So, book 7 of the Expanse series came out yesterday and, to no one’s surprise, I burned through it, finishing it really late (like 3 a.m. … which explains why I was late to work.) Overall, I enjoyed it but the two writers did a thing in it that I’ll go into more detail below that really made it feel like I was missing a book. In every one of the books thus far, there has been time between the installments – which makes sense as space is big – and this one was no different, but yeah … I still feel like I missed a chapter. Just like book 5 (“Nemesis Games,” still my favorite of the series), this one ends without the major threat fully resolved which will play into the next book and I’m generally okay with that. So yeah … good book, very interesting, looking forward to the next one.
And now, for spoilers.
As I mentioned above, each book has done a bit of a time-skip, usually a year or maybe two. Persepolis Rising skipped forward thirty years. Well, technically, it was probably around 30 years since they state that over three decades had passed since the Martians who broke from their world passed through the Laconia gate, which was during Nemesis Games, I believe, and then book 6 (Babylon’s Ashes) took place sometime after that (not sure exactly how long.) But yeah … that timeskip really messed with my head and actually kind of bothered me a little bit. All of the regular characters are 30 years older with the expected mileage on them – poor Clarissa is struggling the most because her crappy implants are leaking badly, exactly as she knew they would in the book that introduced her – which means Holden is now nearing his 70s if he’s not already there (he was in his 30s in book 1, then about a decade passed over the other books.)
The “good guys” also barely win a thing in this book. The “Laconians” (aka the traitor Martians who broke away) kick everybody’s ass thanks to their tech – which is better than everyone else’s ’cause they weren’t trying to recover from the “rocks fall, everyone dies” thing in Nemesis Games and they picked a colony that already had a lot of protomolecule infrastructure already in place. At the end of the book, not only do the Laconians have control of the slow zone & Medina Station, but they’re also in charge of the Sol system after kicking the crap out of everyone! The only “bright” spot (if it is one) is that the Rocinante crew (most of them) have escaped with their (now old and obsolete) gunship while also seizing a state of the art Laconian destroyer (Bobbie & Amos led some Belters to do this and they were aided by the fact that the ship was undermanned at the time.) Also, Holden is a POW of the Laconians now and on their homeworld…
And poor Clarissa died. That genuinely caused me to tear up a little bit, which was weird cause she was responsible for so much calamity in Abaddon’s Gate …
But yeah. This time skip … it just felt like I was missing a chapter here. Still, I’m looking forward to the next book … and I think I read somewhere that there are only two left in the series so I sort of understand why they skipped forward like they did but still … I would have liked just one more novel with the entire Rocinante crew together for the duration and not with them splitting up (in this, Holden & Naomi are trying to retire and sell their shares to Bobbie so she can be the captain) …