1/6/2024 0 Comments The expanse book 9![]() The resistance is on the back foot and the Rocinante crew are struggling to hold it together, but similarly the Laconians are reeling from their own problems (particularly the losses of several of their most powerful warships) and aren't at their best. The team have a new enemy, a ruthless Laconian soldier with kick-ass super armour given ill-advised total authority to deal with problems any way she sees fit, but even her heart doesn't seem to be entirely in it. Some of the weaknesses of earlier books remain - there are story beats in the finale here which feel pretty much just Xeroxed from earlier books, particularly Babylon's Ashes - but there is a melancholy air to the novel I wasn't quite expecting. This is all good stuff, though there is a nagging sense of it being a case of more tell than show. Instead we get intermittent senses of the history of that conflict via two protomolecule-resurrected Laconians interfacing with an alien archive (which also gives a better sense of the history of the conflict between the protomolecule builders and their foes). Some may feel a bit let down by that, but given the strangeness of the aliens and the weirdness of the protoculture-powered technology opposing them, perhaps it was a wiser choice not to try to depict that cosmic struggle on page. The battle for reality as we know it is instead relegated to a mostly off-page game of tug of war between a protomolecule-enhanced character and the unseen aliens banging on the walls of our reality (occasionally punching through with bizarre effects, like rewriting the laws of physics on a local level or knocking billions of people unconscious). ![]() You could be forgiven going into this finale thinking that Leviathan Falls will refocus the story on that conflict, which has mostly been relegated to enigmatic moments and epic cliffhangers in previous novels. Our central quartet of heroes and almost-heroes and not-really-heroes - Naomi, James, Alex, Amos - have been through hell and back many times over the thirty years they've been living with the threat of the protomolecule-builders and their even more enigmatic and dangerous enemies, whilst all around them various human factions have played their game of space thrones which have been more like messing around with musical chairs whilst the room itself burns. It's a book that, like many of its forebears, gives good space battle, but it also factors in an element of weariness to the narrative. Leviathan Falls, wrapping up The Expanse after nine books and eleven years, manages to do a bit of both. As usual, it falls to the crew of the Rocinante to influence events and bring the greatest crisis humanity has ever faced to a successful conclusion.if that is even possible.Īll epic stories have an ending, sometimes one that is full of fire and brimstone and lots of explosions and major character revelations, and sometimes one that is quiet and reflective and bit melancholic. High Consul Winston Duarte, whose enforced self-evolution to take on the aliens, is now MIA and the Empire is leaderless at the precise moment it is facing its greatest military challenges. The alien are conducting strange assaults on our reality, affecting consciousness and the laws of physics. The Laconian Empire has suffered a series of reversals in its war against the unknown entities that killed the creators of the protomolecule.
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