Persepolis Rising (The Expanse, 7)

30 years later… No, really. James S.A. Corey’s military science fiction novel Persepolis Rising (The Expanse, 7) takes place roughly three decades after Babylon’s Ashes. Laconia, the colony formed by the rogue Martian contingent led by “High Consul” Winston Duarte, has decided it’s time to reinstate contact with the rest of humanity. They’re certain that they know how to make civilization peaceful and prosperous–even if it means they have to conquer everyone in order to achieve their goals. And they’ve been building warships based on alien technology that can do the job. They’re also doing human experiments using the protomolecule–something that almost certainly won’t end well. Drummer, who used to be Fred Johnson’s head of security, is now “Madame President” of the Belters’ Transport Union, and she finds herself in the unenviable position of having to decide whether or not to use her resources to fight against the Laconians. Earth has also recovered just enough that it’s starting to become active in matters again–one of the benefits of picking up 30 years later. As for our heroes on the Rocinante, Holden and Naomi want to retire, and they’ve decided to sell the ship to Bobbie. She becomes captain just in time to deal with this latest crisis.

There’s a theme of fascism and dictatorship running through this book. Before Laconian ships arrive, Holden is contracted to deliver consequences to a colony that’s refusing to obey the Transport Union, and he has to decide how to handle the fact that he’s basically delivering a death sentence. Once the Laconians arrive and take over Medina Station, we get to see that the best of intentions can still devolve into arrests, deaths, and so forth. We also experience the new Medina “governor’s” slide as he, a loving family man, starts to see the conquered as less than human. The Laconians legitimately seem to want to improve people’s lives (most of them, anyway), but this book gives a great look at how the way you go about such a thing has consequences. For everyone. We see what happens when there’s zero room given to negotiate those consequences.

The crew of the Rocinante has seen better days. Alex has married and divorced again. Amos seems to be going off the deep end–and we see what happens when he begins to lose control of his psychopathic tendencies. Clarissa is very sick, actually dying, because of the degradation of the glands she had implanted. Holden and Naomi are tired. Bobbie chafes at being under someone else’s command for so long and wants to run things herself. There’s also no way for the crew to free Medina without causing a lot of collateral damage–to themselves and others.

Don’t worry–we come back to that odd anomaly where some ships get “eaten” by the gates. There’s a massive weapon the Laconians are wielding that’s based on the same technology, and it’s causing its own side effects. We also see bits and pieces of what the Laconians are doing with the protomolecule, and if it took up more of the book I’d be adding “horror” to my mental list of keywords.

As a little tidbit, I also appreciate that this series shows plenty of relationships between members of the opposite sex that have nothing to do with sex or romance, ranging from professionalism to close friendships.

The Expanse TV series is one of my all time favorite shows and I didn’t want the story to end!

The book is an enjoyable easy read w excellent character development and plot lines. It and the show seem to compliment each other well.

If you are lazy like me and don’t want to read the book series from the beginning, it will take some confusing moments to understand the difference between the tv and the book series this far along in the story. Although most of it syncs up well, some of the characters and story line are a bit different than what I was used to -but you catch up pretty quickly.

I highly recommend this book and am looking forward to the arrival of the next!

I put off reading this installment of the series for longer than I should have, because my husband mentioned in an offhand comment that a lot of time had passed since the previous book. I didn't want to read about new characters and new situations. Instead, what I got was a Rocinante crew who are closer than ever and an amazing continuation of this series's overarching plot.

Many changes do occur in the beginning of this story, and I'm not going to lie: Some of them are kind of sad. But I promise that it's a good, satisfying kind of sad. 

And then, as usual, everything escalates. I'd use a different phrase, but Amazon doesn't like expletives in their reviews, as much as it's warranted here. Corey is amazing at pulling out seeds of story that were planted in previous books, and the status quo tilts once again. 

The antagonist point-of-view in this story is not the actual "Big Bad," which I think serves the narrative well. As usual, despite all of the amazing alien technology they now have access to, humans are still just idiots with fancy toys.

(Avasarala is not an idiot. She might be aging, but she's definitely still the smartest person in the room, and I continue to adore her.)

Despite their years of working together, the tensest moments in this story were the interpersonal sparks between the Roci's crew. I don't like the idea of them in conflict, especially not Holden and Bobbie. But it's handled deftly, and never exists for the purpose of conflict for conflict's sake.

It looks like the next book in the series is going to pick up almost where things left off, and I can't wait to dive in and find out what happens next.

I love this series. It is my happy place. I was grateful to return to it this miserable COVID19 year. The characters and relationships are so rich and multi dimensional. Strong female characters. Ethnically diverse characters. Broken people like Amos. I adore the plausible "science" of space travel and alien beings and worlds.

The television series built beautifully on the themes of humanity's evolution and progress alongside failure to escape our millennia old habits of colonialism, domination, us vs them thinking, and racism. The sheer beauty and even richer characters of the show, while a departure from the books in some ways, also added dimension I was overjoyed to see.

I found this installment of the series a bit discouraging and I am so glad there is another. I finished what Expanse books were available in 2015. They ended so beautifully. I could not imagine how a TV series could be as good as the books, with their layers of world building superimposed on history and old ideas of afterlife, connection, divinity. "Palimpsest," Duarte says.

