Axis

Abstract

Axis is the second novel of the Spin Trilogy, preceded by Spin and followed by Vortex. Spin sees the Earth enveloped by mysterious black membrane which slows time, and it is ultimately discovered that the membrane is an invention of intelligent self-replicating and alien machines named “Hypotheticals”, who created it as part of a plan to enclose planets which were being destroyed by their inhabitants, thus slowing down their advancement, until some kind of method should be found to save those worlds. At the end of the novel, a portal to another world emerges in the middle of the Indian Ocean, allowing humankind to escape the dying Earth. Axis takes place in this new planet, Equatoria, which humankind comes to inhabit, and which the Hypotheticals engineered to suit human needs. However, humans soon come to exploit this new planet’s resources much as they did on Earth, and the nanotechnology to which they had access after the colonisation of Mars (as explained in the first novel) is now being used to create genetically enhanced humans who are expected to be able to communicate with the Hypotheticals. Ultimately, and as result of much travelling done by a number of characters, a new portal is found in a desert in Equatoria – much similar to the one that transported people from the Earth to the new planet –, and it is thus revealed that the Hypotheticals may be creating a galaxy-wide “farm” of planets.