Axiom's End

An alternate history first contact adventure set in the early 2000's, pitched as Arrival meets The Three-Body Problem, by video essayist and New York Times bestselling author Lindsay Ellis.

By the fall of 2007, one well-timed leak revealing that the U.S. government might have engaged in first contact has sent the country into turmoil, and it is all Cora Sabino can do to avoid the whole mess. The force driving this controversy is Cora's whistleblower father, and even though she hasn t spoken to him in years, his celebrity has caught the attention of the press, the Internet, the paparazzi, and the government - and redirected it to her. She neither knows nor cares whether her father's leaks are a hoax, and wants nothing to do with him - until she learns just how deeply entrenched her family is in the cover-up, and that an extraterrestrial presence has been on Earth for decades.

To save her own life, she offers her services as an interpreter to a monster, and the monster accepts.

Learning the extent to which both she and the public have been lied to, she sets out to gather as much information as she can, and finds that the best way for her to find the truth is not as a whistleblower, but as an intermediary. The alien presence has been completely uncommunicative until she convinces one of them that she can act as their interpreter, becoming the first and only human vessel of communication. But in becoming an interpreter, she begins to realize that she has become the voice for a being she cannot ever truly know or understand, and starts to question who she's speaking for - and what future she's setting up for all of humanity.

"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. It's as real as any first-contact story I have ever read. Wonderfully plotted and paced, the adventure never lets up, and neither does the insight." --Hank Green, #1 New York Times bestselling author of An Absolutely Remarkable Thing "So much fun. Lindsay Ellis's experience as one of our sharpest cultural observers gives Axiom's End an edge of realism that makes it both cutting and compelling. Close encounters have a whole new look." --John Scalzi, New York Times bestselling author and Hugo Award winner

"Lindsay Ellis's storytelling is what good science fiction should be: smart but heartfelt, full of profound ideas delivered with a sense of humanity. Axiom's End is engaging precisely because it is about something all of us have experienced: That moment when you grow up enough to realize that the universe is more wondrous and dangerous than you could ever have imagined." --David Wong, New York Times bestselling author

"Axiom's End: if you enjoy first contact tales, alien cultures, inexplicable found families, beautiful chaos and elegantly constructed stories." --Seanan McGuire, New York Times bestselling author and Hugo Award Winner "Axiom's End is eerily plausible and wildly entertaining. An alternate history that fully delivers on its premise." --Caitlin Doughty, New York Times Bestselling Author and Mortician

"A moving first contact thriller...touching on issues of prejudice and xenophobia along the way, Axiom s End is the engaging first volume of a projected series." --The Guardian

"Masterfully done. Lovers of character-focused sci-fi will find plenty to enjoy in this gripping alternate history." --Publishers Weekly

"Suspenseful and inventive, but also funny and full of action, Axiom s End remixes the Hollywood alien-invasion playbook." --Philadelphia Inquirer

"At its core, Axiom's End is warm-hearted...For all of its drama and philosophical conundrums, Ellis's book is ultimately about the power of empathy and kindness in a universe that never has enough of either." --Shelf Awareness (starred review)