Persepolis Rising

It's wonderful to read a series that doesn't rehash the same plot over and over again, and doesn't get stupid and starting jumping the shark after the fifth or sixth volume, because the ideas are drying up, but the sales are still decent, so move that product.

This series is highly intelligent, and the world-building and tech building is a beautiful thing to behold. Layer the characters over top of that, and the political and military machinations over that, and this becomes possibly my favourite SF series of all time.

This book is no exception. And I simply love how the authors don't shy away from taking chances and making some big leaps.

After what I considered the most lacklustre entry in The Expanse series (Babylon's Ashes) I was thoroughly surprised and delighted by the 7th book, Persepolis Rising. Jumping ahead in time (significantly) the story begins by dragging the slightly older crew of the Rocinante back into the center of a new conspiracy that has been brewing in secret for a long time. The story takes some unexpected turns, and sets up what feels like a potentially wonderful and ambitious arc to take us toward the end of the series. If books #8 and #9 are anything like #7, we're in for a fine ride.

Nachdem Babylons Asche eine ruhigere Gangart angeschlagen hatte, erleben wir mit Band 7 einen kleinen Sprung in die Zukunft, denn die Handlung des Romans beginnt ungefähr 30 Jahre nach dem Ende des 6. Bandes.

Das allein war für mich gewöhnungsbedürftig, allerdings bringt Band 7 die Geschichte extrem vorwärts. Anfangs wusste ich nicht, was mich nach Babylons Asche erwarten würde und was es da noch so an interessanten Dingen zu erzählen gäbe, aber sagen wir mal, dass meine Befürchtungen absolut unbegründet waren. Da steht uns wirklich noch einiges bevor, auch wenn nach Persepolis erhebt sich nur noch zwei weitere Bände erscheinen werden, die es aber – so vermute ich – noch mal ganz schön krachen lassen werden.

Aber zurück show more zum Buch: 30 Jahre sind vergangen seit der Konflikt zwischen der Erde-Mars-Koalition und den Gürtlern einem scheinbar stabilen Frieden gewichen ist. Die Menschheit als Ganzes erholt sich so langsam von den über Generationen andauernden internen Konflikten und die Gürtler scheinen auch so endlich gleichberechtigt leben zu können. Aber nun ja, was macht man nach 6 Bänden in einer Reihe, die einem schon so ungefähr alle möglichen Szenarien um die Ohren gehauen hat? Genau, man baut zum Ende der 6 Bände eine kleine Nebenstoryline ein und macht diese zwar zum Bestandteil der Gesamtgeschichte, aber im 7. Band holt man sie wieder hervor und lässt es krachen. Ja, die Ringtore ermöglichten es der Menschheit, neue Planeten zu besiedeln. Ja, das Protomolekül ist noch irgendwo da draußen. Und ja, beides zusammen bietet ungeahnten Stoff für noch ein paar Romane.

Die Crew der Rocinante ist gealtert. Alle anderen Spieler auf dem Feld sind das ebenso. Aber während Naomi und Jim in Rente gehen wollen, legt die Invasion von einer der kolonisierten Welten diese Pläne vorerst auf Eis. War das Protomolekül noch ein erschreckender Gegner, so ist ein Despot mit einer Schar von überzeugten (in gewisser Weise fanatischen) Anhängern und Zugriff auf die Technologie der Protomolekülerschaffer eine ganz andere Hausnummer. Während man als Leser also mit der Menschheit mitfiebert, ob sie diesem neuen Gegner die Stirn bieten kann, so fragt man sich doch gleichzeitig, ob dieser Despot nicht doch den echten Frieden und die Stabilität bringen kann, der die Menschheit komplett vereint.

Das Ende des Buches macht einem dann schnell klar, dass hier kein Irrer der Marke Inaros die Fäden zieht, sondern jemand, der eigentlich schlüssige Argumente hat, denen ich mich als Leser auch einfach nicht entziehen konnte.

Der letzte Dialog des Buches haut dann auch so richtig rein und macht klar, dass der nächste Band es dann wirklich in sich haben wird.

Der Titel von Band 8, Tiamat’s Wrath, der im März 2019 auf englisch erscheinen wird, lässt den geneigten Expanse-Fan dann auch schon einiges spekulieren, was auf uns zukommen wird.

Fazit:
Ein genialer Weitergang der Reihe: Es gibt Action. Es gibt Menschlichkeit. Es gibt Politik. Es gibt Kämpfe. Und spätestens jetzt zeichnet sich ein Gesamtbild ab, das zu Beginn der Reihe nur als loser Handlungsstrang wahrgenommen wurde. Da kommt noch was, liebe Freunde. Da kommt noch was. show less

Having come to The Expanse through the tv series, this seventh volume - the first to extend the story beyond the show's arc - was a step into the unknown for me. The characters were still there as I remembered them (and not as the authors describe them), though given the passage of time within the story, I had some difficulty imagining them in their sixties. Mind you, I have some difficulty understanding how I got into my sixties from the youthful, hirsute figure I remember looking back at me from the mirror. So one mark for verisimilitude there.

