Tiamat's Wrath

Wow, that was something!

This is book two in the third and final trilogy of trilogies that compose this series. And it might be difficult to top this one.

The book opens with Avasarala's funeral on Laconia of all places. Holden is still there and gets to talk to a few people—those willing to be seen talking to Duarte's "dancing bear"—about her and how much she'd hate it, which was probably Emperor Duarte's intent.

Except for the Epilogue, the rest of the book is told from the viewpoints of Bobbi, Alex, Naomi, Dr. Elvi Okoye (from Cibola Burn), and Teresa Duarte—yes, the Emperor's daughter. I'll start with her. Teresa is on a slow burn of teenage rebellion. She's growing disillusioned with people, whether they're her classmates or her show more adult handlers treating her with kid gloves. She loves her father, who is grooming her to be his replacement should anything ever happen to him. She finds solace with her dog and some hermit named Timothy who lives in a cave, calls her "Tiny," and says that she's the angriest person he's ever known.

Elvi has been drafted into the Laconian Navy and goes on exploration missions to the weirdest systems encountered in the gate network. Along the way, she's tasked with gathering as much information about the aliens that killed the protomolecule builders. Duarte has a plan for how to deal with them and has apparently never heard the adage to never poke the bear. He pokes it, of course, and boy oh boy does it get pissed off, hence the book's title.

Meanwhile, Bobbi and Naomi are at odds as to the resistance's strategy. Bobbi wants guerrila warfare and Naomi, who has sneaking around in shipping containers, prefers infiltration (putting their people in key positions) while Alex is caught in the middle. They're still family, but the way each deals with feeling powerless and seemingly hopeless odds, couldn't be any more different. Eventually, one of Bobbi's raids pays off, giving them a weapon they can use to strike back. But the price is so high.

If you've made it this far in the series and love these characters, you shouldn't be disappointed (but 6% are). There are a couple epic battles wherein our heroes depend on cunning to outwit the Laconians. The inside look at the Laconian inner circle from both Teresa's and Elvi's perspectives hammers home just how messed up cults of personality can be, not just the figurehead but the officers whose job it is to carry out the vision. show less

Picking up where Persepolis Rising left off, we find the crew of the Rocinante scattered across different star systems and doing different stuff. Laconia is consolidating its position as the pre-eminent expression of humanity in the galaxy, but along with that goes a massive dollop of hubris - a scientific mission to survey many of the gate worlds is intended to find new weapons, whilst Dr. Cortázar has sold High Consul Duarte on the unquestionable benefits of life extension via protomolecule. What could possibly go wrong?

What indeed. Laconia's belief that the gate builders have the same motivations as humans and can be manipulated by displays of force in the same way as traditional human politics suggests blows up in their collective show more face, just at the same time as the Sol system resistance gets a lucky break. Things go downhill from there.

This instalment definitely kept me reading on into the small hours of the morning to see what happened next! There are some sad surprises and one revolving door, but overall the story is still on target. (Though I did raise an eyebrow where Chrisjen Avarsarala's grand-daughter commented on the old woman's likely reaction to her Laconian state funeral and then had to explain - for the benefit of some younger readers, I suspect - the significance of "you could power a planet by hooking a turbine to her right now"...)

I'm also increasingly finding that exploring the logic of Empire is causing the writers to slip some quite important realpolitik lessons into the text, which many people, especially those who would benefit the most from such lessons, will miss because this is "just" science fiction. Sigh. show less

This was, like book seven, a cracking read. In the previous novel, everything was pretty cleverly maneuvered into position for a strong pay-off here: the Rocinante crew are all in tougher spots than they've ever been before, under the dominance of the new Laconian Empire. Holden is a prisoner, Naomi is in hiding, Alex and Bobbie are underground, and Amos is dead. Can they possibly liberate the solar system and the expanse of space beyond from Laconia, while also avoiding the wrath of ancient aliens with powers beyond comprehension? There is lots of good character work here, and some excellent surprises, and a powerful climax. Book nine is almost here, and I am ready for it. (As always: I am fascinated by the way Corey plays with show more structure; though he has a few viewpoint chapters, this is the first book where Holden is not one of the main protagonists. It works surprisingly well.) show less

Tiamat’s Wrath by James S. A. Corey is the penultimate book in The Expanse series, and it shows. The gentlemen behind Mr. Corey up the ante as they gear up for the ultimate battle for the galaxy. Set four years after the exciting ending of the previous book, we get to see how the Laconians rule the known solar systems as each crew member of the Rocinante attempts to resist in their own ways. Oh, and no one is safe.

