Book Review: The Mercy of Gods, by James S. A. Corey

Academic politics are finally given the respect they deserve, and all it took was aliens conquering the galaxy.

As an old canard goes, academic politics are so bitter because the stakes are so small; and as an academic in my day job, I can attest to the truth of this. So when a book comes along in which the future of not just humanity, but the whole-ass galaxy depends upon the combined skills of a lab-based research group I am ready to eat it up with a spoon. And my goodness, what a tasty meal it was!

The setting of James S. A. Corey’s new series is a far-future galaxy in which humanity has completed (at least one) colonization effort on the planet of Anjiin. This effort nearly failed, however, and the intervening struggles between then and now have wiped out all records of what happened. Humans only know they are not native to Anjiin through inference: there are biological dissimilarities between their biology and indigenous biology; and there is archaeological evidence showing that humans arrived some thousands of years ago, and nearly died out before managing to spread and flourish. (And isn’t that a prequel saga that I’d like to read!) At the time of this book, humans on Anjiin have developed to roughly the same technology and population spread as humans on present-day earth, with a similar lack of evidence of other extraterrestrial (extra-Anjiinian) life in their astronomical research. But, of course, there is a profoundly different foundation to this lack of evidence. They know there must be extra-Anjiinian life in the universe, because, after, all, they are it.

Our core cast of characters are an elite university research group, who have just completed a brilliant biochemical study. Although humans and human-based biospheres—the plants and animals that (presumably) arrived on Anjiin with the humans—are incompatible with a crystalline-based biosphere indigenous to the planet, this group that has managed to bridge that divide that divide, so that the two biological systems can now interact. It’s a planet-wide triumph, but hot on its heels comes institutional conflict. Funding pressures, politics, and disputes based in status and hierarchy led by rival academics mean that the research group is at risk of being dispersed; its project placed under external control, and its members reassigned to different labs.

Then things get worse. Aliens attack! It is first contact with non-Anjiin based life, and it is  the worst possible kind. The aliens are governed by Borg-like creatures called the Carryx, who have conquered uncounted species around the galaxy and forced them to submit, allowed to survive on sufferance as long as they can make themselves useful. (The huge, imaginative variety of aliens encountered under the Carryx aegis is very entertaining, and reminds me a bit of Julie Czerneda's inventiveness.) The Carryx skim humans from Anjiin, taking only the most successful in their various fields—including our biochemical research group--and bring them to Carryx-controlled planet. There, the researchers are given a task: take a berry-like life-form from one planet, and make it edible to a turtle-like creature from another planet. It’s a direct continuation of their most recent discovery: take two distinct biologies, and make them compatible.

This narrative has exactly the same feel and pacing as Corey’s previous epic space opera, The Expanse. Fans of the Expanse books will feel right at home here. The POV shifts across the many characters—including Carryx and other alien entities—in a way that, at first, I found a little disorienting. But given the large number of core characters in the research group, on reflection it worked well to keep them all distinct. Jessyn is plagued with chronic depression and reliant on medication and her brother Jellit to keep her stable enough to work. Rickar stands to come out of the pending institutional reorganization very well, and is for that reason seen as a traitor to the group. Synnia, whose husband died when the Carryx first arrived, refuses to participate in the assigned task, but is open to making trouble for the Carryx when the opportunity arises. Tonner, the leader of the research group, is brilliant at the science and fully devoted to solving the problem, but not terribly skilled at people. Dafyd, a young research assistant, won his position largely by virtue of nepotism (his aunt is well placed in institutional funding circles) and is stronger with people skills than science. Else is the project co-leader, and also sleeping with Tonner, but Dafyd is sweet on her.

(I feel I must add here, however, that Corey scorns to employ such an overused trope as romantic rivalry to build tension between Dafyd and Tonner. Multiple times characters will think of their situation dismissively as ‘bullshit sexual politics’ and the like; and the significance of these relations turns out to be much more interesting then the stupid contrived drama that could never have hoped to rise above the level of boring tedium that is a love triangle.)

This rich cast of characters, combined with other secondary characters, is a crucial part of filling out what would otherwise be a slightly sterile environment. There are not many locations outside the transport ship and lab building. Much of the book is character work—and very good character work. The interests and motivations that characterized all of the players in this drama before the arrival of the Carryx end up structuring their decisions and relations during transit and after arrival in believable and sympathetic ways. 

Indeed, this link between Before and After can be seen everywhere in the book structure, not just in the characters. The transport from Anjiin to the Carryx planet is a fascinating study of humans in captivity, a crucible in which people's essential natures are distilled and revealed---and one which not everyone survives. It echoes in a sort of nebulous way the inferred struggle to survive that had taken place when humans first arrived on Anjiin, and almost died before taking over. 

On a more local level, the Before and After links can be seen within the events of the book. And since this more immediate Before was an academic institutional drama, the After can be read in that way too. When the research group is abducted and given the berry-turtle task, they are being reassigned to a different lab, exactly as they were afraid would happen at the start. On the Carryx planet, further parallels abound: rival labs, side projects, interdisciplinary endeavours, and squabbles about research credit. The difference, of course, is that the consequences of failure are deadly. ‘Publish or perish’ is literal here, because in Carryx society, if you are not useful, you are dead.

But what really puts the bow on this extremely satisfying power fantasy of lab biochemists fighting the enemy through the power of SCIENCE is the recognition that a huge part of successful science is not the science, but the people. Schmoozing. Networking. Figuring out who wants what, why, and what they’ll do to get it. Navigating institutional politics is a huge component of successful science, and when the institutions and politics are formed of aliens whose worldview, values, and social structures are unthinkably different from everything you’ve ever known, you can Andy Weir your way through the science with the brilliance of a thousand Einsteins, and still get caught out if you don’t know how to figure out what the upper administration actually want and how to give it to them.

Or, if you’re planning a rebellion, how to take it away and crush it into dust.

I mean, I assume. I infer. This is book 1 of a series, but there’s a lot of foreshadowing, and I am here for it.

--

The Math

Highlights:

• Academic politics
• Many inventive aliens
• Strong character work

Nerd coefficient: 8/10: Well worth your time and attention

Reference: Corey, James S. A. The Mercy of Gods [Orbit, 2024].

CLARA COHEN lives in Scotland in a creaky old building with pipes for gas lighting still lurking under her floorboards. She is an experimental linguist by profession, and calligrapher and Islamic geometric artist by vocation. During figure skating season she does blather on a bit about figure skating. She is on mastodon at wandering.shop/@ergative

Nanoreviews: The Entropy of Loss, Folklorn, Leviathan Falls

The Entropy of Loss by Stewart Hotston (Newcon, 2022)

Sarah Shannon is having a weird evening. She's visiting her wife, Rhona, an artist  in the final stages of a terminal illness, when she gets a call from her colleague Akshai. That call pulls her back to the lab where she works on black hole research, to look at some strange data which suddenly throws them into a weird, reality-bending first contact situation. To make things more complicated, Sarah has been dealing with her grief over Rhona's imminent death by having an affair with Akshai, and when Rhona becomes trapped in Sarah's newly transformed lab with the new entity, Sarah's grief and her work become inextricably linked.

