Axiom's End: 1 (Noumena)

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Third Option succeeds in getting aliens declared second-class people, and is poised to win US presidency. Axiom's End is somehow deeply aware of not just what it is to be human, but what it is to be any intelligent species.

Ampersand, Obelus, and Pequod are all CIA codewords, while Amigdaline, Fremda, Esperas, and the other aliens' names were all names given them by ROSA employees. Furthermore, amygdalines that are neither Oligarchs nor Similars are much, much smaller; the Propagandist fremda are described as roughly one-third of Obelus' size. In any other circumstances, Demi would have told Cora she was shit out of luck, that she should have gotten the car fixed months ago, and that she could find her own damn way up to downtown LA.touching on issues of prejudice and xenophobia along the way, Axiom s End is the engaging first volume of a projected series. Aliens Speaking English: Alien Ampersand speaks perfect English, as does Obelus, because they've cracked an algorithm that lets them learn all Earth languages perfectly—or rather, they know Earth languages; the way amygdalines vocalize is totally incompatible with human speech, so Ampersand uses a high-tech text-to-voice gadget. she said, now kicking herself for being in a situation where she was trapped in an elevator with this man. Though he agrees, he notes that, given their disparate constitutions, they will never truly know each other. At times I was able to identify with her, I could look at some of the struggles she was having and see similar things from different times in my life.

By the time she made it to the elevator, half convinced a couple of FBI agents were waiting in ambush at the exit, she decided to go to the cafeteria on the third floor rather than find lunch anywhere half-decent.

Despite his heavy bearing on the plot, Nils never actually interacts with Cora in the novel and he never appears in person with his presence limited in the main plot to being talked about. His daughter, embarrassed by his behaviour, tries to ignore the unwanted cult of celebrity and get on with things. Ellis doesn't make up a language, or at least words, so it's not like a fantasy Tolkien language the aliens speak, everything is English and understandable. Whether it's the fear of people of colour taking the 'virtue' of white women that was at the heart of films like Creature From The Black Lagoon, Birth of a Nation, or even King Kong, or the fear of american values being replaced by communism in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, monsters have stood in for real life people for decades.