aliens was great!

Also did NOT read the author's notes so the Transformers thing is brand new information, haha.

[skygiants]

Oh, I ALSO was frustrated with the gender stuff -- why have the FBI agent call out the way Cora genders the aliens and then just double down on it? WHY automatically female-gender the Genome?

[cinaed]

Exactly! Like all the other aliens are male, but the one that's frightened and young and defenseless is female? Why. Why, Ellis.

I did also enjoy Cora's complicated feelings about her dad because oof, that dude was...interesting.

[lirazel]

I'm a big Lindsay fan (I squeal out loud when I see she's uploaded a new video), but I haven't gotten around to reading the book yet. I do know that she has a video about the book and getting published and the writing process, if you're interested.

from right at that point in history when all of us just thought we were individually underachieving and full of ennui and had not yet quite put together the fact that we were a bit generationally fucked

Oh, gosh, I KNOW.

[skygiants]

I had seen her videos recced many times, but hadn't heard about the book at all -- which surprises me a little, given how ubiquitous the videos have been (in my experience)! I am curious to try out the stuff that relates to the book now.

2007 is SUCH a time to start an alternate history from!

[strixalba]

that is a compelling review! Way moreso than "actually this is Transformers fic with the serial numbers filed off" would have led me to believe. I am VERY into intense and complicated human-alien platonic-romantic codependencies, in that I read the Young Wizards series and wanted 1000 fics about Dairine and Roshaun's Thing.

[skygiants]

Diane Duane is very good at that, though the dynamic that I was fascinated by was Ed & Nita (I read the first three books as a kid and did not read the later ones or encounter Roshaun until I was much older) (I realize Ed is a shark and not an 'alien' per se but his consciousness is very alien and I'm going to claim it counts.)

[sovay]

(I realize Ed is a shark and not an 'alien' per se but his consciousness is very alien and I'm going to claim it counts.)

Ed counts.

[strixalba]

Oh you're RIGHT, Ed and Nita totally count as an alien-human relationship! For some reason their relationship was interesting but sort of rolled off my brain instead of imprinting the same way ... maybe I just wasn't Into It yet when I read Deep Wizardry for the first time

[larryhammer]

:wince: It's a tough call, whether intense and complicated human-alien platonic-romantic codependencies are worth remembering the Bush era. Hmmmm.

And, hmmmm.

</Minecraft villager>

[skygiants]

I mean, at least [spoiler] gurer'f gur fngvfsnpgvba bs frrvat Ohfu erfvta orpnhfr bs nyvra fpnaqny, ohg ba gur bgure unaq gurer'f gur snvag frafr bs qvforyvrs ng guvf whapgher gung nal yriry bs fpnaqny pbhyq pnhfr n Erchoyvpna cerfvqrag gb erfvta....

[larryhammer]

Heh. Well, there is that.

(And then there's the English-language reincarnation-as-younger-self novel I recently read (the code-word for the genre in English is "do-over," if you're wondering) where gur cebgntbavfg gheaf cbyvgvpvna, oevorf uvzfrys vagb orpbzvat Ohfu'f IC, naq hfrf Ohfu'f frysvfuarff gb ratvarre univat uvz or cerfrag va gur Gjva Gbjref ba 9/11, va beqre gb nibvq n qenja-bhg Nstunavfgna pnzcnvta naq nibvq Vend VV nygbtrgure. That was a weird one to put myself through.)

[superborb]

Hm, how weird are the alien robots? I often feel 'eh' when the aliens are presented as weird-- but then suddenly when it's plot convenient, they're human like.

[skygiants]

Yeah, me too; writing believably alien aliens is, I think, one of the most difficult things a writer can do and so few people nail it! I think Ellis manages to walk the line reasonably well, and that she leverages the way that her relatively young and inexperienced heroine anthropomorphizes or fills in linguistic elisions in ways that often turn out to be false assumptions so that it emphasizes the difficulty of genuine connection and communication with the alien other -- it's a sort of shortcut to building genuinely alien thought patterns and cultures, but it works imo.

[superborb]

Hm! Well, there's no wait for it at the library, so I may just check it out then

[glitteryv]

I have cooled off on Lindsay after years of watching her videos. Out of sheer curiosity, I added this book toy library queue, but hadn't been in the mood to read it.

Thanks for this review. I will probably get around to it in March. ;)

I had no idea that Axiom's End was Transformers fic with the serial numbers filed off until I hit an author's note at the end?

Oooh, I didn't know that! Tho I'm.v. neutral abt Transformers fic, knowing the source has helped me get a clearer idea of how to approach this novel. So, really, thank you.

[skygiants]

I have read no Transformers fic -- or, indeed, consumed any Transformers media -- but I have seen a lot of it pass me by in the peripherals of my vision! I am glad the framing context is helpful :D

[dhampyresa]

I really liked it once the aliens showed up!

[skygiants]

Yeah, I thought the alien stuff was consistently compelling!

[lokifan]

I watch her often and I had no idea! But it also makes ALL THE SENSE lmao.

[skygiants]

Tempted to learn more about Transformers to figure out ALL the points of overlap/serial-numbers-filed-off and also equally tempted to remain in an eternal state of blissful ignorance....