The Entropy of Loss has a lot to set up in its opening pages, and it ends up feeling quite artificial, although it's hard to see how Hotston could have done anything differently in novella length. Thus we bounch from hospital - to establish Sarah and Rhona's dynamic and Sarah's emotional state - then to the lab to set up Sarah, Akshai, and the black hole simulation, and back to hospital so Sarah can have Rhona want to come back to the lab again, so she can become trapped with this new alien life. It's easily the weakest part of the book, and that's a shame because once the scenario is established, this becomes a great novella, intertwining an engaging science fiction scenario with the complex emotions of its protagonist. We're long past the cliche of "scientists don't have emotions because science is too rational for feelings" in science fiction, but by making Sarah's emotional investment in her breakthrough (and its security implications for campus) extremely personal, and filtering the first contact communication itself through Sarah and Rhona's relationship dynamics, The Entropy of Loss creates a rich story that hits much closer to home than your average action-packed alien visitation. Just go with the set-up stuff and you'll be rewarded with a really intriguing novella that's well worth checking out.

Folklorn by Angela Mi Young Hur (Erewhon, 2021)

Reviewing has been hard recently, and I'm sorry to say that Folklorn sat unloved in my "to read and review" folder for far longer than this strange, thoughtful story deserved. This is the story of Elsa, a second generation Korean American physicist working at a Swedish university who we meet when she is finishing a research trip to Antarctica. Feeling out of place as an Asian woman in a white-dominated environment, and working through the emotions of finishing her research and leaving Antarctica - and a boyfriend who will be wintering over, which she assumes (correctly) will be the end of their relationship - Elsa begins connecting things around her to the stories and myths her mother (who has been unspeaking and catatonic since Elsa's teen years) told her as a child, and to a "friend" she had at the time, a girl the same age who nobody else could see. It's the re-emergence of her imaginary friend which pushes Elsa into a reckoning with her family legacy, in a journey that takes her from Antarctica to Sweden and back to her family home in California.

While the ghost on the ice, and a later death in the family, provide catalysts for Elsa's journey, it's her internal emotional factors which really drive the narrative, making for a slow read with a lot of introspection. The biggest force here is intergenerational trauma: Elsa's parents lived through the Korean War, and Elsa has grown up with stories about missing relatives and disappearing Aunts, as well as a sister born between her and her brother who, allegedly, died at birth. Unpacking her family's legacy, and her relationships with her parents (both of whom have been abusive in their own ways) and her difficult, mentally ill brother, becomes a huge task, one which Elsa tackles through the lens of myth, uncovering a lineage of disempowered women in Korean folktales through her mother's writing and tying her story to theirs. Elsa is herself a challenging protagonist, at turns lashing out or ignoring help from those around her, and centring her own emotions at the expense of others, but it's done in a way that will feel very familiar to those who have experienced certain kinds of mental illness, and Folklorn's diagnosis feels redemptive: forgive the family who hurt you, especially if they were hurting themselves, but don't let them stop you from growing past the trauma. It's powerful stuff, told in a haunting, affective way.

Leviathan Falls by James S.A. Corey

What is there to say about a book that wraps up 9 volumes of one of the genre's most influential space operas? Leviathan Falls brings to a close the story of The Expanse, a generation-spanning narrative about human expansion in the solar system and beyond, and the political struggles that accompany these changes in the structure of human civilisation. From relatively humble (and very dudebro-oriented) beginnings in Leviathan Wakes, the series has encompassed space-faring revolutions, potential extinction events, the arrival of terrifying new alien technologies, and finally an intergalactic war for the future of humanity, with the crew of the spaceship Rocinante at the heart of the action at every step. Now, after seeing off the series' second most unpleasant charismatic dictator (sorry Duerte, but Marco will always have you beat), the final chapter is about the moment that has been brewing ever since the protomolecule came into human hands in Leviathan Wakes: when wil humanity need to reckon with the unknowable alien technology at the centre of its galactic expansion, and with the alien force that wiped those super-advanced predecessors out?

This is an extremely important question, but it does mean that Leviathan Falls is working firmly in the territory where (in my opinion) the series has been weaker: the "weird alien shit" plots have never hit the highs of the "political shenanigans" plots, which is why Cibola Burn is inarguably the weakest book of the series and Nemesis Games is the best (don't argue, you won't win). But Leviathan Falls overcomes that, for two reasons: first, because we are at the endgame and there are finally some answers to what, until now, have been unknowable events; and second, because after a generation of research on the rogue fascist world of Laconia, the weird alien shit is inextricably linked to human technology and ambition. Building on the first two books in the "Laconia" arc, we therefore get a satisfying inversion of the series' consistent "adapt or die" theme the solutions for adaptation presented by Laconians are awful, the results of decades of unthinkably unethical research, but nine books has taught us that one can't magic easy third solutions out of thin air in this series. And, sure enough, there's a powerful and fitting ending here, one that puts the focus back on Naomi, Alex, Amos and Holden as, once more, the wildcards in determining the future of humanity. 

There are some elements that don't work as well as others. The series' strongest supporting characters, Bobbie and Avasarala, are gone, and Aliana Tanaka, the Laconian officer who becomes the book's main human antagonist, is fine but not particularly exciting for the amount of time we have to spend with her (Elvi and Teresa are great, though). On the whole this is a strong end to a series that, despite its ups and downs, has firmly earned its place on my all-time favourites list.

Adri (she/her), Nerds of a Feather co-editor, is a semi-aquatic migratory mammal most often found in the UK. She has many opinions about SFF books, and is also partial to gaming, baking, interacting with dogs, and Asian-style karaoke. Find her on Twitter at @adrijjy

Reading the Hugos: Series

Welcome to the first article in the 2020 Edition of Reading the Hugos, where I try to cram as much Hugo related content into my brain in as short a time as possible so I can talk about what's on the ballot and share some thoughts.

I often joke that the Hugo Award Season is eternal and that is only half of a joke because there is only a small breath between the announcement of the winners in August and the end of the year when we start thinking about what the best books of the year may have been, and that leads directly into submitting our nominating ballots and the cycle begins anew.

Today we are going to look at the six finalists for Best Series. Frankly, it's a little weird for me to begin with Series rather than Best Novel or one of the shorter fiction categories, but things work out as they do and here we are thinking about Best Series as a category.

This is the fourth year of having a Best Series category and while each year has had its own flavor based on the works that were eligible that year, I particularly appreciate this year's flavor. This year's finalists represent some of the breadth of science fiction and fantasy, from urban fantasy to space opera and just about everything in between. Even more so, this year's Best Series finalists represent excellence in the genre AND represent series work that is less likely to make the Best Novel ballot - and if that's the case, this is Best Series at it's best. These are works where the encapsulation of the whole is more notable than any single volume - where a single volume is raised up by its association with the rest of the series.

This is not to say that any of the qualifying novels (or stories) that made these series eligible are not worthy of recognition on their own, because they are, but if we pay attention to the shape of the genre and what sort of work is being recognized for Best Novel and other awards and if we're being honest we'll acknowledge that few of these works are likely to make the ballot.

THAT is the truest value of Best Series.

On to the finalists.


The Expanse, by James S.A. Corey (Orbit)
InCryptid, by Seanan McGuire (DAW)
Luna, by Ian McDonald (Tor)
Planetfall, by Emma Newman (Ace)
Winternight, by Katherine Arden (Del Rey)
Wormwood, by Tade Thompson (Orbit)

Luna: I first tried to read Luna: New Moon when it was published in 2015 and at that time I read maybe twenty or thirty pages before I completely lost interest and decided that not only was this series not for me, but perhaps Ian McDonald was not for me. I had tried and failed to get into some of his earlier novels and this was likely the last chance at novel length I was willing to give him. Then came this year's Hugo ballot and my incessant need to read everything on each year's Hugo ballot.

