beyourbestshelf's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Moderate: Suicide attempt, Abandonment, Suicidal thoughts, Pregnancy, and Death
ekcd_'s review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Graphic: Abandonment, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Gun violence, Kidnapping, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Misogyny, Suicide, Body horror, Colonisation, Classism, Suicide attempt, War, Cursing, Death, Injury/Injury detail, and Murder
Moderate: Domestic abuse and Toxic relationship
Minor: Death of parent, Sexual violence, Alcohol, Cancer, and Pregnancy
iono's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Violence, Suicide attempt, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and War
Moderate: Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Racism, Pregnancy, Confinement, Domestic abuse, Toxic relationship, and Xenophobia
Minor: Child abuse, Grief, and Death
caryndi's review against another edition
3.0
Spoiler
this one's only POV characters are the members of the Rocinante, who are split up at the beginning for Personal Reasons and then kept apart for Conflict Reasons. With each of their journeys, we learn more about them--except Holden, because someone has to carry the larger plot arcs.It was nice to know more about the crew, but I would have preferred it if everything we learned arise organically in the narrative rather than just being contained to one book. There were some pretty big backstory drops that could provide a LOT of interpersonal friction/conflict, but I think it's fair to say the authors of The Expanse are not as skilled in that aspect of storytelling. Though the larger conflict introduced in this book does make sense politically, it also had more distance from Holden & co., who somehow managed to once again <spoilers>insert themselves in the middle of a war, only this time, there weren't really any consequences for them as individuals.
I was also totally underwhelmed with the amount of emotional conflict in this book.
Spoiler
Naomi having a secret child that she hadn't told Jim about? Jim, who had been very openly interested in having children while Naomi didn't want to? And then she tells him all about it in one chapter and she feels better after crying it out and he's just like "okay cool"? Sorry, this doesn't track for me. Especially because Holden can be pretty emotional and straight up told Naomi he was super curious and jealous. While he did make it clear she didn't have to tell him what the deal was, I don't see that guy taking all these revelations and just being like "well, let's roll with it."I don't know that I have a lot to say about most of the individual backstories because, as I said, this book sort of just seemed like a visit to these characters' pasts/their memories of their pasts in the middle of a large space adventure and I don't expect much of it to come forward into future books. Maybe I'll be wrong, but I felt all the stories were wrapped up by the end of the book.
I'm also not sure about what the direction for the next book will be; as I mentioned in my review for Cibola Burn, the first three books did a great job of building a larger arc using cliffhangers or raising questions at the end of a book to hint at where the story was going next. I didn't feel that coming into this book nor did it have a clear organic lead-in to what the next book will hold. I assume that's why they added the epilogue; though it did have ties to the story, they were little threads rather than strong foreshadowing.
I think part of this is because we turned away from the Weird Alien Shit to deal with personal crew matters. In terms of the protomolecule, it was hardly even mentioned
Spoiler
aside from the sample being a valuable item in itself that the Free Navy wanted to stealRecommend? Expect the tone to be different from previous books in the series, but at the very least, it fills in some gaps and questions about the crew of the Rocinante.
Graphic: Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gun violence, Kidnapping, and Violence
Moderate: Ableism, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Medical content, Mental illness, and Suicidal thoughts