Tiamat's Wrath (The Expanse, 8)

Tiamat’s Wrath destroyed me. How the heck am I supposed to review it? And without spoilers??? It’s a nigh impossible task, but I’ll give it my best go.

Before diving into the nitty-gritty, I need to note that Tiamat’s Wrath is book eight in a nine book series. YOU MUST READ THE SERIES IN ORDER. If you’re not up-to-date on the Expanse series, stop reading this review now. If you’re like, “what’s the Expanse series?”, it’s one of the best space operas I’ve ever read and the first book is Leviathan Wakes. Go read it now.

Spoilers for previous books in the series will follow from here on out.

Ever since Nemesis Game this series has gone from strong to mindbendingly brilliant. Fast forward to book seven, Persepolis Rises which dealt one huge emotional punch. Clarissa’s death still breaks my heart. And then that ending! Duarte essentially won, conquering the rest of humanity with an iron fist. Holden was captured and shipped back as a prisoner. The rest of the crew are fugitives on the run, often separated from each other. There’s little hope of retrieving Holden.

The beginning of Tiamat’s Wrath isn’t much sunnier. Naomi’s a resistance leader, gone through a transformation that actually kind of reminds me of Leia becoming General Organa. Actually, “the Rebellion from Star Wars but filtered through a gritty, Battlestar Galactica type lense” is a great way to describe Tiamat’s Wrath. Naomi’s mostly on her own, hiding in shipping containers to be smuggled across the known universe. Bobbie and Alex lead up the resistance fleet, which is basically just one ship that mostly hides. Amos was sent off on a secret mission to rescue Holden and hasn’t been heard from in like ten years. Holden’s still a prisoner with little to no power. And get this: for the first time, Holden’s not a major POV character. He’s the prologue and the epilogue. Maybe an interlude too? But that’s basically it. He’s been our anchor for the entire series, and now Duarte has not just taken him from his crew/family but from us too.

Tiamat’s Wrath has four principle POV characters. Naomi, obviously. She’s building networks of resistance with the desperate hope of undermining the empire. Alex, whose sections also give us a view onto Bobbie. Teresa Duarte is a new character, the daughter of the dictator. While her father plans to make himself immortal, he’s grooming Teresa as his heir, just in case he needs a backup plan. Elvi, the scientist first seen in Cibula Burn, makes a return. She’s reluctantly become a high ranking scientist of the empire, studying the civilization that made the proto-molecule… and whatever it was that destroyed them.

Mysterious alien artifacts and presences have always underlined the Expanse series, although the conflict largely stems from humans being awful to each other (not particularly surprising). But for ages now, the books have been building up this question: what destroyed the civilization that built the proto-molecule? And will they return to destroy humanity?

Unfortunately, Duarte is in power and he’s decided that the best course of action is to attack the all-powerful, unfathomable alien beings. I can’t really talk about anything else relating to this, but I literally gasped out loud at some of the plot twists here. It’s incredibly thrilling and I get chills just thinking about it. It kind of feels like humans are busy throwing rocks at each other and meanwhile, the godlike aliens who already destroyed one incredibly advanced civilization are like, “Oh shit, I’ve got a pest problem, better call the exterminator.” How the hell book nine is going to resolve this, I have no freaking idea.

Moving on from how intense this book was, the Expanse series has always been driven by its characters who captured my heart in a way I never would have predicted. The first sentence of Tiamat’s Wrath is a character death. I got so upset and worried about my beloved characters that I read the first half of the book pretty slowly! I was scared about more deaths, okay?

Holden’s never been my favorite of the cast, but he’s grown on me, and I missed him here. That said, it was interesting to see him through Teresa’s perspective. Teresa reminds me a bit of Filip (parallels of being raised by wannabe dictator fathers) but I like her more. She’s less violent, more thoughtful. She feels trapped by the life she’s in. She’s constantly watched and while she has more power than say, Holden, she’s still largely powerless, at the mercy of the adults around her. Over the course of Tiamat’s Wrath she begins to discover her own strength as well as her own anger.