So, I tried again. Perhaps I was in a better place in my life, perhaps Luna: New Moon hit me at a better time of day, but I read the whole thing! That's not necessarily a real accomplishment, but given my previous failure to read this novel I'll take it as a win.

The only problem is that for most of Luna: New Moon, I was disinterested in what happened to any of the characters and the political machinations fell flat. By the end, I was curious what happened next after a fairly explosive conclusion - but more in the sense that I'd rather read a summary of Wolf Moon and Moon Rising than actually read those novels.

Given how many people adore Ian McDonald's work, I do recognize that this is a case of the wrong reader for the wrong book than it is about McDonald's work itself. I may never be an Ian McDonald reader. There's something about his storytelling that does not work for me, and as such, Luna: New Moon is as far as I plan to go with this series.

Wormwood: Rosewater was a novel I figured I would get to eventually, but I had no sense of urgency to read it anytime soon. Until, of course, the series as a whole was up for a Hugo Award.

Like the Winternight and Luna trilogies, Wormwood is one that I am considering solely off of one novel. I've read Rosewater but I am unlikely to read The Rosewater Insurrection in the next month before voting for the Hugo Awards closes. Like Katherine Arden's Winternight novels but unlike Luna, I am inclined to someday read The Rosewater Insurrection. I'm far more curious as to how Tade Thompson will develop this series than I am Ian McDonald - but and this is where we are comparing series, I am far more excited to read more of Katherine Arden. I engaged more with the storytelling of Tade Thompson than Ian McDonald. At no time was I disinterested, though I was mostly confused as to where Thompson was going. But, also at no time was I fully enraptured wtih the storytelling as I was with The Bear and the Nightingale.

It's a fool's errand to rank and compare novels and it is even moreso to compare a series, but when voting for an award requires one to do so, that's how I have to start thinking about. Sometimes it's not what the work is on its own, it is how I do I think about it in relation to another - and in relation to this category's ballot, Wormwood slots in very neatly between Luna and Winternight, but does not excite me as much as the top of the ballot.

Winternight: When I wrote about the John W. Campbell Award (now Astounding Award) for Best New Writer in 2018, I noted that after reading The Bear and the Nightingale that I was as excited to read the second book in the Winternight trilogy as I was to see what she is writing ten years in the future. The Bear and the Nightingale was the announcement of a major new talent. The novel touched on Russian folklore and was a tight family story mostly set in remote regions of Russia.

Now that Katherine Arden's trilogy is complete we can see what an accomplishment the series truly is. I would love to be at least two novels into the series at this point, if not having completed it. Perhaps by the time Hugo voting has closed in the middle of July I will have read The Girl in the Tower, but if not - I can still say with full assurance that Winternight is beautifully written excellence.

Planetfall: At this point I have read Planetfall, After Atlas, and Atlas Alone - only missing the third book, Before Mars. At a very high level, the first novel deals with the colonization of another world and the religious cult / organization which founded the colony. The second novel deals with some of the fallout back on Earth, though each book is far more complex than such a basic description. Planetfall, the series, is a fully realized universe with machinations and deft characterization.

I've thoroughly enjoyed each of the three Planetfall novels I've read, but despite that I never have the urge to go right out and read the next. These are very good science fiction novels and the series is richer because of Emma Newman's excellent worldbuilding - but as good as they are (and they are very good) they've never become essential reading for me.

The Expanse: It is somewhat weird to be disappointed when a favorite series makes the Hugo ballot, but voters had the opportunity here to hold off just this year and wait for the final volume of The Expanse to recognize a completed series. Maybe that's not realistic, and you never know what the future holds so perhaps it is best to recognize excellence when you get the chance - but if The Expanse doesn't win this year it is unlikely to have another chance at Hugo.

At the absolute worst, The Expanse will go down as a two time Hugo Award finalist for Best Series (not to mention the Best Novel nomination for Leviathan Wakes) and one of the most notable and wildly popular science fiction series in some time. The Expanse is alternatingly a heck of a lot of fun and deadly serious with heart rending moments. The most impressive thing about The Expanse is that when James S.A. Corey reset the series with a significant time jump, the series got even better.

InCryptid: When I first wrote about the Incryptid series in 2018 I was only just discovering Seanan McGuire. I had intended that year to read more of the October Daye novels, but was distracted by InCryptid on the Hugo Award ballot. Readers, I was hooked. There was a time I would have said my favorite Seanan McGuire novels were the ones she wrote as Mira Grant. While my esteem for Mira Grant remains high, my love for Seanan McGuire's novels - both October Daye as well as Incryptid - has a special place in my heart. I adore these novels.

There are now nine published Incryptid novels (eight are eligible for consideration for this award), plus a number of novellas and short stories. I made the point earlier that Best Series has the opportunity to recognize long running series where any individual novel will almost certainly never make the Hugo ballot but the series as a whole is absolute excellence and perhaps even where the whole is more significant than any single part.

That is Incryptid, and though I adore each novel with all my heart, it is as part of the larger series where Incryptid shines. It's not just the story of Verity, Alexander, and Antimony Price - it's the story of their family and their life's mission to protect (and study) the supernatural creatures of our world from The Covenant. Each novel is excellent on its own, but Incryptid is so much richer for how our understanding and appreciation builds as the series progresses. If that is not the definition of a Best Series, I don't know what is.


My Vote
1. Incryptid
2. The Expanse
3. Planetfall
4. Winternight
5. Wormwood
6. Luna


POSTED BY: Joe Sherry - Co-editor of Nerds of a Feather, 4x Hugo Award Finalist for Best Fanzine. Minnesotan. He / Him.

New Books Spotlight

Welcome to another edition of the New Books Spotlight, where each month or so we curate a selection of 6 forthcoming books we find notable, interesting, and intriguing. It gives us the opportunity to shine a brief spotlight on some stuff we're itching to get our hands on.

What are you looking forward to? Anything you want to argue with us about? Is there something we should consider spotlighting in the future? Let us know in the comments!

Bear, Elizabeth. Ancestral Night [Saga]
Publisher's Description

A space salvager and her partner make the discovery of a lifetime that just might change the universe in this wild, big-ideas space opera from multi award-winning author Elizabeth Bear. 

Halmey Dz and her partner Connla Kurucz are salvage operators, living just on the inside of the law...usually. Theirs is the perilous and marginal existence—with barely enough chance of striking it fantastically big—just once—to keep them coming back for more. They pilot their tiny ship into the scars left by unsuccessful White Transitions, searching for the relics of lost human and alien vessels. But when they make a shocking discovery about an alien species that has been long thought dead, it may be the thing that could tip the perilous peace mankind has found into full-out war.

Energetic and electrifying, Ancestral Night is a dazzling new space opera, sure to delight fans of Alastair Reynolds, Iain M. Banks, and Peter F. Hamilton. 

Why We Want It: I don't pre-order many novels because I still do have to pay the mortgage, but Ancestral Night is one of this year's pre-orders. Really, anything by Elizabeth Bear is essential reading. I've loved her fantasy novels (urban or epic), but Bear's return to space opera is one to watch.

