The Expanse, audiobooks 7 & 8
4.0 Stars
4-20-2021

Decent quality, and there is so much of it. All of the Expanse novels have the same essential plot: some assholes attempt to use alien artifacts to become the new lords of humanity, the protagonists try to stop them, 600 pages of events ensue. These books continue with that same story structure, though this time the assholes are moderately more successful than usual. I liked it? I liked that the authors aged everyone up by 30 years, I liked that they allowed more fragility and change in the story, and I liked that the stories for the most part keep an essentially humanist tone. This isn't quite Iain Banks, but the books do mostly side with people's desire to follow their own desires and paths over any sort of universal systematizing or patriotism or empire building. The adventures that go on are fine, the plotting is fine, the world building is fine. I liked the sense of dislocation but also possibility that the story produces, that the universe is no longer Earth, Mars, and the Belt and their old rivalries, but rather dozens of new worlds with growing millions. I also liked the Laconians, the new assholes from this book, in that the author did a great job of making them so dislikeable. These latter Expanse novels are a definite step up, and the authors are becoming better and more confident story tellers and also benefiting from all the previous work that they've put into their world.