I liked Elvi Okoye a lot more this time around. I think she’s matured since Cibola Burn. Also we don’t get the weird subplot about her emotional problems being solved with sex. Anyway, here she’s worried that she’s complicit in the ills of Duarte’s empire. And let’s be real, she sort of is. She keeps thinking that if it wasn’t her, it’d be someone else… but she sort of knows she is complicit and just doesn’t have any way to deal with it. If she protests too much, they’ll flat out murder her. So she’s basically stuck lodging the occasional formal protests that everyone above her handwaves away while she’s also looking at things that have the power to destroy all of humanity. Good luck with that Elvi.

Tiamat’s Wrath is an amazingly intense read in a series that moves from strength to strength. While it’s only been about a year since I started reading it, I’ve put an audiobook of Leviathan Wakes on hold because I need to experience it all over again. I don’t know how I’ll deal with this series ending, and there’s no way I will ever be prepared for what the final book has in store.

I received an ARC with the expectation of a free and honest review.

Book number eight of an nine book science fiction series. I read the well printed and well bound trade paperback weighing 1.3 lbs. Ah, Science Fiction by the pound, cool ! I have the last book in the series and will be reading it soon.

James Holden is still alive and is a political prisoner in the palace on Laconia. The Laconians, the lost Martian colony, are now ruling the central station with the 1,300 gates, shortcuts around the Milky Way, with their three antimatter based super battleships.

The Laconian's usage of the protomatter to enhance humans, take over worlds, enhance space flight, and change all matter to meet their rule over the Galaxy is going to new levels. Even Sol System has been subjugated by the Laconians. But, somebody else has awakened and wants to destroy everything.

You can watch books one through six converted to a six season tv series on Amazon Prime. The series was started on the Syfy channel and moved to Amazon for the fourth season.

My rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

The book still sports rock solid science (apart of highly speculative aliens, ofc). Great action, belivable tactics make it very convincing setting. The writing, while still great, seems to be getting a bit tired. This, being the penultimate chapter is the likely reason Repair droids have a bit Deus ex machina feel, however. On the whole, the characters really had to earn their happy ending and now, I can't wait for the final chapter...

I love this series so much. The first time I read it there were only 4 or 5 books. The TV series takes some liberties but it is outstanding. Somehow as a fan of the show I found there were several more Expanse novels out there.

I love them so much. They are up there with Dune and His Dark Materials. Maybe not quite the literary punch of Louise Erdrich or Toni Morrison or Barbara Kingsolver, but the Expanse series engages with timeless human dilemmas frailties and choices in some similar, rich, if less refined, ways. The "science" is marvelously plausible for this layperson.

I loved the characters before. The first time through Avasarala was my favorite and Bobbie was a bit of a cipher. Miller was also a favorite. The TV series gave me the Avasarala I craved, the Draper I needed, and then some, and I love Amos Alex Naomi Drummer Johnson Dawes and the other characters right down to each beautiful Belter character, even the most minor, SO much more now. I highly highly HIGHLY recommend that you start this series in the very beginning and put the TV show aside as much as you can, and read it all the way through. With the TV show blowing all of TV and most movies completely out of the water, I don't get to engage much with fans of the books. I wish I did. Read them all- the public library is great if buying the series is too pricey. But don't miss them!!

For all story telling art forms the important part is character development. If I feel like I know the character I can be part of the story. And, these authors have it nailed. Eight books. Eight plots that engage us, with characters we know. I shed tears at the loss of some of the ones we've come to know, and I expect book 9 to be worse.

I'm not going to note anything about the story in this one. As usual in this series the book builds a solid foundation and then creates a stunning, well executed and appropriate climax. And, of course, in 2 words sets the background for the final novel.

This series, however, has never really been about the big explosive scenes (though every one has some), but about the universe, the people in it, and what makes us all tick. The pacing, unlike WoT, is fast enough that you never feel like you just have to wade through exposition. And every brick laid into the foundation of every book is important.

When I got book 8 I was determined to read it slowly so that I could hold onto it for at least part of the time until the 9th and final book appears. That didn't happen. Though I lingered over and cherished each word, there was no stopping and taking a breather before pressing on. Not many books do that.