Cho, Zen. The True Queen [Ace]
Publisher's Description

In the follow-up to the “delightful” Regency fantasy novel (NPR.org) Sorcerer to the Crown, a young woman with no memories of her past finds herself embroiled in dangerous politics in England and the land of the fae. 

When sisters Muna and Sakti wake up on the peaceful beach of the island of Janda Baik, they can’t remember anything, except that they are bound as only sisters can be. They have been cursed by an unknown enchanter, and slowly Sakti starts to fade away. The only hope of saving her is to go to distant Britain, where the Sorceress Royal has established an academy to train women in magic.

If Muna is to save her sister, she must learn to navigate high society, and trick the English magicians into believing she is a magical prodigy. As she’s drawn into their intrigues, she must uncover the secrets of her past, and journey into a world with more magic than she had ever dreamed. 

Why We Want It: It's been almost four years since Sorcerer to the Crown announced Zen Cho as a major new writer to watch and I'm sure I'm not alone in my eager anticipation for The True Queen.

Corey, James S.A. Tiamat's Wrath [Orbit]
Publisher's Description

Thirteen hundred gates have opened to solar systems around the galaxy. But as humanity builds its interstellar empire in the alien ruins, the mysteries and threats grow deeper.

In the dead systems where gates lead to stranger things than alien planets, Elvi Okoye begins a desperate search to discover the nature of a genocide that happened before the first human beings existed, and to find weapons to fight a war against forces at the edge of the imaginable. But the price of that knowledge may be higher than she can pay.

At the heart of the empire, Teresa Duarte prepares to take on the burden of her father’s godlike ambition. The sociopathic scientist Paolo Cortázar and the Mephistophelian prisoner James Holden are only two of the dangers in a palace thick with intrigue, but Teresa has a mind of her own and secrets even her father the emperor doesn’t guess.

And throughout the wide human empire, the scattered crew of the Rocinante fights a brave rear-guard action against Duarte’s authoritarian regime. Memory of the old order falls away, and a future under Laconia’s eternal rule — and with it, a battle that humanity can only lose — seems more and more certain. Because against the terrors that lie between worlds, courage and ambition will not be enough… 

Why We Want It: If you don't know about The Expanse by now, I'm not sure what to tell you. Now eight volumes into a nine book series, The Expanse just keeps getting better.  With the previous volume, Persepolis Rising, James S.A. Corey jumped the narrative thirty years into the future and it revitalized a series that was already vital.

Hurley, Kameron The Light Brigade [Saga]
Publisher's Description

From the Hugo Award­­–winning author of The Stars Are Legion comes a brand-new science fiction thriller about a futuristic war during which soldiers are broken down into light in order to get them to the front lines on Mars. 

They said the war would turn us into light. 
I wanted to be counted among the heroes who gave us this better world. 

The Light Brigade: it’s what soldiers fighting the war against Mars call the ones who come back…different. Grunts in the corporate corps get busted down into light to travel to and from interplanetary battlefronts. Everyone is changed by what the corps must do in order to break them down into light. Those who survive learn to stick to the mission brief—no matter what actually happens during combat.

Dietz, a fresh recruit in the infantry, begins to experience combat drops that don’t sync up with the platoon’s. And Dietz’s bad drops tell a story of the war that’s not at all what the corporate brass want the soldiers to think is going on.

Is Dietz really experiencing the war differently, or is it combat madness? Trying to untangle memory from mission brief and survive with sanity intact, Dietz is ready to become a hero—or maybe a villain; in war it’s hard to tell the difference.

A worthy successor to classic stories like Downbelow Station, Starship Troopers, and The Forever War, The Light Brigade is award-winning author Kameron Hurley’s gritty time-bending take on the future of war. 

Why We Want It: Check out the short story, then come back. Kameron Hurley is one hell of a writer and if The Stars Are Legion (my review) marked Hurley leveling up again in her skill and craft of storytelling excellence, The Light Brigade promises to raise the bar yet again. There's nobody quite like Hurley out there and each novel is a must read experience.

McGuire, Seanan. That Ain't Witchcraft [DAW]

Publisher's Description
The eighth book in the funny and fast-paced InCryptid urban fantasy series returns to the mishaps of the Price family, eccentric cryptozoologists who safeguard the world of magical creatures living in secret among humans. 

Crossroads, noun:

1. A place where two roads cross.
2. A place where bargains can be made.
3. See also “places to avoid.”

Antimony Price has never done well without a support system. As the youngest of her generation, she has always been able to depend on her parents, siblings, and cousins to help her out when she’s in a pinch—until now. After fleeing from the Covenant of St. George, she’s found herself in debt to the crossroads and running for her life. No family. No mice. No way out.

Lucky for her, she’s always been resourceful, and she’s been gathering allies as she travels: Sam, fūri trapeze artist turned boyfriend; Cylia, jink roller derby captain and designated driver; Fern, sylph friend, confidant, and maker of breakfasts; even Mary, ghost babysitter to the Price family. Annie’s actually starting to feel like they might be able to figure things out—which is probably why things start going wrong again.

New Gravesend, Maine is a nice place to raise a family…or make a binding contract with the crossroads. For James Smith, whose best friend disappeared when she tried to do precisely that, it’s also an excellent place to plot revenge. Now the crossroads want him dead and they want Annie to do the dirty deed. She owes them, after all.

And that’s before Leonard Cunningham, aka, “the next leader of the Covenant,” shows up…

It’s going to take everything Annie has and a little bit more to get out of this one. If she succeeds, she gets to go home. If she fails, she becomes one more cautionary tale about the dangers of bargaining with the crossroads.

But no pressure. 

Why We Want It: I am hooked on Seanan McGuire's Incryptid series. I had meant to spend much of the last year reading through McGuire's October Daye novels, but Incryptid's Hugo nomination for Best Series shifted my focus and I haven't looked back. These are addictively good novels.

Pinsker, Sarah. Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea [Small Beer]
Publisher's Description

Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea is one of the most anticipated sf&f collections of recent years. Pinsker has shot like a star across the firmament with stories multiply nominated for awards as well as Sturgeon and Nebula award wins.

The baker’s dozen stories gathered here (including a new, previously unpublished story) turn readers into travelers to the past, the future, and explorers of the weirder points of the present. The journey is the thing as Pinsker weaves music, memory, technology, history, mystery, love, loss, and even multiple selves on generation ships and cruise ships, on highways and high seas, in murder houses and treehouses. They feature runaways, fiddle-playing astronauts, and retired time travelers; they are weird, wired, hopeful, haunting, and deeply human. They are often described as beautiful but Pinsker also knows that the heart wants what the heart wants and that is not always right, or easy. 

Why We Want It: Sarah Pinsker has twice been nominated for the Hugo Award and is a six time finalist for the Nebula Award (winning once) for her short fiction. Pinsker's name on a story is enough to grab my attention and interest. She's damn good. Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea is her debut collection of short stories and I am here for it.



POSTED BY: Joe Sherry - Co-editor of Nerds of a Feather, 2017 & 2018 Hugo Award Finalist for Best Fanzine. Minnesotan.