Admiral Duarte, last seen taking a renegade segment of the MCRN fleet through the ring gate to create a militaristic empire, returns to the story, having done just that. Having chanced upon a show more world with orbital construction platforms created by the protomolecule builders, he has used the alien technology to create a highly advanced hybrid fleet, and uses it to seize Medina station as a bridgehead for the incorporation of the Sol system - and the other colonised worlds - into his Laconian Empire. The Rocinante, on its way back from doing a slightly dirty job for Camina Drummer's Transport Union, arrives right in the middle of the Laconian invasion. This puts a stop to everyone's plans. And by the end of the book - which is somewhat open-ended - all bets are off and all plans have crumbled to dust.

The Laconian Empire expects total commitment and dedication from all its citizens. Failure is not an option. This is especially well integrated into both the plot and the motivations of the Laconian characters. One such, Singh, is a POV character, and we see him unexpectedly catapulted into the position of Military Governor of Medina station. What follows is a clear portrait of someone in the grip of Imposter Syndrome, which sits uneasily with the Social Darwinism of the Empire. Part of that imposter syndrome arises from Singh's own insecurities and inexperience; but some would be inevitable when the logic of Empire, as a system of government that all its citizens accept without question as natural and logical and efficient, comes up against unrefined human desires for freedom (however you define it), give-and-take, and compromise in everyday matters.

At one point, the authors engage in a little small-'p' political analysis. A Laconian security chief attempts to give Singh, his nominal boss, a lesson in practical empire-building:

"Insurgencies are historically nearly impossible to eradicate, for a few very simple reasons. The insurgents don't wear uniforms. They look just like the innocent populace. And they're the friends and family of that populace. This means that every insurgent killed tends to increase recruiting for the insurgency. So unless you're willing to rack up a sizeable civilian casualty count, we can't just shoot everyone we suspect. If we take the strongest possible response, we stop calling it counterinsurgency and start calling it genocide." (Chapter 35)

Perhaps more people ought to start reading science fiction for the truths it contains.

Alex and Bobbie's Martian background comes in handy, allowing them to second-guess a lot of Laconian procedures to their advantage, given their common origin. Bobbie in particular feels some professional sympathy for the Laconian foot-soldiers she comes across, knowing that conflict will be inevitable; though she does not let it get in the way of her doing what she has to do. Some of the plot twists are a bit dependant on the omniscient planning of the authors, but actual plot holes are minimal.

I have a bit of a problem with the world-building, though. Laconia has existed for some thirty years or so. All the other colonies have made a certain degree of progress, but many still struggle with low population numbers and a limited range of economic activities. Laconia, however, appears to have a thriving, technologically advanced society, with the full range of facilities - schools, universities, medical technology, prisons, quarrying for building stone, textiles, staff cars, farming and heavy engineering. Are we supposed to think that the alien orbital construction platforms can do all this as well as build ships? The Empire is using the protomolecule to make advances in human modification, but there is little sign that it has been put to any of the 1001 other uses that would go to make up a 21st-century tech-level equivalent society which is what Laconia appears to be outside of the super-science. This is a common slip-up of many writers in the fantastic - Tolkien gave his hobbits in the eponymous novel household utensils and commodities appropriate to the 1930s, so that he could root some of the setting in the familiar for the benefit of his son, to whom he was reading the story, without considering how much behind-the-scenes technology decent cutlery, pottery and household goods requires. The same seems to have happened here.

But this will not trouble most readers, and to some extent it didn't trouble me. Certainly it did not get in the way of the story, and I am looking forward to the next volume. show less

After I found the middle trilogy of The Expanse a bit rough, the opening book of the final trilogy is a return to form. Humanity is increasingly an interstellar civilization, but that comes under threat as General Duarte and the Laconian Navy return through the gate they vanished across so many years ago-- now with fantastic destructive powers in their hands, thanks to their use of the protomolecule. The book alternates between the Laconian occupation of Medina Station (where the Rocinante crew get caught out) and a wider vision of the Laconian invasion of the solar system (as they crush Earth, Martian, and Belter resistance).

Like the best of The Expanse books, this one balances character, action, and engaging plot twists; despite its show more large size, I read it quickly, and I found it more engaging than any Expanse novels since Abaddon's Gate. While I wouldn't say the middle books had to be the way they were, one can see how the set-up they did is paying off as The Expanse moves toward a climax and a conclusion. The book is suspenseful; Holden and the Rocinante crew work best when they're on the back foot, scrappy underdogs trying to push their way out of situations so complex as to be beyond the capacity of a handful of cargo haulers, and that really comes across here as they have to figure out how to deal with an occupying force. Lots of good character moments, lots of clever action. I was a big fan of Singh's arc, the commander of the occupying forces. The Expanse is back, and I ended the book hyped for number eight.

