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 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. ( )

Still loving this series! The characters are still growing and evolving. That seems to me to be rare in a series this long. ( )

That took me a lot longer than I thought xD Allover, I think the book had its lengths. Like most books in the series, there's very little happening in the range of 10-40 and 60-90% of the book, and all the action happens in the middle and at the end. Could use more balance. But allover, I'm VERY interested in reading the final book now... ( )

The writing is just as excellent as the previous books. But I thought the plot was a bit slower with more political intrigue and less action than the other ones. ( )

Finished so it's fresh for the new/final season of The Expanse and a little bit after the [b:Leviathan Falls|28335699|Leviathan Falls (The Expanse #9)|James S.A. Corey|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1600283641l/28335699._SY75_.jpg|48382891] release!

Outside of the Roci crew, Dr. Elvi Okoye is my favorite character, mostly because I'm also a biologist by training and I love her sense of wonder about Weird Alien Science.

I think the Timothy reveal was more obvious in audiobook form (I audibly gasped and had a :D expression when that played in my car), whereas if I was reading I'd have to pick it up from context clues... really interesting to think about the ways different mediums affect the way we get a story. I've only listened to The Expanse via audiobooks so I'm not entirely sure about spelling for some of the ships and places (Bara-gown complex? nope, google tells me Bara Gaon).

Really enjoyed Teresa as a POV character, especially the way she frames her world vs. Holden etc.

Onwards to Leviathan Falls! ( )