Reviews

This is a great second installment to the Expanse. It introduced new and interesting characters and continued the storyline without feeling like a rehash of the first book.

jesseyarnall's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

stardustrohrig's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

This is good sequel to the previous book. The characters and the world building are developed a bit more and new characters are introduced. The central plot of helping the scientist find his daughter is good and flows well with the overall story-arc that’s getting started. The two new characters – Roberta “Bobbie” Draper and Chrisjen Avasarala are great additions. I like the fact that the series will continue to have these mostly stand alone stories that build on the overall story arc of the series. Each one develops the arc a bit more while having its own central issue to resolve.

It isn’t lost on me that there is a problem with the way the series has reduced the idea of racism down to conflicts between Earth, Mars and the Belt. This results in Earth being seemingly comprised of a single group of people like Mars and the Belt which doesn’t make much sense. In some ways it works for what the series wants to do but it others it’s a noticeable issue. Bringing this up now because the introduction of Chrisjen Avasarala who is part of Earth’s government makes it more obvious.

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