One quibble, though, and I can't decide if it's a big quibble or a little quibble. There's a thirty-year jump between this book and the last! I'm fine with that on principle, but Holden and the other Rocinante crewmembers aren't written like sixty-somethings, they're still written like thirty-somethings. In terms of characterization, it's like they were all held in stasis for those three decades. Clarissa, for example, still comes across as someone they barely know, even though they've literally spent half their lives working with her! It just totally fails to convince, and was seemingly only done for plot reasons: Laconia needed three decades to develop to the point where it could threaten the solar system. I feel like a more sfnal solution could have been found, protomolecule time shenanigans or something. But as annoying as it is, once the book gets underway, you basically stop thinking about it, so they kind of get away with it? Like I said, I don't know if it's a little quibble or a big quibble.

One last thing, mostly an observation. The character of Drummer was technically in the first couple books, but she was really just a passing reference. She debuted on season 2 of the television program (2017), and over the next couple years her role got bigger and bigger because the actress who plays her (Cara Gee) was so good they wanted to give her more to do; Drummer replaces roles played by different characters in books three and five. Persepolis Rising was the first book to be written after season 2 went into production, and suddenly Drummer has a huge role in it, one of those moments where the adaptation feeds back into the original. And it's easy to see how the show could maneuver the character to be in the same position as the book one by this point in time, so the two versions who had somewhat different stories would end up converging into one! Neat. (Except that between when I finished Persepolis Rising and wrote this review, it was announced that The Expanse would come back for a sixth season, but not a seventh, so there never will be a tv version of these events. Oh well.) show less

One of the best entries in a series that's always held a very high quality. The moral greys Expanse excels at are very present, as is a real sense of peril and danger for the protagonists (something which has on occasion been a bit of an Achilles' heel, even during the most devastating circumstances). The plot itself is a very satisfying fruition of the seeds placed throughout the earlier volumes, with the preceding six novels in many ways now being revealed as simply an awe-inspiringly elaborate setting the stage for this final set of books.

The thirty year time jump is a bit surprising, but handled tolerably well. I could have liked the realism of a bit more references to these decades in the dialogue, it seems a bit odd for the show more characters to (with a few small exceptions) only reference events that happened half their lives ago, but I get that this is a balancing act with not boring the reader with needless vague hints at things we won't ever know. The well-established sci-fi innovations on personal health and aging makes their relatively spry actions more easily believable, and I like that some of their personalities have matured considerably, while others remain largely like they've always been.

As some of the earlier volumes have as well, this novel does end on a bit of a cliffhanger (this felt fairly likely very early, due to the nature of the plot, so it is not a disappointment or shock when reading ,or at least wasn't to me), so if the final two volumes do not deliver, it might retroactively make me feel less happy with this installment. But for now, this is, as I wrote at the start, one of my favourites in an already top-tier series of novels. show less

For most of The Expanse series, I find it to be smart, well-researched, and well-executed, containing strong characters who have enough development to prevent them from being caricatures. Then, I listened to the end of book six and all of book seven. Unfortunately, Persepolis Rising by James S. A. Corey has neither excellent execution nor strong characters.

Because reading the series became a joint project, I reached out to my son to debate at length the plot and one character at the heart of my issues with Persepolis Rising. While we both conclude that the character is nothing but an archetype and that the plot suffers, for the first time, from predictability, I take it one step further. Much like my opinion about the anticlimactic show more ending of the previous book, I believe the authors became lazy. In doing so, they created a character that is the archetypal moral villain, so firmly convinced of his own righteousness that he is incapable of growth. The character contains no complexity, no moral flexibility that allows him to learn from his mistakes. Given the depth and development of the majority of the other characters in the series, this lack of development within this one person screams of laziness.

Because this character is essentially a blueprint, the storyline in which he plays a significant role suffers from predictability. A lot. For the first time, I saw exactly how this story was going to unfold. Because this character is as complex as a piece of blank paper, I knew there would not be any plot twists. This character is completely incapable of the duplicity and moral ambiguity plot twists require. Thus, the story did occur exactly as I expected, something that has not been the case with the other books. In fact, part of what I love about the series is that it constantly keeps me guessing, and I usually have no idea what is going to happen. Not so here.

What makes this such an egregious error is simply because it occurs in book seven. Had the first book or two had such an overly simplified character and predictable plot lines, that would make more sense to me. One expects authors’ writing to improve with each book, so one expects weaker writing and a lack of development in an author’s first few books. By the seventh book, I do not expect nor want poor writing. Sadly, Persepolis Rising gave me just that. show less