The TV series is a different artifact than the books but it is an admirable work on its own merits- the best TV I have ever seen. And unlike the TV series ending top soon, the novels seem to still have legs. I will be so sorry when I turn the last page.

Every time I get to read about the crew of the Rocinante it feels a little like coming home. They're basically family at this point, and truly it is like the literary equivalent of a warm hug. And so I make sure to hold them tight, because in the world of The Expanse... Well, you never know what might happen.

Like a thirty year time-jump for example, and the emergence of an authoritarian empire wielding technologies they don't understand. I didn't think that would happen. But it did. It did, and it breathed very interesting life into the story. Babylon's Ashes felt like a closing chapter, in some ways, to the conflicts that the majority of the series up to that point had revolved around. And so it fits that Persepolis Rising skipped ahead, and introduced the conflict that I imagine will see us through to the end of the series.

The seventh installment is as rich in outstanding character work as the six that preceded it. Honest, human struggles amidst a backdrop of smart, internally consistent, extremely well-written science-fiction. The Expanse continues to be, without a doubt, one of the strongest space operas you can grab off the shelf.

I give this four stars, not because it's a bad book, but simply because it isn't as strong as some of the others and there are quite a few and frequent spelling and grammar errors. To be clear, these errors exist in the Kindle version, and it is possible that the print version is free of such errors. Regardless, I would still give this four stars if it was free of such errors because, as I have said, it's not as strong as some of the other books. The reason that I say that it's not as strong is because this book feels much more like a space filler to both catch us up with what has been happening between Babylon's Ashes and now, as well as stand as a set up book for the final two books in the series.

Side note: As stated this book is far from the worst book in the series which is easily Cibola Burn imo and yet I would give Cibola Burn four stars as well, because even at it's weakest, it's still not a bad or even so-so novel in any way, shape, or form.

The best part of this book is definitely the fact that we see the "return of an old enemy" as stated in the description, but what was even better was realizing that "return of an old enemy" has a double meaning SPOILER in regards not just to Duarte and Laconia, but also to "The eye of an angry god," as described by Holden in Cibola Burn. It's funny that these two books are the weakest and both act as stop gaps between the three different arcs where Leviathan Wakes, Caliban's War, and Abaddon's Gate make up the first arc, Nemesis Games and Babylon's Ashes make up the second arc, and the third arc begins with Persepolis Rising being the stop gap/catch up and stage setting for the next two books/final arc.

Weakest part of the book easily has to be the amount of time characters spend sleeping or thinking and talking about sleeping. The fact is that if characters are sleeping, then they aren't active and doing something. This leads to the most frustrating part of this book which is pacing. It's pacing is really slow in comparison to the previous books. To be honest, a slower pacing can be fine if done well and I don't think it was in this book. There were several times during the novel when I thought "Why am I reading this scene? Why did the authors write this section? Does this section/exposition/information serve a purpose, or is it simply a darling that they chose not to kill?" (Side note, "kill your darlings" is a Literary Term for a portion of writing an author wrote that is beautiful in and of itself that the author absolutely loves, but is not integral to the overall plot, or does not otherwise move the story forward and therefore must be "killed" i.e. cut). It is because of this pacing issue that I really give the novel four stars instead of five. There were things that I thought we could have gone without seeing, in wondering as to why we are seeing them, the only conclusion that I could draw was that while right now it is not all that important, it is simply setting up for book 8 and 9, which is exactly the case with the POV character Drummer. We didn't actually need to see her POV at all in this book, and her purpose for existing in this book was simply to set up her roll in book 8+. The only characters POV we actually needed to see was the Roci crew (various headed by Holden, but each crew member get's at least 1 chapter), Bobbie (as she was integral to the action and moving the story forward), and Singh (as the primary antagonist for this novel, and as a look into the Laconian POV), again, Drummer was not needed at all except to introduce her and set her up for a role in book 8.

All in all, it's a solid entry that's perhaps a bit weaker than the rest, but not the weakest in this series. I am really looking forward to book 8!

I really want to give it three and a half stars, are maybe a 3.75. It's good, not great. I put it third or 4th in the series. It is way better than the cheap Louis L'amore attempt of a frontier western in "Cibola Burn." Persepolis Rising (PR) is long, but not as tediously long as "Abaddon's Gate." However it is nowhere near as good as "Leviathan Wakes," "Caliban's War" or my favorite, "Nemesis Games." I think I have to place it just behind "Babylon's Ashes." PR has some seriously one dimensional characters, and some of the pivotal plat points you can see from miles away. One major one toward the end you see coming from almost the very start of PR. Don't know how I feel about the huge jump in time. Feel we lost a lot of adventures in there. Hopefully, after the authors have completed the series they will open up the cannon to other writers to fill in the years. I would pay big money to have a short story based on Avasarila and Bobby back in the day. If you have read all the books then this review doesn't matter that much. You are going to read this one and the next two that rap up the saga. Again, PR is good, just not great. *Audio Book Listeners: I love Jefferson Mayes readings of these books and usually listen to the older one as I fall asleep. Mayes makes a slight change to the voice of Bobby which I did not like. I can understand why he changed it. it's logical. I just didn't like it. The old voice he gave Bobby was one of my favorite to listen too, but I find her new voice to be annoying. The rest of the audio book is great, as always when he does it, but like "Abaddon's Gate," PR can drone in places because it is so long. I had to rewind several times to catch parts I missed because my mind was wondering.