Axiom's End

2.5 There are definitely page-turning moments, but they're interspersed with making us spend time with a petulant protagonist who has an internal white saviour narrative inflating into space. Plot points vary from untidy to curiously convenient like an indulgently talky, cuddly, thousand-year-old oligarch of an alien. The aliens are altogether too fathomable, kindness is told not shown and that mote is absurdly the impetus for interspecies bonding (is trying to murder your other symphyle endearing?), and there are no innovations in the intergalactic arc nor surprise in the final secret.

I did like: the diplomatic translations.