The Dreaming Stars

Axiom #2

by Tim Pratt

The crew of the White Raven returns to save the galaxy, in this brilliant space opera sequel to The Wrong Stars

Ancient aliens, the Axiom, will kill us all – when they wake up. In deep space, a swarm of nanoparticles threatens the colonies, transforming everything it meets into computronium – including the colonists. The crew of the White Raven investigate, and discover an Axiom facility filled with aliens hibernating while their minds roam a vast virtual reality. Sebastien wakes up, claiming his altered brain architecture can help the crew deactivate the swarm – from inside the Axiom simulation. To protect humanity, Callie must trust him, but if Sebastien still plans to dominate the universe using Axiom tech, they could be in a whole lot of trouble…
 
File  Science Fiction  [ Nanowar | Let Sleeping Gods Lie | Upgraded | For the Colony ]

Genres: Science Fiction, Space Opera, Fiction, Adventure, LGBT, Speculative Fiction, Aliens

400 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published September 4, 2018

About the author

Also writes as T.A. Pratt and T. Aaron Payton

Reviews

[Gary · Rating 4 out of 5]

[Spoiler Alert: If you haven’t read the first book in the series - The Wrong Stars - I give away some key plot points here]
Tim Pratt’s The Wrong Stars was something of a masterclass in how an author should stitch their worldbuilding into a novel’s plot and character growth. Having a character – in this case 500-year-old cryo-sleeper Elena Oh – who needs everything explained to them is not a new trick; the fun of the rest of the novel revolves around the explainers learning that everything they thought they knew about their world was actually wrong.
At the beginning of The Wrong Stars, Elena is rescued from her derelict ship by the crew of the salvage ship White Raven and its captain Callie Machedo. Elena spins a tale of barely escaping an encounter with terrifying alien beings who abducted her crew and altered her ship, a seed vessel sent out five centuries ago to find habitable worlds before faster than light travel was discovered. Callie informs her that humans have made contact with alien beings (who they call the Liars, because they literally lie about everything) who are anything but terrifying, and as far as they know, humans and Liars are the only intelligent species in the universe.
A whole lot happens between that and the end of the novel (and if you haven’t read it yet, do so, then come back here), so if we skip to the new status quo established at the end of The Wrong Stars, the crew of the White Raven learns that there is a race of megalomaniacal superbeings called the Axiom who are sleeping while some unknown grand scheme is coming to fruition, and the Liars (most of them unknowingly) serve the Axiom by keeping humans away from the Axiom’s areas of space. The White Raven acquires some very advanced Axiom tech and hijacks a pirate base on an asteroid (the pirates totally had it coming) and use it as a base of operations to learn about and thwart the Axiom’s plans.
There was no reason to expect The Dreaming Stars to duplicate the fiendish pace and table-turning plotting of its predecessor; narrative high-jumping can get tiresome as a baseline, and there are only so many times you can alter your readers’ understanding of the world you’re constructing without giving them plot-twist fatigue. The Wrong Stars ended right where it needed to, with our heroes and their companions reaching a firm understanding of the new rules of the game and their role in playing it. Not that there aren’t a few fun twists and surprises abound in The Dreaming Stars – they’re just more the plot-shaking rather than reality-shaking variety.
The Dreaming Stars picks up soon after the end of the first book, with the crew settling into their new home, dealing with the fallout from running afoul of the powerful Liar shadow government that serves the Axiom. Elena and Callie are firmly a couple now and are feeling out the terms of their relationship. Their Liar ally, Lantern, confirms that their involvement in the incident that put them at odds with the Elders, the Liars’ Axiom-serving secret sect, has been purged from all records and the individual Liars who know of their participation are all dead. Free to emerge from the shadows, Callie crashes her own funeral, and learns from her corporate honcho ex-husband that some of their ships operating near a new deep space colony have gone missing in a region of space Lantern flagged for possible Axiom activity. The prospect of getting paid to investigate the disappearances, while secretly looking into the Axiom, proves too enticing to pass up, so to the Taliesen system the White Raven goes. What they find there is definitely Axiom, and an immediate threat to the nearby planetary system.
If The Wrong Stars served as the equivalent of a “pilot episode”, The Dreaming Stars is the episode that primes the reader’s expectations for how the series will develop from book to book, and in that sense Pratt develops a comfortable pace and tone for the reader. It takes a little longer than expected for the plot’s inciting incident to establish a clear goal for our heroes, a forgivable offense one can chalk up to the new story formulations falling into place. Besides, we already like these characters and the world they inhabit; spending a little extra time with them living their lives is a welcome detour before the action and intensity takes over. The second half of the novel employs one of my favorite narrative devices: the “countdown clock”, in which the heroes face a time crunch on their way to annihilation, and limited resources to deploy. I don’t think the author quite exploits all the potential the countdown structure has to offer, but it does (self-consciously) serve up an enjoyable riff on Iain Banks’ classic The Player of Games.
There are plenty of other bonuses to be had in this first sequel. Pratt delves into some of the cultural angles that were only hinted at – a jaunt to jupiter’s moons shows us how human’s live when they’re not zipping around the galaxy in spaceships, and ship doctor Stephen’s hallucinogenic drug-centered religion The Church of the Ecstatic Divine is explored in greater detail. So too do the Axiom’s designs begin to unpeel, but not so much that we aren’t thirsting for the next installment. The Dreaming Stars may lack the manic buzz that defined its predecessor, but its steadiness inspires confidence that this series is built to last.

[Rachel (TheShadesofOrange) · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.0 Stars
Spoiler-Free Trilogy Review Video: https://youtu.be/tn9ktLmfYcc
This was an enjoyable second installment in a newer epic space opera series. I did not love it as much as the first book, but still a fun read with diverse characters and a light touch of humour. I highly recommend this series to science fiction readers.

[Khalid Abdul-Mumin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyable but I liked the first one much better so this is more like a 3.5 🌟 rating.

Recommended.
2022 Read

[Cathy · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF at 36%. I just can‘t develop an interest in the story. They finally got their job, after a lot of set-up and not much happening. And still not much happens. This lacks the action and the suspense of the first book. Or it takes too long to get there. I really tried, but I don‘t care. Which is a shame, because I really like Callie, Elena and Askok.

[Richard Derus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Real Rating: 4.25* of five

Does anyone really know the secret truth of another being? It's an ancient question and it's been answered...no, it's not possible...many times and in many ways. Why, then, do we as a species keep asking it? Because it's endlessly fascinating? Why should smacking your nose into a plate glass window at speed be fascinating?

Dunno, but it is. Everything after this point is a spoiler fro The Wrong Stars, so click at your own peril.

So here we are, not long after The Wrong Stars ends, picking up the pieces of life as the White Raven's crew has been living it after the upheavals of discovering a Goldilocks ship, a genocidal alien race's existence and plans, and the real reason the Liars lie. Also the real reason the Free, or religious Liars, both lie and refuse to speak anything but the truth. (It makes sense in the books.) Callie and Elena are rockin' the relationship game. Stephen's his usual lugubrious self and even more so—he's lost his Church of the Ecstatic Divine congregation after all—but he's no slacker, he's busy trying to put Elena's ex-crush object Sebastien's brain back together in the new home base that the White Raven won off the space pirates they were hired by the now-destroyed Meditreme Station "government" to...well...deter, which in practice meant get them killed. It has a souped-up version of virtual reality, and Elena goes with him into Sebastien's head as they endure iteration after iteration of the man's megalomaniacal, unfettered-by-empathy actions to kill the crew that saved him.

After we get a high-concept comedy scene of Callie returning to the Jovian Imperative's coolest, most gentrified-Portland of a moon, in order to crash her funeral, the action commences. Her ex-husband (after recovering from the shock of seeing her in the flesh for the first time since his actions ended their marriage—and at the funeral he's hosting for her no less!) needs White Raven's unique skill set to accomplish something his corporate drones can't. What's causing shipload after shipload of company employees to vanish in the Owain system? The local old-timey bohemian hippie trippers aren't doing it, they've lost some of their own people.

Callie and the crew need money. Callie doesn't hate the ex anymore since Elena busted down the closet door and dragged her out. The ex is part of a family corporation that has more money than God. We'll take the job, says Callie, and thanks for the spiffy funeral.

In the course of setting up the main conflict of the book, we're back into the same group of characters that we had in The Wrong Stars. A similar quest is run, in that we have to deal with the Axiom's universe-domination fetish, not unexpectedly, but with some surprising new stakes added plus a super-dooper uber-cool new playground to duke it out on.

And here we come to my main source of deep satisfaction, my enhanced appreciation for the world Author Pratt's going for. At every turn the Axiom are godlike in their technological achievements, but still their bestial selves; their Achilles heel is their animal nature and it can be exploited even by the "suffering slime," their charming pet name for the technologically inferior beings that clutter up their Lebensraum. The Final Solution that we thought we were appalled by last book? Ha! Small potatoes compared to the revelations in this book.

When an author plays in the much-churned sand of the "xenocidal aliens with humanity in their sights" sandbox, I appreciate some effort being made to titillate me with novelty. Author Pratt gives me the gift of characters working out their deep truths. Callie, the domineering captain, also has an emotional side: Elena is her little lost waif in need of rescue plus the ex who banged up her heart by banging his boyfriend in their bed while she was self-centeredly off flying the spacelanes for adrenaline rushes that she still can't do without. Stephen the XO-cum-doctor, whose world blew up not once but twice, and whose response was to turn back to the comforting arms of Mother Church and lose himself in the designer-drug sacraments that both connect him in loving communion to all the universe while dulling the acute agony of individual loss and grief. These aren't mere cardboard cutouts, these are well-realized characters with important things to offer the reader. Their individuality is their weakness, their brokenness, and in time their greatest and strongest weapon.

The battle between the motley crew and the xenocidal aliens is played out in a virtual reality with enhancements that are as far beyond the VR Callie and company are accustomed to and the VR Elena and Sebastian know from 500 years back. The beings in this VR are self-aware. They experience themselves as we do, they are possessed of inner lives and self-awareness; the Axiom couldn't enjoy torturing and murdering them otherwise. And that's mostly what the Axiom are doing in their space station beyond the asteroid belt of Owain's system. They're playing the equivalent of video games while their meat-bodies slumber in a perfect stasis, awaiting a cosmic-era-long program to run in order to accomplish a truly, amazingly vile thing. The only reason Callie and company know about it is that the game needs an expansion module and the way that this is added involves the death of Planet Owain. Omelettes, eggs....

Sebastien is central to the crew's plans to stop the Axiom because he's been co-opted by them before and therefore has insight into the workings of these cosmic scumbags's minds. Callie trusts him about as far as she can throw him, but he's a useful tool...a thing that Sebastien is now bitterly accustomed to being. How he comes out of the battle is a major source of satisfaction for me as it involves his deepest character traits surfacing, changing the entire future in the process. Callie and Elena can finally agree on Sebastien's future and not have to compromise for the other's feelings.

The crew of the White Raven alters in composition and in character, the threats are neutralized but this is only the beginning of a much larger, more important struggle. The battle and resolution in the Dream, as the VR is called, and in Owain's system, and in the galaxy at large, are not really over. The game is afoot.

I'd like to mention the ending of this book in a most approving way: It gave me chills. I see a pattern developing that I'm not sure I'll like, if it plays out as I think is almost inevitable it will; but the last line of the book gave me horripilation. To my own surprise, I'll trust Author Pratt to deliver the goods.

[York · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 to 4.5 stars 🌟...I really am enjoying this author's books...although this one did have a bit of a slow start, once it got going (about a third of the way in), it was hard to put down...and I really want to read the next in the series...the characters are solid, whether alien, human or augmented human, and others...I could say more but am trying to stay spoiler-free...

[Lata · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mostly enjoyed this, though it took about half the book to get to the beating-on-the-Axiom part of the story. Much as I like cast of characters, I could have done with less quippiness amongst them: not every conversation needs to be a series of sarcastic quips. I did really like the focus on Stephen in this book. We got more than just "he's the doctor and takes drugs during his religious experiences." I liked where how Stephen and Q interacted, and I really like his resolution in this story.

[Lindsay · Rating 3 out of 5]

A straight continuation of the previous book that sadly falters due to a very slow first half followed by a not-particularly-interesting second half with something of a cheat ending. There's more characterization than the first book, and a little bit more flesh on the bones of the ambitious world-building, but overall, this was very medium.

I'm not positive I'll go on to the next one, but the premise sounds interesting.

[The Captain · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was not to my taste. I found it rather generic and bland. I did not finish and will not be reading more of this series. I will not be doing a full review on my blog.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tim Pratt’s The Wrong Stars was exactly the sort of book I was looking for — a fun space opera with some truly great aliens and queer protagonists. The Dreaming Stars is everything I could ask for from a sequel. However, if you haven’t read The Wrong Stars I suggest you go pick up a copy before diving into The Dreaming Stars. Also, this review will contain spoilers for the first book in the series.

Humanity has no idea the danger it is in. An ancient alien race, the Axiom, ruled the entire universe. At the moment, they are sleeping, but if they are alerted to humanity’s existence, they will be sure to destroy us.

The crew of the White Raven are the only humans that know the truth, and they believe that this is a chance to destroy the Axiom once and for all. Only, that’s easier said than done, giving that the Axiom are into casually destroying planets. Even while they sleep, they have some hellish defense mechanisms. Case in point, ships start to go missing out by a secret Axiom base, and the Liar sect in the area has gone totally silent. The crew of the White Raven is off to investigate, and what they find poses an imminent danger to all of humanity.

The Dreaming Stars has lots of hints towards things that I think will be important later. Take Stephan’s church — how is it that they the visions they experience during their rituals are shared to such a degree? It’s not like they’re plugging their minds together… so are they really tapping into some underlying force? And what about the flashes of something Callie sees in the warp jumps? The existence of the Axiom may have been revealed, but I’m sure this series has more surprises in store for us.

On a similar topic, I find the plotting deliciously twisty and always fun. In particular, the latter half of the novel contains a development that made me so happy! It was such a cool idea and executed so well. I’m definitely not forgetting The Dreaming Stars any time soon. The beginning of the novel might have been a bit slower, but wow does it pick up speed as it goes along. At about the halfway mark you start getting into mortal peril… and I got so excited that I literally started laughing? I guess I have odd reactions to characters I love being in danger, but this is a series I trust to carry me through it and not give me heartbreak.

At the end of last book, Elena’s murderous ex Sebastian was put into a medically induced coma, after he tried to take over the entire galaxy. Elena has no intention of ever getting back together with him (besides, she’s with Callie now), but she hasn’t given up hope that whatever the Axiom machines did to his brain can be fixed and Sebastian can be restored to his old self. But how will they tell when Sebastian is “cured”? And how much of his behavior was due to the Axiom’s interference and how much of it was Sebastian himself? Like all the crew of the White Raven, you the reader have no idea whether or not you can trust him, and it sure keeps you on your toes.

In my review of the last book, I mentioned that the romance between Elena and Callie did seem to happen very quickly. But for me, that wasn’t as much of an issue here, probably because they’re an established couple at the beginning of the novel. Also, there’s no forced, B.S. romance drama!

The main reason I love this series is that it’s just so fun. It’s reliably fun. Sometimes, you need a book that you can trust to be truly and utterly fun, and that’s The Dreaming Stars. The Dreaming Stars proves that this series will always leave me with a smile.

I received an ARC in exchange for a free and honest review.

Review from The Illustrated Page.

[Taveri · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first half was as insipid as an Archie Comic. One could have started at chapter ten, page 109 and missed nothing, maybe even page 150 or 200. The second half was like a Scooby Doo adventure where they took some bad acid. I take that back > Scooby Doo is more charming.

[jade · Rating 3 out of 5]

tried to do something different than book one, and i appreciate it.

the main plot here felt more lighthearted & fun, which matched the tone of the banter and the characters. RTC!

✎ 3.5 stars.

[April · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bit slower than the first book with the pace of action but I liked getting to know the characters more deeply. Worryingly genocidal thoughts from the captain are making me wary as the series progresses…

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Saving the galaxy isn't very lucrative, is it?"
"No, but at least it makes people try to kill us."
—p.78

Back in March 2018, I called Tim Pratt's The Wrong Stars "a good old new old-fashioned rip-roaring space adventure yarn, the kind they don't write anymore, full of exciting technologies and emotional extremes and exotic extraterrestrial locales." Its sequel, The Dreaming Stars, is not quite as rip-roaring—this novel begins very much in medias res , which is a good thing, but it still takes a long time to gather momentum, while Pratt plays catchup for people who either haven't read or don't remember the first installment in his Axiom series.

I still enjoyed this installment a lot, though I'd definitely recommend starting with The Wrong Stars, both for essential backstory and to get you hooked more deeply. I'm going to try to avoid major spoilers for the first book, but some of the references here won't make any sense if you aren't already familiar with Pratt's milieu.

To be clear: you probably shouldn't read this review any further, at least until after you've read The Wrong Stars.

*

Callie had been dead for three months, and she was sick of it.
—p.7

The Dreaming Stars does start slowly, but recapitulation is only one thing that saps its initial momentum. The other thing is that—at least as far as the rest of the Galaxy knows—Captain Kalea Machedo and all the rest of her crew on the intrepid and feisty starship White Raven are dead, destroyed in the explosion of Meditreme Station, their home base on the outskirts of the Solar system. As it turns out, being dead puts a serious crimp in your mobility—and your income.

Callie and her crew aren't exactly castaways, but they are a small and resourceful crew who are at least temporarily unable to leave their isolated hideout (in Glauketas, the former pirates' asteroid base). This is a classic setup, and a productive one as well—think Robinson Crusoe or Swiss Family Robinson or even, I dunno, "Gilligan's Island." And like those archetypal castaways, the White Raven's crew discover an astonishing array of supplies at their disposal... not just leftover pirate booty, but also a few tricks they learned from the Axiom that will be enormously helpful if—when—they are able to return to the lands of the living.

In the meantime, the White Raven's engineer Ashok amuses himself by tweaking the ship's gravity generator (one of those bits of Axiom tech), and Callie's girlfriend Elena Oh—recently awakened from half a millennium's cryogenic suspension—is using something called the Hypnos, a full-immersion virtual reality environment, to see whether her former shipmate Sebastien's Axiom-induced psychopathy can ever be reversed.

The Hypnos becomes even more important when we find out, not long after, that the Axiom use something very similar to keep themselves occupied during their long sleep...

*

The Dreaming Stars is very much a middle book—the major conflicts and characters were introduced to us in the first volume, and most of the troubles that were looming on the horizon at this one's beginning still loom as large at its end. But while The Dreaming Stars did excite me less than its predecessor, it did both keep me entertained and whet my appetite for more... The Forgotten Stars is due out in 2019, and with any luck I'll be around to read (and review) that one too.

[Rob Trans · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a little different than the first in the series. It is less a space opera and more an exploration of the relationships among the characters. Consequently. I found it less satisfying and rated it a 3. This review presumes you have read the first novel, the Wrong Stars.

Dreaming Stars immediately follows the Wrong Stars. The first third of the book is devoted to housekeeping and elaborating on the past and present relationships among the crew.

For us, the housekeeping consists of reintroducing the crew and recapping some of the important events of the first book. For the book’s characters, it consists of cleaning up after the first book’s mission such as putting their new base in order, hiding under the radar until they are sure their identities can’t be tied back to the previous mission by the Liars, disposing of most the crew of the Goldilocks ship (a 500 year old ship sent from earth to seed humans on other worlds that mysteriously reappeared in the solar system) by sending them off to other lives, and following attempts to restore another Goldilocks crew member, Sebastian, who became a megalomaniacal psychopath with plans to subjugate the minds of all humans as a result of alien technology implanted in his brain.

Many of the characters developed relationships (not all romantic) in the first novel and the author elaborates on these ad nauseam for a SciFi novel - Callie and Elena, Callie and Shall the AI, Ashok and Lantern, Elena and Sebastian.

Captain Callie decides to announce her death has been greatly exaggerated by attending her memorial service organized by her ex-husband. Information has been trickling in that parties of humans and their rescuers have disappeared in the Taliesin system where her ex’s family is heavily invested. He still trusts her and her abilities, so he gives her a contract to investigate. Lantern the Liar informs them their watch station in the Taliesen system has also gone silent.

White Raven and crew depart for Taliesen system and discover a swarm of nano-particles that are converting all the matter they encounter into another substance. A new character is introduced who forms a religious and personal relation with Raven’s XO. We learn a lot more about their religion which uses drugs (or sacraments) to mesh themselves with each other. We learn about the inhabitable world in the Taliesen system. Whether Sebastian is restored and can be trusted is an important sub-plot. They visit the Liar watch station to find out why it went silent.

They then return to the swarm and back track it to an Axiom base. They decide the only way to stop the swarm is to enter into a sophisticated war game being played by the Axiom who are all in stasis. For me, this is where it gets particularly hokey. The Axiom have been built up in the first and this novel as having godlike intelligence and powers. They are also incredibly security conscious expecting to be attacked by their peers at any time. So, the idea of Raven’s crew trying to win a war game against the Axiom is like someone who has never played “Call of Duty” going up against the Chicago Huntsmen (league champions of the Call of Duty London tournament).

This is a leisurely paced book with good characterizations. There is a fair amount of text devoted to things other than advancing the plot. It took me about twice as long to read this as I would have expected of a more engaging book. It does contain a well done little mystery that appears to set up the next installment.

[Adri Joy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A less intense book than its predecessor, but one that leaves me very excited for where the series is going.

The Wrong Stars was an unexpected hit with me, taking a ton of entertaining space opera ingredients reminiscent of everything from The Expanse to Douglas Adams and blending them into something unique and entertaining. The humans of Pratt's world had made their way into the solar system when a jellyfish-like race made contact, telling grand stories of the wider galaxy and promising extraordinary technology in return for a base on Venus. The technology (and the base on Venus) materialised; the truth behind the grand stories did not, and after several encounters with different delegations, humanity branded its new sentient friends the Liars and fell into a good-natured but sceptical relationship with them. Now plugged in to a network of gates giving them access to nearly thirty different star systems, humanity happily develops in its new, larger sandbox. However, events involving Kalea "Callie" Machado and the crew of the White Raven, alongside five-hundred-year-old Elena Oh, sole surviving member of an ancient sub-light terraforming mission, and a surprisingly honest Liar named Lantern, have exposed this freedom for the lie it is. Now the crew of the White Raven are party to an ancient secret involving a dormant, all-powerful race of sadists who could wipe out humanity in a moment once we come to their notice - and, humanity being the curious-to-a-fault won't-take-no-for-an-answer race of stroppy teenagers we are, that's not so much a case of "if", but "when".

There's probably enough background in The Dreaming Stars to make it accessible to anyone who hasn't already read the first book. We are re-introduced to the Liars and the now-expanded White Raven gang, who have spent the months since the end of The Wrong Stars getting progressively more bored in close confinement with each other. The book fills us in very effectively on the rest of the backstory too - the now not-so-mysterious (but still quite mysterious) Axiom, the fate of Meditreme Station, the relationships among the main characters and their respective histories with sociopathy-inducing brain spiders, and the other events that have led to our multi-temporal heroes hanging out on their cool but limited zero-g asteroid base.

Despite its generously informative start, I hesitate to recommend jumping in here even if you're normally content to start mid-series, because what follows is an enormous amount of processing and follow-up to previous events. There's relationship conversations! And time refugee conversations! And post-traumatic event grief conversations! And some more relationship conversations! And some Fun with Simulators and Gravity! And then some more relationship conversations, and suddenly I'm wondering how we are so far through the book without any clear plan beyond "let's go see Callie's serially unfaithful ex husband". There's a method to all of this, and I'm not saying there aren't some charming moments: Callie and Elena's relationship is gorgeously well-negotiated and straightforward, and any scene with Ashok, the chief engineer, is an instant favourite of mine...

Full review here: http://www.nerds-feather.com/2018/09/...

[ν1ятυα · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was supposed to be a buddy read but I just decided to go on and finish it. Sorry, boo...

Disappointed seems like too harsh of a word to describe how this book made me feel but it's the only word that comes to mind when I ask myself what I thought of it. A part of the reason I feel like it took me so long to finish this one compared to the first book is the relationship between Callie and Elena. I get it, they're a new couple and they're still trying to get a feel for each other, that doesn't bother me. What does bother me is the constant innuendos and how a good chunk of the book seemed to be more interested in their relationship than the apparent threat that they have to face.

Speaking of the apparent threat we bring you...Call of Duty:Alien Warfare VR edition. I should have known that virtual reality was going to play a big part in this book when they spent a good part of one chapter explaining in excruciating detail about how Hypnos works I didn't get it up until the end where I said "Are you kidding me?" aloud. These planet ending galaxy dictators that have been supposedly slumbering for millions of years are just chilling it up playing VR? This took away from the unknown terror that we're told the Axiom is supposed to be and just made me think of them as secluded gamers that take their gaming way too seriously.

And then there's Sebastian. I liked Sebastian as a villain. In the first book I wished that we got to deal with him a bit more to see what he was fully capable of considering that he was by all means perfectly blended with the Axiom technology. In this book he didn't feel like much of a threat at all and the way he just became a "good guy" thanks to a few healthy doses of drugs felt rushed and ruined his character for me.

Despite all my griping, I'm still giving this three stars. It annoyed me, yes, but it was still entertaining to read and I love the chemistry that everyone on the White Raven has with each other. Now to get my hands on the third book...

[Viking Jam · Rating 1 out of 5]

Publishing Date: 2020

Genre: Fantasy

Rating: 1.2/5

Review: This was a long slog through relentless dialogue and an oh, so cuddly and perky Elena Oh. I had hopes for this series as the first was well done with inspired movement and inventive situational characters. Yeah, Elena sucked but for the most part, the supporting cast took up the slack. We have a few characters that leave the ship only it is not the ones that should leave. The novel takes a dip here and continues to drag on with Ms. Snuggly Wuggims plying your brain with screeching nails.


What we know about the Axiom is admittedly horrific and should have remained that way. Only we find ourselves immersed in a virtual reality game that they have been playing for billions of years. Not-too-believable. My questions are many, but the few that are pertinent is: Why is an alien civilization that can control galaxies and abridge natural laws, immersed in a game world to escape “heat death”. What is the point of winning mock battles for millions of years subjective time in order to gloat over your enemies? Why does this sound really stupid to take in when writing this review? I should have stopped reading when they landed on planet stupid (Owain) with it’s artist refuge and lounging drug addicts.

I would continue on with this series (when it comes out) yet a forced lobotomy is not something I look forward to.

[(╯`▭´）╯︵ ǝɔnɒꓷ · Rating 3 out of 5]

(This was a buddy read, but then my buddy betrayed me and finished before me, so I had to sprint to catch up. XD)
I'm not really sure what my feelings of this book are, to be honest. I definitely felt like the first part dragged and nothing particularly interesting happened, and the second part was just...confusing. It felt like everything was rushed and not fully fleshed out, and there was more than one moment when I had to go back and reread a paragraph. I didn't feel as invested in the story or the characters as I had in the first book, and I even started to severely dislike Callie by the end. Sebastian was an interesting character, but while I didn't necessarily hate the direction his character was going in, I felt like it could have been done differently and more gradually, and fleshed out futher. Also, I had many ideas on how Hypnos was going to play a bigger part in the plot, and none of those ideas is what actually happened. I was taken off guard, but honestly it just made me laugh. And when I'm supposed to be intimidated by these genocidal aliens, I don't think I'm supposed to be laughing.
Overall, this was just okay. It felt really rushed in some places, and dragged out in others. I'm still intrigued enough by the end to want to pick up the third book at some point, but I'm not as enthusiastic as I was when I first started the series.

[Varshini · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book! It wasn't as gripping as the first one in the series, but I still prioritized it over the other space opera book I'm currently reading - Record of a Spaceborn Few.

The start of this book promises a lot, especially with Sebastien in the simulation, sort of working with how he might be the person to destroy plans the White Raven is making.

It continues to be the same, with a lot of mansplaining, a lot of psychological buttons trying to be pushed and so on. But it ends up absolutely nowhere with a almost literal Hail Mary moment. It almost felt like I was building up my anger towards this character only to be told to dismiss the feeling with their Come to Jesus moment. This is the main reason I took off a star.

I do like the worldbuilding aspect, especially with Owain and thoughts about how humans usually take over places with no respect for the people who lived there before them.

[Ay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable series. It’s best to start with book 1. I’m going to be looking into his earlier work. I hope it is as good.

[Kevin Hogan · Rating 4 out of 5]

More 3.5 than 4 stars, this book is a little deeper than the first one, but without sacrificing any of the underlying fun.

[Sam Vrooman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book doesn’t do anything particularly new, but it still has a good story and interesting characters. While it uses many of the tropes seen in sci-fi, it does it well, and I found it an engaging and fun read.

[Stephen King · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not quite as strong as the first book, but a solid addition to the tale, with some interesting looks into new corners of the series' universe.

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Space is wild and dangerous.

[Claudia 🖤✨ · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF at around 50%. I don’t really know what happened with this one , but it’s like the author decided to write every single random thought that crossed his mind - halfway through the book and nothing happened . We’re in deep space , but there are no obstacles or hardships whatsoever. All the crew talks about are their love interests , all they do is fawn over someone . Where the fuck is my space opera ?

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aaaaaargh I love this series so much. It's just the perfect space opera blend for me - wonderful, diverse characters, aliens, a wacky plot and lots of romance/comedy/thrills. And THE ENDING was perfect, there was this whole romantic sub-plot that I wasn't enjoying but it totally went the other way and just... these books are perfection.

Lots of twists and turns, lots of Callie being a total badass, and a bit more world-building and character development than in the first book, which let you take a back seat from the action for a while to appreciate everyone a bit more.

(And Sebastian, my little love Sebastian. I imagine him with a posh, condescending English accent for some reason.)

5 (dreaming) stars!

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pratt, Tim. The Dreaming Stars. Axiom No. 2. Angry Robot, 2018.
This sequel to The Wrong Stars continues the adventures of the multi-species crew of The White Raven. Once again, they are faced with the Swarm who want to turn you into computronium and the Axiom, a group of mysterious aliens that you really don’t want to wake up. As usual, there is as much drama within the ship as there is between the ship and all these aliens. All this sounds silly and trivial, but Pratt makes all these standard space opera tropes come to life and keep entertaining us. If you like techy space opera with some work-family soap opera, Pratt does it as well as anyone.

[Zena Bethune · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was reluctant to try this second book in the series, because the first was so disappointing in writing and tone. But I was interested enough in the story to give it another try, and was disappointed again. Good story with potential to be even better, but the writing just trips me up, it's uneven in tone and frequently puerile. To paraphrase Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own, "there's no cuddling in sci fi". For better than average space opera, try Peter F. Hamilton, James S.A. Corey or Christopher Ruocchio.

[David · Rating 1 out of 5]

Fist Axiom book was better. This one was awful. Far to much 'dreaming' introspection of no relevance to story. And yet another 'strong' female lead written by a man who may have not idea how to develop this character. With a childish and clingy lesbian lover which almost takes over the story. Lots of shallow characters for sure. Can't recommend. Hard to believe this is a senior SF editor of any kind. Sort of gives us an idea of the depths to which SF has fallen in recent years.