I really enjoyed the first installment of the Expanse series so I was looking forward to this one and I was not disappointed. The book follows the same set of main characters from Leviathan Wakes, Holden, Amos, Naomi and Alex, and introduces/focuses on some additional characters, such as Bobbie, a Martian marine, Prax, a botanist on Ganymede, and Chrisjen Avasarala, a high ranking member of the UN. The switching between the four PoV characters (Holden, Bobbie, Avasarala and Prax) allows the plot to follow military escapades, adventure, and political machinations behind the scenes.
The story continues where Leviathan Wakes ends, with Venus embroiled in whatever the protomolecule is doing, and there is fallout from the battle and attempted militarization of the molecule by the Proton company on Eros. There are multiple factions, including Earth, Mars, the OPA (outer planets association) as well as infighting within the UN and Earth forces (and presumably others we don’t see much of).
My favorite part of the book and series is the realism. The ships don’t go into warp drive. They accelerate and the effects of that acceleration are realistic. The crew has to be in acceleration couches and pumped full of drugs to stay alive beyond 1G for the belters, and 4G or so for people more used to high acceleration. The space battles aren’t acrobatic like in Star Wars or other Space opera, but take place in seconds to minutes over relatively short ranges, and one or two torpedos is enough to “sink” a frigate… which all seems realistic. The style very much reminds me of Alastair Reynolds books, in terms of the realism.
I know that the next book begins to deal with more “magical” aspects of the alien protomolecule but I have already ordered it. I feel like I agree with Clarke here, sufficiently advanced technology is going to appear like magic to our simple solar system residents. I really enjoy reading this series and I am taking a lot of mental notes about how to do multiple POV characters and weave the various storylines together.