swingbeat 6/26: Axis by Robert Charles Wilson

This is the sequel to "Spin". While Spin was a pretty good book, I have to say that this one was annoying. Granted, it is the second book in a trilogy, and second books tend to not know what to do... how much should they reveal? how much should they hold back, etc? Which is kinda like this review - don't wanna say too much for those people who haven't even read the first book :)

Let me just list out some points about this book.
1. Go ahead and read the front flap of this book. It won't reveal anything. In fact, it seems to PROMISE more than the book delivers on. It implies that there's some big time travel thing going on, but NOPE not in this book.
2. The main character, Lise Adams, was just annoying. She is on this obsessive quest to find out how her father disappeared 12 years ago... and it's a point of obsession that I couldn't really empathize with. She pretty much acts like a spoiled brat the whole time.
3. Finally , the author has some moral outrage for various characters and actions in this book - outrage that I couldn't empathize with at all. Personally, I felt they were at worst questionabloe, but there weren't intrisically evil things about it, where every character (sans the propagator) agreed that it was evil. I even felt the author was repetitive about having each character think that this act was evil, simply so he can try to work something at the ending related to this.

Anyway, since I read the first two books in this trilogy, I will likely read the third one once it comes out. Although if the main character is Lise Adams again, I'll be annoyed.

I guess I was spoiled by "Spin" - that was just well-written and makes you think. This one was just a pseudo-adventure story with a little magic here and there (magic vis-a-vis Arthur C. Clarke's "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic").