The Churn “To go from an unregistered birth such as his to having any power and status at all was an achievement as profound as it was invisible.” Before he was the engineer on the Rocinante, Amos Burton lived in Baltimore. A product of prostitution himself, he spent his childhood in sexual slavery, before being rescued by the woman who would essentially become his step-mother. This novella takes place about twenty years before the main events of the series, during a time when the organized […]
A great sci-fi series at peak greatness
The Expanse series has captured lightning in a bottle, and Nemesis Games is my favorite installation yet. The entire series is assertively skilled at balancing comedy, drama, suspense, and pure sci-fi adventure, all while grounding the story in character development and the interactions between them, as part of a larger picture that addresses societal concerns that are relevant to us today. Just by existing, the series critiques its contemporaries that are at a loss as to how to include and respect women and minorities. In […]
My favorite of the series so far.
First, a warning: I have officially passed the point of objectivity for this series. You know you’ve passed that point when you no longer care what happens in a book series as long as you get to spend more time in its world hanging out with its characters. This isn’t a place I get to easily, but once I’m there, I never ever leave. Love, it is irrational. With that said, oh boy, this book was awesome. In retrospect, one of my favorite things about […]
Really well-written Han Solo adventure.
I honestly shouldn’t be surprised that I liked this book as much as I did. James S.A. Corey’s Expanse series has crawled its way into my favorites slowly but surely, book by book. Corey has learned how to write exciting science fiction with engaging characters. Their* dialogue is differentiated and entertaining (and character illuminating), and their prose has the perfect balance of authorial voice and mimicry for the tone of the Star Wars universe and its characters. Their Han Solo is spot-on. They’re just good writers, […]
Our own worst enemy
SPOILERS for previous books in the Expanse series! Goodreads summary: “The gates have opened the way to thousands of habitable planets, and the land rush has begun. Settlers stream out from humanity’s home planets in a vast, poorly controlled flood, landing on a new world. Among them, the Rocinante, haunted by the vast, posthuman network of the protomolecule as they investigate what destroyed the great intergalactic society that built the gates and the protomolecule. But Holden and his crew must also contend with the growing […]
Interplanetary megastellar hydrostatic, there’s no gravity between us, OUR LOVE IS AUTOMATIC.
The Expanse is one of those series I sort of accidentally fell in love with. I only sort of liked it at first, while also being terrified by it (the first two books especially could fit comfortably into the horror genre, in my opinion). And then the third book hit and I was suddenly really, really into it. I know if I went back and re-read the first two I would retroactively love them, because that’s what always happens to me in these situations (Farscape […]