Nanoreviews: The Stone in the Skull, Persepolis Rising, The Tea Master and the Detective

Bear, Elizabeth. The Stone in the Skull [Tor, 2017]

The Stone in the Skull is set in the same world as her superb Eternal Sky trilogy, but if you haven't read those books (and why haven't you?), don't worry because there are only loose connections that add to the rich tapestry that is The Stone in the Skull. Here Bear shifts the location south east to the Lotus Kingdoms and introduces readers to the Gage and the Dead Man, two characters whose personal stories, friendship, and interactions are riveting (one is a woman turned into automaton, the other a bodyguard / assassin from a now destroyed Caliphate), and also to Sayeh and Mrithuri, rulers of their respective kingdoms fighting to hold on and protect their people, their positions, and somehow manage to have a glimmer of a personal life outside of the rigid wall of expectation of a woman ruling in her own name. The Stone in the Skull is the first book of a new trilogy and so there is some building and setting up story and characters arcs that will pay off in books two and three, but both as a novel and the beginning of a trilogy, The Stone in the Skull stands as one of the best novels of 2017 or any other year.  Elizabeth Bear is at the height of her powers and her powers are mighty indeed.
Score: 9/10

Corey, James S.A. Persepolis Rising [Orbit, 2017]

The thirty year time jump from the conclusion of Babylon Rising was a risky move, but it paid off in spades in Persepolis Rising. The time jump was an opportunity for Corey to reset the deck, establish the new norms for the galaxy and begin to bring new characters into the mix while building a new threat to the forefront.  It works exceedingly well, and when Corey shows the new threat and brings the hammer, there's a very high body count, excitement, and the end result is one of the best novels in the entire series - which is an impressive feat for book #7.
Score: 9/10

deBodard, Aliette. The Tea Master and the Detective [Subterranean Press, 2018]

The Mindships of de Bodard's Xuya universe remind me somewhat of Anne McCaffrey's Brain ships, which is not so much a point as a random observation. The Tea Master and the Detective is a murder mystery with a sentient ship and a prickly detective uneasily working together to figure out how a body abandoned in deep space was killed. The novella is far better than my description. The excellence here is in the interplay between The Shadow Child and Long Chau and their characterization, development, and backgrounds.

Score: 7/10



POSTED BY: Joe Sherry - Co-editor of Nerds of a Feather, 2017 Hugo Award Finalist for Best Fanzine. Writer / Editor of the mostly defunct Adventures in Reading since 2004. Minnesotan. 

New Books Spotlight

Welcome to another edition of the New Books Spotlight, where each month or so we curate a selection of 6 forthcoming books we find notable, interesting, and intriguing. It gives us the opportunity to shine a brief spotlight on some stuff we're itching to get our hands on.

What are you looking forward to? Anything you want to argue with us about? Is there something we should consider spotlighting in the future? Let us know in the comments!

Corey, James S. A. Persepolis Rising [Orbit, 2017] 
Publisher's Description

AN OLD ENEMY RETURNS

In the thousand-sun network of humanity’s expansion, new colony worlds are struggling to find their way. Every new planet lives on a knife edge between collapse and wonder, and the crew of the aging gunship Rocinante have their hands more than full keeping the fragile peace.

In the vast space between Earth and Jupiter, the inner planets and belt have formed a tentative and uncertain alliance still haunted by a history of wars and prejudices. On the lost colony world of Laconia, a hidden enemy has a new vision for all of humanity and the power to enforce it.

New technologies clash with old as the history of human conflict returns to its ancient patterns of war and subjugation. But human nature is not the only enemy, and the forces being unleashed have their own price. A price that will change the shape of humanity — and of the Rocinante — unexpectedly and forever… 

Why We Want It: Persepolis Rising is the eighth volume of The Expanse and at this point you're either all in or you're never going to get this far. If you're in, you know what's up. The duo behind James S. A. Corey puts out winner after winner with this series and it's some delightful science fiction. I'm very much looking forward to seeing what they do with Persepolis Rising.

Grant, Mira. Into the Drowning Deep [Orbit, 2017]
Publisher's Description

New York Times bestselling author Mira Grant, author of the renowned Newsflesh series, returns with a novel that takes us to a new world of ancient mysteries and mythological dangers come to life.

The ocean is home to many myths, 

But some are deadly…

Seven years ago the Atargatis set off on a voyage to the Mariana Trench to film a mockumentary bringing to life ancient sea creatures of legend. It was lost at sea with all hands. Some have called it a hoax; others have called it a tragedy.

Now a new crew has been assembled. But this time they’re not out to entertain. Some seek to validate their life’s work. Some seek the greatest hunt of all. Some seek the truth. But for the ambitious young scientist Victoria Stewart this is a voyage to uncover the fate of the sister she lost.

Whatever the truth may be, it will only be found below the waves.

But the secrets of the deep come with a price. 

Why We Want It: I'll be straight up with you. I've already read this and it is so very good. So very good. Grant's Newsflesh series was a delight, but Into the Drowning Deep is on another level entirely. It is deeply compelling, unsettling, and I did not want to put it down.

Martin, George R. R., ed. Wild Cards: Mississippi Roll [Tor, 2017]
Publisher's Description

Perfect for current fans and new readers alike, Mississippi Roll is an adventurous journey along Ol’ Man River, featuring beloved characters from the Wild Cards universe. 

Now on its final voyage, the historical steamboat Natchez is known for her super-powered guest entertainers. But after the suspicious death of a crewmember, retired NY police detective Leo Storgman decides to make this incident his personal case. His findings only lead to a growing number of questions. Is there some truth behind the ghostly sightings of the steamboat’s first captain Wilbur Leathers? What secret does the current captain seem to be hiding? And could the Natchez be ferrying mysterious – and possibly dangerous – cargo onboard?

 Edited by #1 New York Times bestselling author George R. R. Martin, Mississippi Roll features the writing talents of Stephen Leigh, John Jos. Miller, Kevin Andrew Murphy, Carrie Vaughn (Martians Abroad), Hugo-Award winning author David D. Levine (Arabella of Mars), and Hugo and Nebula Award finalist Cherie Priest (Boneshaker). 

Why We Want It: We may be a touch behind on our Wild Cards, but a new novel is always a good thing and a reminder that it's time to jump back into the series. Though the 24th volume, Mississippi Roll looks to be a good entry point into the series for new readers as well as those who may be lapsed.

 
Sanderson, Brandon. Oathbringer [Tor, 2017]
Publisher's Description

The eagerly awaited sequel to the #1 New York Times bestselling Words of Radiance, from epic fantasy author Brandon Sanderson at the top of his game. 

In Oathbringer, the third volume of the New York Times bestselling Stormlight Archive, humanity faces a new Desolation with the return of the Voidbringers, a foe with numbers as great as their thirst for vengeance.

Dalinar Kholin’s Alethi armies won a fleeting victory at a terrible cost: The enemy Parshendi summoned the violent Everstorm, which now sweeps the world with destruction, and in its passing awakens the once peaceful and subservient parshmen to the horror of their millennia-long enslavement by humans. While on a desperate flight to warn his family of the threat, Kaladin Stormblessed must come to grips with the fact that the newly kindled anger of the parshmen may be wholly justified.

Nestled in the mountains high above the storms, in the tower city of Urithiru, Shallan Davar investigates the wonders of the ancient stronghold of the Knights Radiant and unearths dark secrets lurking in its depths. And Dalinar realizes that his holy mission to unite his homeland of Alethkar was too narrow in scope. Unless all the nations of Roshar can put aside Dalinar’s blood-soaked past and stand together—and unless Dalinar himself can confront that past—even the restoration of the Knights Radiant will not prevent the end of civilization. 

