expanse

Abaddon's Gate

Book Notes

This is what you do when you are sick and at home all day: you read. The best sick times, relatively speaking, are when you have good books to read. This book qualifies.

Oh, boy, does this book qualify.

Unlike the first two books in the Expanse series, this book isn't ALL ABOUT HOLDEN, and that makes it both better and worse. Though, really, "worse" is, again, relative, because I still enjoyed this book so much.

This book skips a year or two since the last book, and we very quickly have Holden, Naomi, Amos, and Alex in a pinch. Through out the book we have way more gore than the previous books, more death (mostly glossed over), more puzzles, and, thankfully, a hell of a lot of personal growth that counteracts the power-blinded asses in the book. Of course, we cheer for the sane people, and weep for the deaths of some of the characters we've been following for books. I had a couple points where I had to put the book down.

I'm excited there are two more books to read, with the sixth book in the series coming out in only 6 months.

Of the three books I liked this one the least, which is really saying nothing, because I love and recommend them all. Read them, read them in order.

Caliban's War

Book Notes

Well, that didn't take me long to read book two of The Expanse series, which is really unsurprising, given how much I enjoyed the first one.

Reading the second book of a series is often risky literary-wise. In trilogies, book two is usually the boring one. In a longer series, the author (or, in this case, the singular-pen-named authors) usually starts out strong with the first book, stumbles with the second book (*cough* *cough* Dobby, *cough* *cough* loup-garou), and hits a stride with the third (unless you're Jordan, then, well, book 8 is where you fall completely flat on your face).

This particular book two was just as exciting as the first. Without losing any continuity, we are immediately back with Holden and Naomi and Alex and Amos in the Rocinante, off on another "o. m. g. you have the most incredible, and highly plausible, luck imaginable" adventure.

"Adventure"

This is a space opera.

The time frames of the book are similar to those of the Saga of the Seven Suns, but the telling in the time frames isn't as jarring or as boorrrrrrrrrrinnnnnnggggg as that series. You still have days of travel, you still have death from and serious health consequences of high G forces, you still have the fear of immediate death beyond that thin shell of a hull.

This book is much faster paced, much more interesting and much more entertaining. I absolutely f---ing adore Chrisjen Avasaralad and hope we see her again in later books. I was also hoping Bobbie Draper might join the crew of the Rocinante (such a great ship name). We'll see if she shows up in a later book or two.

Zipped through this book as fast as I could. Started the next one, Abaddon's Gate, immediately.

Leviathan Wakes

Book Notes

I picked up this book because I had watched the first few episodes of The Expanse on the Syfy channel, and had enjoyed them. What I was not expecting was to so completely and thoroughly enjoy the book, too. I mean, yes, I know that only very rarely is a movie or television adaptation better than the book version: books can convey nuances that are difficult to translate to any visual medium. At best, you can hope for a good movie with the same two sentence description of the book, so much being lost in the change of medium.

And yet, even with that knowledge, I was still surprised at just how much I really enjoyed this book.

We have space. We have plausible science fiction. We have yet another genre that I really like, but saying so in a review would give it away. At dinner with Luke and Jonathan, Luke let slip a small part of the ending that might have been a disappointment to learn, had the television series not already given it away, so there's the twist at the end. We have annoying politics. We have intrigue.

And we have a lost girl, an idealist, and a whole lot of adventure.

I really really really liked this book. Recommended. I've already started reading book two, Caliban's War.

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