Babylon's Ashes

In ral life kijken we ondertussen naar het tweede seizoen van The Expanse, maar dat is nu nog maar op weg naar het einde van het eerste boek van de boeken van The Expanse.
Boek vijf had zijn problemen, in die zin dat het meer een obligaat soort “vul de persoonlijkheidsgaten in” was op de achtergrond van een cataclysme van epische proporties.

Dit boek heeft ook zijn problemen, maar uiteindelijk kan ik ermee leven. Op een rij:

De slechterik van dienst is een soort Khadaffi-figuur, maar dan wel dom, haatdragend, en meer belachelijk dan imponerend.
De discrepantie tussen de afgrijselijkheid van wat er in het vorige boek op de achtergrond gebeurde en de reactie erop van alle protagonisten is enorm. Om de metafoor van vorige keer te hergebruiken: het is alsof iemand uit nijdigheid over een oud lief een hele grootstad heeft laten doormartelen en uitmoorden door teams met vleeshaken en vlammenwerpers, en dat geen van die mensen later eigenlijk zeer veel gewetens- of andere problemen heeft. En dat ze er zich van af kunnen maken met een “ey sorry hé gasten”, gevolgd door een “och ja, ik snap het ook wel dat het uw probleem niet was” door een paar overlevenden.
Een groot stuk van “vechten in de ruimte” heeft te maken met zwaartekracht. Zoals in: grote versnellingen kunnen overleven. Het is daarom dat de soldaten van Mars, zo hoorden we een paar boeken geleden, altijd in aardezwaartkracht trainen. Omdat ze anders in gelijk welk gevecht met de Aarde al van voor het begin in een slechtere positie zouden zitten.
Wel, in dit boek moeten de Belters ruimtegevechten doen. En de Belters, die heel hun leven aan zo weinig zwaartekracht gewoon zijn dat ze zelfs niet op Aarde kunnen stappen, zouden dus eigenlijk al op voorhand moeten verloren zijn. Wat ze niet zijn. Dat is gewoon stom.
Maar dit terzijde, is het een degelijk boek. Eén van de dingen die de heren James S.A. Corey al sinds boek 2 doen, is alsmaar meer personages maken. Dat zorgt ervoor, zoals bij hun leermeester George R.R. Martin, dat we niet zal te zeker moeten zijn dat iedereen het zal overleven. Ik knip en plak een lijstje dat iemand op Goodreads maakte:
Holden is there, of course, and Corey manages to give him an arc, even this far into book six. And then we've also got POVs from Naomi, Amos, Alex, Bobbie (now a full member of the crew, yay!), Clarissa Mao (also now a crewmember), Avasarala (who breaks my heart), Michio Pa (the captain who can't make up her mind which side she wants to work for), Fred Johnson, Anderson Dawes, Prax (haven't seen him in a while), Naomi's son (the little shit) Philip, Marko (the terrorist leader of the Free Navy), some random one-off chapters of people working on Medina Station, and the whole thing is bookended with a prologue and epilogue from our old friend Anna (the preacher from Abaddon's Gate).

Een kleine twintig personages, en ze zijn allemaal individueel en herkenbaar. Da's al een verdienste op zich: als niet-specialist heb ik de indruk dat het allemaal gelijk wat beter geschreven is dan zeker het vorige boek.
Hoedanook: er is een groot hoofdstuk afgesloten, en nu mag het eindelijk beginnen gaan over aliens, vind ik. Dit is het eerste boek waarbij ik niet meteen een idee heb waar het het volgende boek zou kunnen over gaan (zelfs al vergiste ik mij dan in wat het uiteindelijk werd), en da's een goede zaak.

Ik hoor dat ze precies weten waar het naartoe gaat, en hoeveel boeken ze nog nodig hebben, en dat we echt wel meer gaan te weten komen over de diepere achtergronden van allerlei.

A la bonne heure. Laat deel zeven maar komen, ergens eind 2017.

I'm not sure if I was just starting to get Expanse burnout when I got to Book #6, but I restarted it a couple times and had a really hard time getting through it on each attempt. The writing is expectedly polished, as always, but the plotlines seem to languish until brief moments of punctuation, and I would get through whole chapters not understanding why we were spending time on certain characters and their stories. In the end, BA was worth it. The ongoing story comes to a climactic conclusion and sets up a new stage of the greater Expanse narrative. I finished just a week or two after the release of book #7, Persepolis Rising, which has already jump-started my imagination in the first few chapters.

Babylon's Ashes est le sixième volume de la saga de science-fiction The Expanse signée James S.A. Corey, le nom de plume du duo composé des auteurs Daniel Abraham et Ty Franck.

Le cinquième tome, Nemesis Games, m'avait emballé, il rebattait les cartes et promettait beaucoup pour la suite. Ce sixième volume reprend l'intrigue peu de temps après la fin du précédent.

Ma première réaction en découvrant la table des matières a été d'être surpris par le grand nombre de personnages différents listés en face de la cinquantaine de chapitres qui composent le livre.

Parmi ces personnages, il y a un peu de tout :

- Des protagonistes récurrents auxquels nous sommes désormais habitués : Holden, Naomi, Bobbie, Filip découvert dans le tome précédent et que l'on continue de suivre ici, etc.

- De vieilles connaissances de retour : par exemple Prax, que l'on n'avait pas revu depuis le deuxième volume

- De nouvelles voix, c'est-à-dire des personnages déjà vus à travers un autre personnage dans les romans précédents, comme Marco Inaros, le leader de la Free Navy, ou Michio Pa que l'on avait connu comme officier en second du Behemoth dans le 3ème tome et que l'on retrouve ici dans un rôle sympathique de chef pirate de l'espace

- Et même de nouveaux visages, des personnages que l'on découvre dans ce roman

La répartition des chapitres entre les personnages est clairement hétérogène : certains personnages reviennent souvent, d'autres s'expriment seulement dans deux ou trois fois chapitres, et certains n'apparaissent qu'une seule fois, pour une occasion particulière.

Cette multiplication des narrateurs a des avantages et des inconvénients : c'est intéressant car cela multiplie les points de vue, mais cela a aussi tendance à ralentir le récit, voire à étirer une histoire qui ne nécessitait peut-être pas autant de pages.

C'est plutôt intéressant, même si ça tourne un peu en rond par moment. Il y a des chapitres captivants, d'autres moins mémorables. Malgré des moments faibles, l'ensemble fonctionne bien et se lit avec plaisir.

Ce qui m'a peut-être le plus gêné, c'est que cela manque parfois de subtilité. J'ai été particulièrement gêné par la scène où Marco compare la Free Navy aux Afghans qui ont résisté siècle après siècle aux impérialistes britanniques, américains, etc. Si jamais vous ne l'aviez pas compris jusque là, cela doit maintenant être clair dans votre esprit : la Free Navy est l'équivalent dans The Expanse des terroristes islamistes d'Al-Qaïda, et Marco est l'Oussama ben Laden du système solaire. Difficile de faire plus manichéen que cela.

J'ai trouvé la fin très réussie, et c'est d'ailleurs une qualité que je reconnais aux auteurs : une réelle capacité à la fin de chaque livre à donner envie de lire la suite ! En tout cas, malgré quelques réserves à la lecture de celui-ci, je serai en rendez-vous avec le septième tome, Persepolis Rising.

Much better than some previous books. But not better than the immediately previous book. There are some chapters in this that are from some randos perspective and then there are others from familiar characters that have no actual bearing on the plot. All in all its a good story.

I would actually say it's more of a sequel to the one before.

Not my favorite of the series. Each chapter is one-character POV, and I didn't enjoy that in this one we get way more POVs, other than the core main characters. I particularly didn't enjoy the chapters with Marco Inaros and his son. They are not on my list of likable characters (for obvious reasons if you know the series) and there were maybe too many of those chapters. Anyway, I want to continue reading the series, it seems the plot will continue in a different direction, and that's promising!

This book was like [b:Nemesis Games 22886612 Nemesis Games (The Expanse #5) James S.A. Corey https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1407524221s/22886612.jpg 42456264] Part 2, it really wrapped up the unfinished business from the previous book. If they were together, it would make for a gigantic book, but that's really what it is.As with the previous books, I love the characters, the way they describe their future world, like details of how they move or use gestures that are visible with space suits. This book does a particularly good job of showing the human side of the key characters even more (through loss: Avarasarala, duty: Holden, love and morality: Pa; etc).I think this book contains both my favorite and least favorite battle scenes of the series or, in fact, any book I've read. My favorite was the first encounter with the Pella, it was intense and exciting. I love the details like Bobby's vision blurring because the acceleration was enough to squish her eyeballs. And for as great as that was, the second encounter was a huge disappointment. I always loved how accurate the physics were in the series, they didn't resort to magic like Star Trek and their inertial dampeners. Then, this last battle they used exactly that, alien magic, to get out of a sticky situation.Regardless, the book was still awesome and I definitely recommend the series.

This is the book I needed right now. I've loved this series a lot since Leviathan Wakes debuted. It used to be because it filled the Firefly-shaped hole in my heart, but the crew of the Rocinante have evolved so much, the scale of the story has expanded so much (see what I did there?), that it has gone far beyond an enjoyable space romp. Now, the story is much more poised as a mirror of what humanity can be at both its best and its worst. We find our favorite crew (plus Clarissa Mao whom I hope gets a bigger role in the next book), caught up in the war that has destroyed Earth, trying to make alliances and save lives wherever we can. We get the return of several characters we haven't seen in many books, Michio Pa and Prax Meng, and watch how their small pieces fit into this large universe. We get to see into the world of terrorist kings and the justification of people who follow them. It's all good. It's just a brilliant series and I can't wait for more.

Executive Summary: This is the second book in a row I've given one of my rare 5-star ratings to, and the second year in a row that an Expanse book is my favorite read. If you haven't given this series a look yet, you really should!Audiobook: Jefferson Mays once again does a great job. He reads with good inflection, volume and pace. He does a few voices for the characters, including an excellent job with Avasarala. This is definitely a series I plan to continue in audio so long as he's the narrator.Full ReviewI imagine that most Sci-Fi fans know the Expanse by now. The SyFy channel's adaptation earlier this year was fantastic. However I think this is one of those series that will have a broader appeal. It doesn't spend too much time focused on the science. Sure there is advanced technology, but it's used in a way as to be commonplace and not necessarily exceptional. This is Space Opera in the vein of Star Trek, Battlestar Galatica and Firefly.At the core of this series is the conflicts between Earth, Mars and “The belt”. Last year's [b:Nemesis Games 22886612 Nemesis Games (The Expanse, #5) James S.A. Corey https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1407524221l/22886612.SY75.jpg 42456264] really ramped that conflict up to a whole new level making my expectations for this book incredibly high. This was my most anticipated book of the year, and I was really bummed when it got delayed. I'm happy to report that [a:James S.A. Corey 4192148 James S.A. Corey https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1573162332p2/4192148.jpg] have once again delivered.I've seen this series called a “trilogy of trilogies” which would make this the final book in the second trilogy. That seems like a good fit. Many of things set in motion by [b:Cibola Burn 18656030 Cibola Burn (The Expanse, #4) James S.A. Corey https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1405023040l/18656030.SY75.jpg 26109318] and ramped up in [b:Nemesis Games 22886612 Nemesis Games (The Expanse, #5) James S.A. Corey https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1407524221l/22886612.SY75.jpg 42456264] get resolved in this book, all while setting the stage for the next arc to come.A quick glance at the table of contents may give you some pause. In the past the format has 2-5 PoV's with James Holden as the only recurring viewpoint. This book however has a whopping 19 PoV's (including the prologue/epilogue). So has the Expanse gone full Game of Thrones? Not quite. I think this book tells a “bigger” story in terms of distance, and it's nice to have a boots on the ground view that doesn't introduce implausible reasons for a small number of characters to be everywhere. I thought it was well done. Every chapter/PoV felt like a good addition to the story. Many of the PoV's are one-offs, and a few of them are only a handful of chapters, while Holden and two other characters (Pa and Filip) have a large number of chapters throughout. I'll be curious to see if they keep to this format in future books of if this one was a special exception. I typically prefer a smaller (~4) number of PoVs.I often have a hard time deciding between a really good book (4-4.5 stars) and a really great book (5). I don't have a hard and fast criteria. The one sure fire sign is when I hate to put a book down and make excuses to read/listen longer each day. This book was definitely that. On the very first day I had to make time to squeeze in a few extra chapters because I hit a “no way I can stop here” moment.The characters in this series are excellent. Avasarala continues to be my favorite, but I love the entire crew of the Rocinate, and Bobbie Draper nearly as much. The main antagonist in the book Marco Inaros can feel a bit 1 dimensional at times, but he still feels very real to me too. His motivations and actions make sense. He never feels like he's doing things simply for the sake of a good story. He's just a bit single minded.Overall I really enjoyed this book, albeit slightly less than [b:Nemesis Games 22886612 Nemesis Games (The Expanse, #5) James S.A. Corey https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1407524221l/22886612.SY75.jpg 42456264]. I'm really excited for [b:Persepolis Rising 28335696 Persepolis Rising (The Expanse, #7) James S.A. Corey https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1481562381l/28335696.SY75.jpg 48382887] (which will hopefully be out next year). In the meantime I can't wait to see Bobbie Draper on screen for the first time with Season 2 of the Expanse in February.