Why We Want It: Brandon Sanderson has proved himself to be a fantasy institution and each new novel, especially those of The Stormlight Archive are big event books, tentpoles of the fantasy reading year. Oathbringer has been one of my most anticipated fantasies since I closed the last page of Words of Radiance three years ago.

Scholes, Ken. Hymn [Tor, 2017]
Publisher's Description

Ken Scholes completes his five-book epic that began with his acclaimed first novel Lamentation. The battle for control of The Named Lands has captivated readers as they have learned, alongside the characters, the true nature of world called Lasthome.

Now the struggle between the Andro-Francine Order of the Named Lands and the Y’Zirite Empire has reached a terrible turning point. Believing that his son is dead, Rudolfo has pretended to join with the triumphant Y’zirite forces—but his plan is to destroy them all with a poison that is targeted only to the enemy.

In Y’Zir, Rudolfo’s wife Jin Li Tam is fighting a war with her own father which will bring that Empire to ruin.

And on the Moon, Neb, revealed as one of the Younger Gods, takes the power of the Last Home Temple for his own. 

Why We Want It: After a five year wait, Ken Scholes is back and has delivered the fifth and final book in his Psalms of Isaak sequence. There's a lot going on here, with plots upon plots and, astoundingly, even a trip to the moon. I'm interested to see how he wraps this one up.

Weir, Andy. Artemis [Crown, 2017]
Publisher's Description

Jasmine Bashara never signed up to be a hero. She just wanted to get rich.

Not crazy, eccentric-billionaire rich, like many of the visitors to her hometown of Artemis, humanity’s first and only lunar colony. Just rich enough to move out of her coffin-sized apartment and eat something better than flavored algae. Rich enough to pay off a debt she’s owed for a long time.

So when a chance at a huge score finally comes her way, Jazz can’t say no. Sure, it requires her to graduate from small-time smuggler to full-on criminal mastermind. And it calls for a particular combination of cunning, technical skills, and large explosions—not to mention sheer brazen swagger. But Jazz has never run into a challenge her intellect can’t handle, and she figures she’s got the ‘swagger’ part down.

The trouble is, engineering the perfect crime is just the start of Jazz’s problems. Because her little heist is about to land her in the middle of a conspiracy for control of Artemis itself.

Trapped between competing forces, pursued by a killer and the law alike, even Jazz has to admit she’s in way over her head. She’ll have to hatch a truly spectacular scheme to have a chance at staying alive and saving her city.

Jazz is no hero, but she is a very good criminal.

That’ll have to do.

Propelled by its heroine’s wisecracking voice, set in a city that’s at once stunningly imagined and intimately familiar, and brimming over with clever problem-solving and heist-y fun, Artemis is another irresistible brew of science, suspense, and humor from #1 bestselling author Andy Weir. 

Why We Want It: You've read The Martian, right? Weir's story of an astronaut marooned on Mars was charming and thrilling enough that we want to see what he does next.



POSTED BY: Joe Sherry - Co-editor of Nerds of a Feather, 2017 Hugo Award Finalist for Best Fanzine. Writer / Editor of the mostly defunct Adventures in Reading since 2004. Minnesotan.

Microreview [book]: Babylon's Ashes (book six of The Expanse), by James S.A. Corey

 A rather anticlimactic conclusion to the Holden/Nagata vs. Inaros saga, with too much Holden and Inaros and not enough Nagata!

Corey, James S.A. Babylon's Ashes. Orbit: 2016.

Buy it here if you wish. 

When The Dark Knight Rises (clumsily!) began building up the villain’s mystique of Bane, we knew two things right away: Batman would fight him twice, and the first time he would be utterly defeated. It is this initial defeat which increases the melodramatic payoff of his eventual victory: we know how tough the enemy is, because we’ve seen it first-hand.

Bane = a worthy adversary; Inaros = an annoying fop

A similar narrative convention is at work in books five (Nemesis Games) and six (Babylon’s Ashes) of The Expanse. Marco Inaros is the Bane of the solar system: he (to hear him retell it) single-handedly rocked (see what I did there?) the inner planets’ equilibrium, nearly destroying Earth. This corresponds to Bane’s initial victory over Batman; so far, so good. But all of this build-up is to increase the melodrama when Batman (or in this case the dynamic duo of Naomi Nagata and Jim Holden) eventually triumphs against this formidable foe. And this is where, in my opinion, Babylon’s Ashes missteps.

It turns out Inaros just isn’t that compelling a villain, and perhaps as a consequence of this, the good guys’ inevitable victory over him isn’t particularly cathartic. In one sense that shouldn’t matter, since of course it’s entirely up to Daniel Abraham and Ty Francks what sort of villain to create, and nothing mandates a “tougher than you can believe” archetype. The problem, as I see it, is that they fell into this narrative trope without having the right sort of villain for it. Inaros is simply a megalomaniac with a flair (sort of) for PR, but his ridiculous behavior and blunders end up alienating many of his erstwhile supporters. This leeches the catharsis right out of the mano y mano confrontation at the end, since in a manner of speaking Inaros has already been beaten, in small ways, numerous times before this.

If the big, bad wolf who wrecked the solar system is nothing more than a navel-gazing fool, it cheapens the hard work the crew of the Roci (et al) have to do to bring him to heel. Indeed, we are left with a somewhat less favorable impression of the super-crew, since defeating a moron like Inaros apparently taxed them to the limit of their abilities! Surely there was something less explosive they could have done to knock out all those rail guns in the ‘slow zone’? I mean, was that really the best plan they could come up with, these brightest minds in the solar system?

Despite Marco Inaros being a nincompoop, the writers chose to focus a bit too much on him and in particular, his thirst for vengeance against Holden, the man who kept humiliating him. Fair enough, to be obsessed with a pissing contest seems in character for the petty Inaros, but why did the writers let him and his quest to destroy Jim Holden dominate the story? A much more compelling storyline, it seems to me, would have been in a more explicit opposition between the methods and worldviews of Nagata and Inaros, since one way of thinking of this book is as a battle for the soul of Filip, their son. Besides, Nagata is a much more interesting character than Holden (of whose earnestness, if we’re all being honest, we’re getting a bit tired, aren’t we?).

Nothing against Alex and Amos, but in general, the male characters of this series just aren’t as compelling as the female ones: the Naomis, Bobbies, Michios, and Clarissas (to say nothing of the indefatigable Avasarala herself!). One humble suggestion for future installments in this probably interminable series: stick with the ladies! (I’m happy to say that their latest novella does precisely this, telling the story of an interesting tweenaged girl growing up on Laconia—stay tuned for my review!)

The Math:

Objective assessment: 7/10

Bonuses: +1 for having such great female characters (but see ‘penalties’ below)

Penalties: -1 for the narrative mismatch between the fop Inaros and his Bane-like mystique, -1 for focusing too much on the boring male characters and too little on the ladies of the system!

Nerd coefficient: 6/10 “Still enjoyable, but the flaws are hard to ignore”

[Does a mere 6/10 seem low to you? Check out our scoring system here, and learn why it’s actually not bad!]

Zhaoyun, who to be honest is more a fan of ‘spacemance’ than of space opera per se, has been inhabiting The Expanse since it burst onto the scene, and has been a regular(ish) contributor at Nerds of a Feather since 2013.