For the Roci crew, resistance takes several different forms, each as diverse as the characters. For some characters, their idea of resistance is direct, public, and very dangerous. However, for others, resistance means publicly playing a long chess game, making moves no one notices until all of the pieces are in play. Yet show more for others, the only acceptable form of resistance is completely underground, totally behind the scenes, and anonymous. For me, seeing how each person reacts to the new-to-the-reader government is a fascinating study in character.

Tiamat’s Wrath is not all spaceships and watching other ships through telescopes. We spend a good portion of the story on Laconia as it makes a relatively odd shift in tone to that of a coming-of-age story. While on Laconia, we follow Teresa Duarte, only daughter of the Laconian leader and wannabe God, as she gains growing awareness that not all on her beloved planet is as peaceful and straightforward as she believes. There is much wrestling with ideas and growth as she learns to assess information for herself rather than believing the party line. While this is not in tune with the whole space opera format, it does make for interesting reading because it is so different.

Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you feel about them, no one is safe as we near the end of the series. Until this point, the authors avoided killing off major characters. There are a lot of deaths given all the battles throughout the span of the series. However, outside of the death of one of the main voices in the first novel, main character death has been minimal. That is no longer true in Tiamat’s Wrath. My heart broke more than once during the course of the story.

As Tiamat’s Wrath ends, we have a good idea of the major players in the final story, but we have no idea how it will unfold, what will happen, or when it will occur. I feel like the authors gave the readers all the clues, but I’ll be damned if I can decipher them. The final book is the first book in the series I will have to wait until its release, and I don’t like it. I’m ready to see how the Roci crew’s story and its almost constant struggle against the protomolecule is going to end. show less

back on form for volume 8, the penultimate book in The Expanse series, for most of which the Rosinante lies hidden, the crew is scattered, and the authoritarian forces of Laconia appear to have won. warning: character deaths occur. among other things, it's kind of a little primer on how to organize underground resistance. and of course why. the power of long relationships is also highlighted - essentially, the crew is all miserable without each other, and yet decision-making follows from their awareness of everything they would all have to say, if only they could, to one another. i'm going to miss this set of characters so much when they are gone, and it's almost time. Cherryh and now Corey have made the whole subgenre of space opera so show more much richer over the years. show less

The eighth novel in the series! By this time, you’re either in it or you’re not. If you’ve read the first seven books, you can’t stop now. And if you haven’t read them, you can’t start here.

Usually, I’m skeptical of extended series. They seem to either drop off an assembly line from the authors, or, like the classic Foundation series or even what turned into a 2001 series, the quality of the story fades as the original idea runs out of life.

That’s not the case here. I’m still anxious to read each new novel, and I’m a little bummed when I finish each one that the next one isn’t available yet.

The original ideas behind the story — the political conflicts among the Martians, the Outer Planets, and Earth, and the show more vexing alien protomolecule — were great. And the author (really authors, given that “Corey” is a pseudonym for two authors), populated the story with really strong characters. They are likable and flawed enough not to always be likable, and they grow and change enough to keep the reader interested in them as people.

In fact, by this point in the story, the characters have become so familiar that the story feels less about the plot itself and more about them, as if they were friends of mine.

But the plot is still going strong. Those original ideas have a long lifetime. One thing I’ve always loved about the story is that the aliens are and remain truly ALIEN. They aren’t like us, and we don’t understand them at all. We are at best groping to make our own sense of the protomolecule and how it works, not to mention trying to figure out what happened to the civilization that made the protomolecule and who it was who destroyed them.

This is just good stuff. If you aren’t a reader of the series yet, give Leviathan Wakes a chance and see if you get hooked. If you are already hooked, nothing I’m saying here should make you lose enthusiasm.

Anxious now for the ninth and last novel. I want to see how the authors reach an ending, but I’m a little bummed to see that there even is one. show less