Axis
Robert Charles Wilson
Tor, Sept 2007, $25.95, 304 pp.
ISBN 9780765309396

The Hypotheticals, self-replicating machines and perhaps so much more put Earth in stasis for four billion year and when it emerged, an arch was built that connects Earth to the new world that can only be reached by boat. Humans have colonized the new World many who have prices on their head. Ab who has taking anti-aging medicines created from the parts of mechanicals lives on the New World in comparative freedom compared to the earth where it is outlawed.

Lisa Adams has come from Earth to the New World to find out what happened to her father after he disappeared. She teams up with Turk Findlay who has connection to the fourths and he takes her to the location where he dropped Sulean moi off. They find a splinter group of fourths who performed ethical surgery ingesting part of the mechanical into the embryo that eventually become insane. They hope to make contact with the mechanical but what happens creates more questions than before.

If any book deserves a sequel, this one does. It would be great to know what the mechanicals are; if they are sentient; if they are powerful enough to change the course of a species destiny. This exciting scientific fiction thriller demonstrates just how great a story teller Robert Charles Wilson is. Readers will thoroughly enjoy the entertaining storyline which will be read in one sitting.

Harriet Klausner