Microreview [book]: Nemesis Games, by James S.A. Corey

‘The gang’  (and, you know, everyone else) imperiled—a satisfying ante-upper indeed!

You can buy it here. 

Since there was a bit too much familiarity about the crew of the Roci by book four—a sense that if they pooled their efforts they could somehow triumph against any obstacle, even an alien one—it seemed the series was building to a problem serious enough to jeopardize the synergistic relationship the four had. Sure enough, Nemesis Games almost immediately sends all four main crew members off on disparate quests, with little chance to affect each others’ situations.

This sort of ‘scattered to the ends of the earth solar system’ setup entails some risks. Since we have grown accustomed to having the Roci’s crew (not to mention the Roci herself, practically a fifth main cast member at this point) demonstrate the importance of interpersonal relations by solving every problem together, how will the story proceed if we, the readers, are denied the pleasure of seeing them work together (and denied any meaningful glimpse of the Roci, out of commission temporarily due to damage sustained in Cibola Burn)?

I’m pleased to say that the authors of The Expanse did a masterful job of what is essentially back-story exposition (no easy task to avoid the typical sort of “You know I don’t like snakes…(and I'm saying this now because lots of snakes are in the near future)” clumsiness, but they managed it!), giving us a major glimpse into everyone’s past (well, everyone but Holden). We learn, in essence, some of the key reasons such a skilled group were on the Canterbury in the first place: what they were running from, and why. Since the core relationship on the Rocinante is the one between Holden and (Naomi) Nagata, it is only fitting that it is this romance which is most directly imperiled by the reemergence of these shady pasts.

All this might sound pretty small-time—the ghosts of the main characters’ misdeeds rearing their ugly heads might be scary to those individuals, but it would hardly measure up to the sort of civilization-ending threat these four (+ the Roci) have faced previously. At the risk of being terribly mysterious (thank you, The Sphinx from Mystery Men!), I’ll say only that the stakes turn out to be all too high, the threat all too dire. Just when we thought the worst that was in store was the addition of new crew members to the Roci, and the risk that both the diegetic dynamic and the reader’s appreciation for the tight-knit crew of four could be shaken, we discover that the true danger is to the core of human civilization itself!

Does the "Holden+Nagata, Alex and Amos too" dynamic survive this dire challenge? Is this, in fact, the best Expanse book yet? (Given The G's almost visceral dislike for the first book in the series, one could optimistically say that it must be getting better overall!)  You’ll just have to read it to find out! (Alternatively, you could check out my forthcoming review of book six, Babylon’s Ashes—check back here on NOAF soonish!)

The Math:

Objective Assessment: 7/10

Bonuses: +1 for masterful exposition, without a single “But you KNOW I can’t eat strawberries!” ham-fisted foreshadowing, +1 for successfully upping the ante—with a vengeance!

Penalties: -1 for describing Nagata’s protracted ordeal in what struck me as a conspicuously pseudo-scientific manner (in essence, hit stuff with a wrench after a serious physical injury/setback, but still get one’s message through without being “permanently damaged”, to quote Vader)

Funny how main characters seem to survive just about anything, eh Naomi? Keep swimming around unprotected in deep space--I'm sure everything will work out!

Nerd coefficient: 8/10 “A bit of alright”, as the Australians say!

***

[Puzzled by our scoring system? Learn why 8/10 is an exceedingly high score here.]

Reference: Abraham, Daniel and Ty Frank. Nemesis Games. Orbit, 2016.

All the comments and opinions written here are solely Zhaoyun’s, longtime lover of space opera and fantasy literature and reviewer for Nerds of a Feather since 2013, and should not necessarily be taken to represent all Nerd-kind.

Microreview [book]: Cibola Burn (book four of the Expanse series)

The weakest entry in the series (so far)…and yet still great fun!

Corey, James S.A. Cibola Burn. Hachette Book Group, 2015.

Buy it here.

So here’s the thing—I’m a big-time fan of the Expanse series. At the point I’m writing this review, I’ve read the first five books, and enjoyed them all to varying degrees. The first one got things off to an explosive start, the second one continued that momentum, and the third one upped the excitement ante. Like the first three books of Robert Jordan’s near-interminable Wheel of Time series, the first three almost felt like a stand-alone trilogy, one which had reached a mostly satisfying (if open-ended) conclusion. The question is, how could the authors of The Expanse sustain this impressive pace into book four?

Well, the answer is they couldn’t (though they came close). Overall, Cibola Burn was certainly entertaining, but (like book four of the Wheel of Time) it felt rather anticlimactic.  It’s plenty interesting, but there’s a slight diminishing-returns sense of “they’re at it again” when we see the crew of the Roci solve every problem with trademark skill (if not ease). We are, of course, unable to doubt the overall trajectory of the Holden + (ghost) Miller duo: like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series theme song, we know “the good guys win and the bad guys lose.” 

Also true of most books, movies, etc.

So it’s no spoiler to say that they manage another miraculous save. My sense is that the authors wrote themselves into a bit of a corner with what film reviewers of every Jason Statham movie would have described as a ‘high-octane’ plot in the first three books, leaving them no room to up the ante.

Perhaps it would be best to see the Expanse as more of a single unit (albeit one whose end is not yet in sight), in which case it would make sense to have something of a lull in the middle, or (like in one of those mix tapes John Cusack raves about in High Fidelity) after a few fast-paced hits in the beginning. By that logic, we might reasonably expect a return to ‘high octane romp’ form in book five. To see if this is the case, check in next Friday for a review of Nemesis Games!

The Math:

Objective assessment: 7/10

Bonus: +1 for somehow turning the entire gate/1000 worlds thing into a manageable story

Penalty: -1 for not quite overcoming sequel fatigue

Nerd coefficient: 7/10 "Enjoyable experience but not without a flaw or two"

To learn more about our unique scoring system, see here.

It is I, Zhaoyun, explorer extraordinaire of space operas of all shapes and sizes, and reviewer for Nerds of a Feather since time immemorial (2013), who brings you this message.

Microreview [TV]: The Expanse

The rare adaption that outshines its source.

SyFy’s The Expanse is arguably the best show on television right now. It’s at least the best science fiction show in quite some time. It is an action packed and nuanced space opera with phenomenal acting and character profiles that has viewers glued to the TV every week. Best of all, it does all of this despite the source material. That is not to say that the book series isn’t good, it is a fun read but is at times rather problematic. The G nicely points out the main problems with the first book in the series in his Leviathan Wakes review, so I won’t reiterate. But the show overcomes many of these issues leading to one of the best on-screen adaptations to date.

Here are some of the areas where SyFy’s The Expanse succeeds as a great on-screen adaption of a series:

1) The Characters: I can’t agree with The G more that one of the major weaknesses of Leviathan Wakes is the characters. This is not entirely surprising to me as I’ve had issues with Abraham's characters before and stopped reading Dagger & Coin because of it. However, the characters are, to me, what makes the show so great. Where author James S.A. Corey gave us meek but supposedly intelligent (I say supposedly because we never really see evidence of it) Naomi, SyFy gave us bad ass, commanding, OPA-involved Nagata. Amos, who is my all time favorite character in the show, comes off as a bloated meat head stereotype in the book, but SyFy and actor Wes Chatham transform him into a multidimensional figure who is fierce and loyal and whose background is seeping out little by little each episode.

