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kavreb's review against another edition
4.0
Seventh book in the series, and I like how they're still finding ways of making their universe feel new and scary.
I also like how The Expanse series is sci-fi of narrative and characters. While it might not have the fanciest or the most intricate ideas of a hard sci-fi book, it builds up its characters so well that you might read the books just for them, and cheer out loud when another audience favourite returns (y’all know who I'm talking about).
Which is not to say that the book has no interesting ideas - the ancient species that the series has built its central mystery on has always been both scary and intriguing to learn more about, and with the choices the human characters make in this one, I'm excited to find out more about them in the next one.
This one also puts to rest any thought that you could read these books out of order, so entwined is its story with the legacy of the previous books, and any newcomer would be hopelessly lost (or spoiled to no end of several marvellous books).
But the greatest change the 7th book makes though is taking the action decades into the future, with the characters we love now approaching old age and, for some, thoughts of retirement. It was a drastic surprise, and a bit sad, seeing them so close to what many of us fear; but it also means that they got decades of nice life between where we left them at the finale of the last book and met up again here, once again their lives in danger (which makes me weirdly happy, for these made up people); and when people do start dying, it still feels awful and you hope for something to happen to make it not so. But The Expanse, while not nearly as sadistic as, say, Game of Thrones, rarely pulls its punches (well, except with Amos).
The only considerable criticism I would have was that when the POV bad guy turned out to be a fool early on, I felt a sense of boredom seeping in because we've been here before where the arrogant foolishness of the villain becomes their downfall, and the villains in this book are always scarier when they're efficient, and less so when just mad. His arc doesn't really deviate from that, but the authors are good enough to keep him interesting enough, and the threat real. I am more hopeful for the next book though where I expect the villains to be, well, less outright foolish.
It's been years since I read the last Expanse book because I didn't want to go along for another adventure just to see the characters I like in peril and death; but I was wrong, and even though there's been both, it was a great continuation of the series, with some great ideas for making the villains scary, and I can't wait to see where it goes.
Hopefully I'll get to it in less than a few years.
I also like how The Expanse series is sci-fi of narrative and characters. While it might not have the fanciest or the most intricate ideas of a hard sci-fi book, it builds up its characters so well that you might read the books just for them, and cheer out loud when another audience favourite returns (y’all know who I'm talking about).
Which is not to say that the book has no interesting ideas - the ancient species that the series has built its central mystery on has always been both scary and intriguing to learn more about, and with the choices the human characters make in this one, I'm excited to find out more about them in the next one.
This one also puts to rest any thought that you could read these books out of order, so entwined is its story with the legacy of the previous books, and any newcomer would be hopelessly lost (or spoiled to no end of several marvellous books).
But the greatest change the 7th book makes though is taking the action decades into the future, with the characters we love now approaching old age and, for some, thoughts of retirement. It was a drastic surprise, and a bit sad, seeing them so close to what many of us fear; but it also means that they got decades of nice life between where we left them at the finale of the last book and met up again here, once again their lives in danger (which makes me weirdly happy, for these made up people); and when people do start dying, it still feels awful and you hope for something to happen to make it not so. But The Expanse, while not nearly as sadistic as, say, Game of Thrones, rarely pulls its punches (well, except with Amos).
The only considerable criticism I would have was that when the POV bad guy turned out to be a fool early on, I felt a sense of boredom seeping in because we've been here before where the arrogant foolishness of the villain becomes their downfall, and the villains in this book are always scarier when they're efficient, and less so when just mad. His arc doesn't really deviate from that, but the authors are good enough to keep him interesting enough, and the threat real. I am more hopeful for the next book though where I expect the villains to be, well, less outright foolish.
It's been years since I read the last Expanse book because I didn't want to go along for another adventure just to see the characters I like in peril and death; but I was wrong, and even though there's been both, it was a great continuation of the series, with some great ideas for making the villains scary, and I can't wait to see where it goes.
Hopefully I'll get to it in less than a few years.
phonophobia's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
tdorrough's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
stardustrohrig's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
It's 30 years after the previous book and everything is changing once again for the entire solar system. Given the current climate right now with everything going on I feel like I struggled with reading this one more than I did the first time I read it a few years ago. It's a good look at how quickly everything can fall apart when a stronger power wants to take over everything and sees themselves as better than everyone else. I feel like in some ways the series is better ended with book 6 but in other ways this final trilogy of books will resolve some of the plot elements regarding the aliens who created the rings and what happened to them.
ryanmeckel's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
One of my favorite books in the series so far, love that the universe keeps expanding without losing character
th_written_off's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
hopeful
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
ndbell80's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
This book honestly made me feel like the Expanse should've just ended after 6 books. I am not sure exactly what the conflict that this book sets up adds to the world. In the second trilogy, we had "bad man who thinks he's too smart for anyone to stop him gets stopped", and so setting up that same story again but on a larger scale felt a little exhausting. I also felt like the hope just leached out of the book as it went on. I love all of the characters which is what's kept me in the series until now. At this point in the final trilogy though, I am questioning what else they want to say about humanity and the world.
auntiejamie's review against another edition
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0