Persepolis Rising: Book 7 of the Expanse (now a Prime Original series)

This is book 7 of the Expanse that apparently takes place some thirty years after the previous volume. It is built around the return of exiles that defected from the Marian Fleet with then Admiral Duarte from beyond the interstellar gate, and now self-styled High Consul and head of a rather frightening totalitarian regime on Laconia, one of the thirteen hundred colonies opened up to Humans once the gate was reactivated. Except that the former exiles come back with an imperialist agenda: no less than the conquest of the Solar system and its uneasy alliance between “inners” from Earth and Mars and “Belters” (from space stations scattered across the system) and the integration of all human colonies into a vast and unique Human Empire. Except also that they come back with new and seemingly irresistible alien technology from a mysterious, extremely advanced and apparently extinct alien race.Holden and his crew have aged and get caught up in the conflict that disrupts their plans. Some of the book’s features, such as the resistance on the station of Medina occupied by the invading Laconians or the space battle opposing a single Laconian battleship against the Solar system’s united fleet are both good and exciting. Also good is the psychological mind set and emotions of some of the main characters, in particular the despairing Drummer – the Belter woman now President of the Transport Union or Bobbie, the ex-Martian Marine who has become part of Captain Holden’s crew and aspires to replace him. Another interesting character is that of Captain Singh, his ambitions, feelings and failures as Laconian Governor of Medina.One limitation, however, is that, once again, the five hundred plus page novel ends abruptly with a cliff hanger and, once again, it reads at the latest episode of a series of books that cannot really be taken up independently. A less important point is that the book’s title never gets explained and does not seem to correspond to any of the book’s features.Four stars.

Over the last thirty years, Earth, Mars and the Belt have unified to explore and settle the thirteen hundred colony worlds beyond the ring gates. The divisions and damage of previous generations are slowly being forgotten...until the colony world of Laconia launches a coup using protomolecule-based technology. As a new empire rises, the crew of the ageing frigate Rocinante once again find themselves on the front lines.Persepolis Rising, the seventh book in The Expanse, opens with a bit of a non-sequitur time jump as we leap thirty years after the events of Babylon's Ashes. This is an interesting narrative decision, although one that is decidedly undersold: everyone is pretty much exactly where we left them in the previous volume and doing much the same thing, which not so much stretches credulity as shatters it into ten thousand tiny pieces. Time jumps are tricky to get right and can often feel contrived, and the time jump in this book feels rather like the latter.Once the initial discomfort of that passes, Persepolis Rising ups its game considerably by introducing the Laconian forces as a powerful new player on the scene. There was enough foreshadowing in the previous two books to allow Laconia's rise to feel reasonably organic and the authors do a good job of fleshing out the empire and its hierarchy by using Laconian military officer Santiago Singh as a POV character. There's also some good characterisation as Singh makes choices that seem reasonably logical in isolation but rapidly escalate towards disaster.Elsewhere, the Rocinante crew get stuck in a very tricky situation and have to escape. This is a fairly good story, but it feels like it should have been a much briefer episode in a larger story. Instead, huge events are happening but then we cut back to our regular heroes plotting to escape...and then plotting some more...and then at the end of the novel they (spoilers!) escape. The main storyline here is treading a bit too much water.Still, there's some very good characterisation and the authors pull off a major shift in the underlying paradigm of the series relatively successfully. Persepolis Rising (****) is available now in the UK and USA.

Leviathan Wakes was a masterpiece. Caliban's War was close to being one. Cibola Burn a welcome change of scenery. Nemesis Games was epic in scope. But Babylon's Ashes was a bit of a mess, and that mediocrity has carried over to this book too.There's a 30 year time gap between the events of the first six books and this seventh book. Presumably the decision to have this time gap is to give time for Winston Duarte to build up his Laconian forces. The trouble is, while Duarte has been busy, everybody else has not. In fact, most of the characters seemingly just pick up from where they left off in book six, like the 30 years in between didn't happen. The Rocinante's crew are older, but aside from some greying hair and aching muscles, they're exactly the same, kicking butt and acting like their younger selves. Holden is still Holden. Naomi is still loyal to him. Amos is still angry. Alex has got married again and got divorced – which is exactly the same situation we first met him in at the beginning of the series. Bobbie still acts like a tough marine, though she almost gets schooled early on by a prisoner they're ferrying around. Bobbie was the standout character when she was introduced in Caliban's War, but the writers are ruining her, having somehow made her borderline irritating and one-dimensional. Even Avasarala is still plugging away, her hair now white, and she spends most of her time in a wheelchair, but otherwise exactly the same. It's the lazy choice for characterisation. There was so much the authors could have done with the time gap to change the status quo, and they waste the opportunity.Some of the characters do get some limited development during the book. Bobbie takes on a leadership position. Drummer (and Paolo Cortazar) get more attention, presumably because they are more prominent in the TV show and maybe there's an intention from the authors to more closely align to the show. Amos seems to have devolved from the first six books. Clarissa gets sidelined for most of the book. There's no mention at all of Filip, which you would think would have altered Naomi's life in someway, but no. The main villain, Duarte, has clearly taken leave of his senses, which makes him seem more like a cartoon character. Marco Inaros remains the series' best-written villain.To their credit, the authors do know how to write a page turner, and keep the plot, for what it is, trundling along, because by now we're all invested in their characters, but the story is a bit thin and predictable, and at times feels like a re-run of Abaddon's Gate with so much of the story focused on an insurgency on Medina in the slow zone. That's another thing - aside from a couple of brief looks at Laconia, and a short trip to a colony world, the majority of the story is told either from inside Medina Station, or on Drummer's ship, neither of which are particularly interesting locations. The plot therefore feels static, which doesn't much help the thinness of plot and characterisation.It's not a terrible book – I still give it 3 out of 5 – but it's not up to the quality of earlier books in the series. Still, I think the authors have by now earned the readers' patience, so hopefully this is just a blip, a necessary transitionary story in the series and that the authors are saving all their good ideas for the last two books, because there's not much new on offer here. I'd hope that it's not a sign of the author's limitations as writers, or their starting to read into their own hype from the success they've had previously. I'm looking forward to the final two books, in the hope that they can match the earlier books in the series.

Brilliant hardcover book of the Expanse series. This is volume 7 and there may be up to 9 volumes to complete the set. This is a major series of hard science fiction set 200 years in the future covering not only our solar system and various inhabited planets, moons and asteroids but also over 200 other worlds opened by a wormhole system left by an alien civilization. There are lots of battles amongst humans from different planets who just don't get on plus hints of an alien entity they barely understand. A mammoth effort by the authors and very enjoyable to read.Netflix has also released 2 seasons of "Expanse" covering the earlier books - well worth watching though not following the books exactly.

The seventh book takes place several decades after the end of season 6 of The Expanse. The novel kickstarts a new trilogy which will cover the Laconian empire and the unknown aggressors. I hope someday we see the books adapted on the small or big screen. But if you love The Expanse, be sure to pick up this novel.