This is the 6th book in the series and the first book of The Expanse series that I am not giving a 5 star rating too. Only 4 this time. This one felt different. It felt like the characters weren’t in control of their own destinies as much and there was a bit of a dues ex machina ending that was definitely hinted at in both this and the previous book, but still, it felt too easy. It almost felt like the authors had written themselves into a corner and couldn’t figure out how to get out of it.
That being said, this still does hit all the high notes for me with the realism of the space travel and the “lived-in-ed-ness” of the stations, ships, planets, everything feels real. This book also had a swath of POV characters, Wikipedia says 15(!). It got hard to remember who some of them were, especially since some of them came from 4 books ago.
The system is recovering from the war that started in book 5, and war still rages across the system as the Free Navy bends to the will of Marco Inaros. But people and systems are being squeezed out of his grasp, and the crew of the Rocinante are of course there at the wrong place at the wrong time to try to wrest control back at the center of the ring gates. We know, now, of course, that there are 3 more books in the series so I don’t think it is much of a spoiler to say that they succeed. The world building is minimal (I mean, the world is rich, but I don’t think we learn much more about it in this book). And at the end, humanity seems to be back from the brink, likely to survive its own self until the next war which is certainly brewing.
It feels wrong to criticize a book as successful and popular as this one, and I did enjoy reading it, but this one took a bit more work and I didn’t feel the pay off as strongly. I was not “gripped” by it like I was some of the earlier book in the series. But, I am looking forward to continuing the adventures of the crew in book 7.