Book Holden is almost frustratingly naïve and a horrible captain, but not in that ‘I’m supposed to be a horrible captain because its part of my character arc’ sort of way – he just plain sucks as a captain. In Leviathan Wakes he is constantly buzfeeding raw information across the universe because he thinks that people should know everything that’s going on before even he has a chance to process it. TV Holden still releases sensitive information (once) and does so as a failsafe before he is captured by the Martians. SyFy gave him a believable reason to do this. Thank you SyFy. Even Alex, the swashbuckling pilot who exists solely to fly the ship in the book becomes layered and sympathetic in the show.

Finally, there is Miller. The G states that Miller is just your standard run-of-the-mill grizzled veteran cop, which is true. This is not lost in the show. In fact, Miller was my least favorite show character the first time I watched it, precisely for this reason. I felt that being so one-dimensional he didn’t at all fit with the rest of the cast of characters. The funny thing is though, that Miller turned out to be my favorite character in the book, because in bookverse, the other characters are less dimensional than even he. Oh, and lets not forget Jared Harris as Andersen Dawes. Dawes is a character that gets fleeting mention in Leviathan Wakes, but nearly outshines everyone in the show.

2) The plot: Like any good adaption, The Expanse inserts or ups the drama at times, but somehow (/s) figures out a way to do it without boobs or rape. For example, in the book the survivors of the Canterbury route their shuttle to a Martian ship, a journey that takes many days – whereas in the show they are captured by this ship, prompting Holden to release a statement that Mars may have been behind the attack on the Cant and if Mars kills them then there is your proof - in a sense securing the safety of him and his crew. There was also the decision to overlap Avasarala and Earth politics from Book 2 with the goings on from Book 1, which enables the viewer to better understand what is happening throughout the universe at the time.

3) Pacing. Last but not least, a major nod has to be given to whoever decided on the structure and pacing of the first season. I watched the show first and it blew me away when I read the book to discover that the first season only covers half of the first book. Almost always in adaptions (in fact, I can’t think of an occasion when not), each season corresponds to a book. Often times this results in details or arcs being left out or modified, and usually not for the better (coughgameofthronescough). The brilliant soul who thought ‘you know what, I see a clear beginning, middle, and end here with Eros’ deserves an Emmy. Because not only do you get to keep the integrity of the source material, you don’t have to make shit up (coughgameofthronescough) to keep the story line going through multiple seasons. Bravo.

Overall, The Expanse is an exercise in how to properly adapt a book to screen. It is by far my favorite show on air and I’m excited to see if they can keep it up (looking good so far). Despite how it may sound, I do actually like the books. Perhaps this is because I can infuse the better TV characters over poorer book ones when warranted, but as I continue along reading, the books seem promising.

The Math

Baseline Assessment: 7/10

Bonuses: +1 for Nagata, +1 for pacing and structure, +1 for Avasalara's wardrobe

Negatives: -1 for the slow start

Nerd Coefficient: 9/10 - very high quality/standout in its category

Microreview [book]: Babylon's Ashes, by James S.A. Corey

The Expanse continues to delight, even in the darkness.

Cover Art by Daniel Dociu

Babylon's Ashes is an interesting entry into the world of The Expanse. As the sixth volume of the series, Corey has moved far away from the early and somewhat awkward introductions of Leviathan Wakes but unlike other books this deep into a series, Corey continues to evolve the world and the characters in new and unexpected directions.

James S.A. Corey does a very good job of continually resetting the threats and major conflicts of The Expanse. While the the overarching conflict of the series seems to be that of the Belt versus Earth versus Mars, Nemesis Games raised those stakes by introducing Naomi's former lover and also the son they had together - and then had that same man be the one ultimately responsible for catastrophically dropping multiple meteorites on Earth - think about the one that purportedly killed the dinosaurs and then multiply it by several more rocks deliberately aimed at Earth. Marco Inaros is a swell guy.

Babylon's Ashes deals with the fallout of this, of the Belter's managing to steal their own navy and cripple that of Mars, of Naomi losing her son once again to his father, and of the changing political and personal situations resulting from the galaxy altering attacks on Earth.

The crew of the Rocinante is back together after individually spending much of Nemesis Games taking care of their own business and as good as that novel was, the interplay of the crew is where The Expanse truly shines. Holden is nominally the protagonist of the series, as much as The Expanse has one, but he only comes alive when he is able to bounce off Naomi, Alex, and Amos. The strength of the series is really how everyone relates around Holden.

Babylon's Ashes introduces new viewpoint characters: Michio Pa, a captain of one of the Belter ships; Filip, Naomi and Marco's very angry son; and a couple of much more minor characters who seem to be there more to show the impact of the change in control of Medina station and give a ground level view of how the continued war and conflict impact more lives than just "significant" characters. The only problem is that when we're not with these new characters and not with Rocinante or Bobbie Draper or Avarasala the narrative comes to bit of a crawl while readers try to figure out who they are and why they matter.  Not to mention that Filip is just flat out unlikable - though there is a solid sense of tragedy running through Filip's storyline tempered by the knowledge that we know he's Naomi's son and she's fairly well lost him.

One of the more interesting aspects of literature is that as much as what the writer puts on the page is so vital and essential, equally important is what the reader brings to the story. Of course the story is what the writer intends, and all of that matters, but we never quite know the intention. The reader can be swept away by the story, but when you read the following, do you think that Corey is only talking about the situation in Babylon's Ashes between Earth, Mars, and the Belt or is he perhaps talking about what is going on today?

"We're not people," he said. "We're the stories that people tell each other about us. Belters are crazy terrorists. Earthers are lazy gluttons. Martians are cogs in a great big machine."

"Men are fighters," Naomi said, and then, her voice growing bleak. "Women are nurturing and sweet and they stay home with the kids. It's always been like that. We always react to the stories about people, not who they really are." 

"And look where it got us," Holden said."

To me, this is a statement about today, a statement about America today, and perhaps even a statement about the world today. But, is it? Is Corey using this moment to do double work and speak not only to the world of the Expanse but also the present day?

Does it matter? Perhaps not. But this is the sort of thing readers bring with them to complete the narrative, to enrich the narrative. So, when Corey writes

"It's true," he said, shaking his head. Or maybe nuzzling a little. "Against all evidence, I keep thinking the assholes are outliers."

it doesn't matter if he is only referring to the internal dynamics of The Expanse or if he is also making a point about society. Regardless of intention, the reader's perspective is important and it that perspective which helps build our understanding and appreciation of the novel.

As a general rule, Babylon's Ashes is like much of The Expanse thus far: a complete delight to read even as James S.A. Corey continues to write about increasingly desperate and unpleasant actions. As with the ending of Nemesis Games, by the end of Babylon's Ashes we are left wondering where Corey will possibly go after that. Wherever it is, we'll be along for the ride.


The Math
Baseline Assessment: 8/10

Bonuses: +1 for reuniting the crew of the Rocinante

Penalties: -1 for the new character viewpoints early in the novel. Even as it builds the larger story, most chapters spent away from the Rocinante or Avasarala slow down the narrative.

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10 "Well worth your time and attention". See more about our scoring system here.


Reference: Corey, James S.A. Babylon's Ashes [Orbit, 2016]



POSTED BY: Joe Sherry - Writer / Editor at Adventures in Reading since 2004, Nerds of a Feather contributor since 2015, editor since 2016. Minnesotan.