Reviews

I’ve been wanting to re-read this series for a while so I decided May was going to be the month I started reading it again. As this first book in the series this one is a fun read. The characters and the world building are great. I love the way everything is set up for the rest of the series. A lot of things happen in the book that will have an impact much farther down the line. I also really like the way the crew of the Rocinante comes together – Jim Holden, Naomi Nagata, Alex Kamal, and Amos Burton – it’s a team built out of chaos and destruction but they make a great team flaws and all. Detective Miller good too but he’s definitly a tragic character.

Okay I’m just going to say this once – something that frustrates me about the writing is how often “stupid” or “idiot” are used as shorthand for any character flaw instead of actually naming the flaw for what it is – arrogance, greed, carelessness, recklessness, etc. Granted, it’s a thing people do all the time, so it’s not surprising it’s in the book. It’s still frustrating though since it’s a constant thing that happens. There’s also a weird scene where

Holden contemplates taking advantage of a drunk Naomi (they’re at a bar together she’s drunk, he is not) and the narration clearly acts as though it’s a natural thing to contemplate… the fact that he doesn’t do it at all doesn’t mitigate anything. At least it’s clear throughout the book Naomi isn’t going to tolerate any BS from him and he listens.

instahgrump's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

numtsi's review against another edition

Go to review page

2.0

Das Expanse-Universum durchaus spannend und realistisch genug geschrieben, was zum Weiterlesen animiert. Aber die Gewalt ist mir zu explizit für einen SciFi-Roman. Alle paar Seiten gehts um Nutten und dann kommen auch noch kotzende Zombies ins Spiel... spätestens da hätte ich dann keine Lust mehr und habe die restlichen 40% des Buches nur noch überflogen.
Damit hat sich eine weitere Buchreihe für mich erledigt. Echt schade, hatte die Hoffnung, wieder mal was spannendes Neues gefunden zu haben, aber das war wohl nix...