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A review by mairispaceship
The Mercy of Gods by James S.A. Corey
5.0
After finishing The Expanse series earlier in the year there was an "epic space opera" shaped hole in my heart and I'm happy to say that The Mercy of Gods filled it nicely. As always I'm not 100% sure how much I recommend it to my regular book friends - enormous space operas about humans spreading to the distant stars and encountering cosmic horrors beyond their wildest imaginations isn't everyone's cup of tea. There's a good reason I don't bring up sci-fi in my book club. Also, more than anything, James S. A. Corey books are really dang long. According to my audiobook app I've spent over 150 hours listening to James S. A. Corey novels over my lifetime and that sounds like a big number.
But less about the authors and their previous works, and lets talk about The Mercy of Gods. This book is about group of scientisrts who are plucked from their planet (not Earth, by the way. An important detail) by a hostile alien species whose whole modus operandi is to capture the various species of the stars, absorb them into their society and have them be "useful" to them. Talk about the dark forest explanation of the Fermi Paradox, hey. There's an enormous war going on in the background, and the human protagonists quickly encounter a vast menagerie of alien species of different ranks within this "society". The humans are set tasks, and they must complete them for the survival of not just themselves, but also their home planet too. Going into too much more detail beyond this would be spoilers - because I think this book is best experienced with no prior knowledge. It makes every reveal, every tense situation, and every new encounter more exciting by far.
In all, I enjoyed it. If you like sci-fi space operas, you probably will too. It's very different from the Expanse series, but in many ways - better.
But less about the authors and their previous works, and lets talk about The Mercy of Gods. This book is about group of scientisrts who are plucked from their planet (not Earth, by the way. An important detail) by a hostile alien species whose whole modus operandi is to capture the various species of the stars, absorb them into their society and have them be "useful" to them. Talk about the dark forest explanation of the Fermi Paradox, hey. There's an enormous war going on in the background, and the human protagonists quickly encounter a vast menagerie of alien species of different ranks within this "society". The humans are set tasks, and they must complete them for the survival of not just themselves, but also their home planet too. Going into too much more detail beyond this would be spoilers - because I think this book is best experienced with no prior knowledge. It makes every reveal, every tense situation, and every new encounter more exciting by far.
In all, I enjoyed it. If you like sci-fi space operas, you probably will too. It's very different from the Expanse series, but in many ways - better.