If I had to rate the novels in the Expanse series, I'd have to say this is probably the weakest one so far (which means it comes down to being only “really enjoyable” rather than “fantastic”).

The story deals well with the fallout of the last novel, and moves to establish a new status quo for the crew of the Rocinante and for the solar system. The post 9/11 metaphors felt a little heavy handed at times, but the character interactions remained enjoyable enough that the book was still a fun story on the whole.

[b:Babylon's Ashes 25877663 Babylon's Ashes (The Expanse, #6) James S.A. Corey https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1442247299s/25877663.jpg 45754030] is another good book in the Expanse series. This is not a stand-alone story at all as it is basically a continuation of [b:Nemesis Games 22886612 Nemesis Games (Expanse, #5) James S.A. Corey https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1407524221s/22886612.jpg 42456264], and picks up right where that story ended. This time we get lots more of people in desperate situations, chases & space battles, and political maneuvering.

I think this is one where my bias really shows through. There's a lot of comments about it having too many POV's, which most felt had the story being a little poorly put together. But I actually loved seeing so many perspectives. Don't get me wrong, I hope the last of the books go back to 3-5 POV's, but for this part of the story, it made sense to me. .
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I do wish we had a little more of the aliens in this book, or a little more about why everything that is happening is happening. But I was happy with how things ended and it's left me even more excited for the next one in the series. I also love that the Rocinante family has grown. Lots of feels in this book. As many sad as good. Again, I'm a big fan

Fantastic 6th book in the series. This series started off great, but just keeps getting better.

This one concerns conflict between Holden and his crew and Marco and his Free Navy. There is personal conflict, political intrigue, deception, and combat. Do I need to say more? If you've read the first 5 books in this series and enjoyed them, you're definitely going to want to continue with this one. You will not be disappointed. If you haven't read any of the Expanse books by James S.A. Corey, then you should definitely start with Leviathan Wakes, which is excellent.

In my re-read of the series, I thought that my least favorite would continue to be Cibola Burn but I actually ended up liking that a lot more and this one a little less. It's still GOOD, but I think this book suffers the most from trying to do the most. There's just a LOT going on and while it does wrap up the Free Navy story so far, the ending leaves bit more to be desired.

The previous book was an amazing action filled joy ride, while this one was a good follow up book. You can't really top this, at some point you need to conclude the story ark.

It was well done, but I couldn't help myself to feel a bit let down, just a bit too much stereotypes, etc.

Especially where the story will go on from here, there was no open point at the end where a big story could continue. There are of course a lot of small things going on and we will see what happens in the next book.

Verdict, solid but not outstanding.