Slows down a bit from the first two books, while keeping the twists coming at the end. Sets the stage for the leap into the unknown. ( )

I didn't find this book as good as the previous ones, which i put down to a character thing.

Too much christian waffle: i live in hope that by the time Hominids are travelling the whole solar system we'll have gotten over this all the organised religion thing and seen it for what it truly is.   I found it beyond tragic that people were still clinging to this twaddle.

And i also found Clarissa just tedious and annoying: like a lot of spoiled rich brats that i've known in my life.   I really don't like reading about them and having to endure their thinking.

Still, it has it's good parts, which do balance the few crap characters and religiosity out and offer some redemption (pun intended) for those expecting something better.

I've now dived straight into The Vital Abyss, which is much better and more like what i expect from this series. ( )

Three books in to a series based on near-ish sci-fi in our solar system, where major system-wide crises happen and things often get very bad before they somewhat resolve into something tenuously balanced, not necessarily better.

The series has done a great job so far of having an enormous scale to the events but a very human scale to the stories. Even though some of these characters have become celebrities within the narrative, things feel grounded and chaotic, which is probably the biggest ingredient that gives this series it's sense of realism.

One theme that does feel emergent is a struggle between passionate progressiveness and destructive, sociopathic, extractive capitalism. So many of the struggles involve characters trying to save lives from the behaviour or people who are essentially selfish.

Loving it so far! Without spoilers, the end of this series expands the scope of things, and perhaps pushes it further into speculative sci fi away from it's more 'hard sci fi' roots.

The only critique I have is that the macguffin element of the plot doesn't have the psychological impact that I would expect on the characters and societies in this world... but even that might be something that happened elsewhere in the story then in the moments depicted, so it's not that big a problem. ( )

Usually about three books in a series is all I can take before I lose interest. Abaddon's Gate is good enough to hold me for at least one more (maybe two?). I very much appreciate how careful the authors are with the physics in this whole series. It warms the heart of my inner seven-year-old who dreamed of living in space. Plus, the characters are just so damned entertaining. ( )

I really tend to only listen to audiobooks if I have a lot of driving to do, which is why this took longer than actually reading it would be- 0.5-2 hour snippets at a time.

Abbadon's Gate takes humanity beyond the last known outpost to the Ring: an artifact made by the protomolecule on Venus and launched into the outer solar system. Tensions flare, things get weird, and the last third is definitely messier than how The Expanse interpreted the text (consolidation of characters- am curious to see if it's actually Ashford or if he's filling the role of someone else in the next book). While I'm comparing the two mediums, I enjoyed getting in both Anna and Melba/Clarissa's heads for their perspectives. ( )