Pajiba said it is "less about action than an exploration of communication across boundaries both human and deeply inhuman," and praised Ellis's handling of the book's themes, and that her "well-trained eye for the oddities and political edges of various cultural contexts comes in very handy. Cora and Ampersand argue over cultural differences between humans and amygdalines, and Cora storms off.

We only have other characters' testimony and a few interview excerpts to go off of however, leaving the truth ambiguous. In a video uploaded to YouTube on July 19, 2020, Ellis announced that the second and third books in the Axiom's End series would be released in summer 2021 and 2022. Ampersand sees no issue with lying to Cora if he believes it to be in his interest or in hers, has no regrets over damaging the brains of humans through experimentation, and has little respect for human life in general. Stories like Beauty and the Beast, to even further back and myths like Eros and Psyche which dates back to the 2nd century AD, tell stories of people falling in love with inhuman creatures.Whilst these are important questions, and ones that the book does address, this isn't what the book meant to me, or what I really took away from it. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. 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. Ampersand and all his symphiles are described using male pronouns note (Cora notes that the translator's voice in her ear sounds male, and it goes from there). He sees this being that's so alien to him, who he barely understands at time, and he sees that she's suffering and can't help himself from helping her.

Their otherworldly connection will change everything she thought she knew about being humanand could unleash a force more sinister than she ever imagined. Cora finds herself struggling for food, water, and clothing for most of the month or so the novel takes place over, let alone higher needs.He is particularly disturbed to be surrounded by (to quote the title of Part Two) "billions of flesh-eating aliens", and Cora speculates that his initial apprehension around her is out of fear that she will try to take a bite of him.