And, oh yes, like real life there are sad moments. But those are a real and important part of life.

Read this series. It will pay you back many times over.

I went back and read my review of the previous book in the Expanse series of novels, PERSEPOLIS RISING. I'm glad I did. There were a bunch of things that I wanted to say in this review of the eighth book in the series, TIAMAT'S WRATH that I discovered I'd already said about the prior book. The superlatives and emotional feelings apply to this book as well as the previous, so there really is no reason to say them again, although they bear repeating, and repeating often. I suspect I'll want to say them again when the series completes after the next novel, scheduled to come out sometime in 2020 (and since I've read only two of the Expanse novellas, I probably ought to try to read them before the last book comes out). Maybe I'll say a few of them at the end of this review.

So, where are we when we start this novel. James Holden is a captive in the capital city of Laconia, and while he is technically a prisoner, he is not behind bars locked away in a cell somewhere. He is free to roam the city - within reason - and God Emperor (to steal a title from the Dune series) Winston Duarte of the Laconian Empire parades him out at various functions and even listens to Holden's counsel when it suits him. Holden proclaims himself Duarte's Dancing Bear. Naomi, Alex, and Bobbie are part of the underground, trying to undermine the Laconian Empire with the hope of eventually toppling it. Naomi is doing it one way, and Alex and Bobbie are doing it another. Amos has disappeared on assignment. Naomi, Alex, and Bobbie are afraid that both Holden and Amos are dead, and they resolve to fight the good fight without them.

The Laconian Empire has its own agenda. As we should all remember, what we have learned by reading the prior seven books in the series is that the protomolecule was made by a vastly superior species, a species which was killed off by another, more powerful species. The Empire - spanning some 1200+ systems, due to the gate system opening up - is trying to discover the nature of the enemy in order to find a way to destroy them and solidify Winston Duarte's place as the God Emperor of all of mankind. To that end, scientist turned military officer Elvi Okoye (who we met earlier in the series) is being sent to various systems to find out what she can.

The problem is that that big, nasty, evil enemy, the one that killed off the creators of the protomolecule, have taken notice of Laconia's actions and is none to happy about it. They are making their presence known, and retaliating against Laconia. This is causing all sorts of havoc within the Empire and the rest of humanity as well.

All of which is setting things up for what may be one of the grandest finales in all of science fiction space opera history.

I wrote that PERSEPOLIS RISING was about our heroes aging. It's not something you see in extended series. TIAMAT'S WRATH is about family. Winston's daughter Teresa is being groomed to step in for her father in case anything goes wrong, and she find she doesn't like it. And like most petulant teenagers, she takes things into her own hands in a manner contradictory to what the hierarchy wants. Along the way she meets the mysterious friend Timothy, who has a big role to play in the story. The other family is that of the crew of the Rocinante. They are all old friends, and are used to being around each other. They are also family to each other. And it's clear that just one more time, that family will get together to do their best to stop humanity from being destroyed.

Corey is (are?) not afraid to shake things up. In fear of angering those who are sensitive to spoilers, I will say that we lose of couple of beloved characters in TIAMAT'S WRATH, one in the very first sentence of the book. I think this is Corey's way of saying that we need to get back to basics if we are going to get this thing settled, but it's also his way of saying that time stops for no one, and that heroes make sacrifices. In order to win, we must lose.

And for goodness's sake, what else is there to say about Jefferson Mays? He continues to be the one and only narrator who can read this book. He is simply outstanding. And he's going to need to be just one more time, as I think the final book in the series is going to be a whopper, and he is the only one that will be able to pull it off.

My favorite thing about the Expanse novels is how well the authors can tell every type of tale - murder mystery, space horror, space military/war, apocalyptic thriller, and even a pseudo-western. It feels like each book is a different genre that exists in the same universe - and I've loved them all. This is yet another fantastic installment in the series and a great continuation of the plot from Persepolis Rising (Book 7).

Tiamat's Wrath continues the journey of our beloved crew of the Roci and their cohorts. The Laconian empire is meddling with powers they don't understand, and which may cause this mysterious "enemy", which exists within the gates, to destroy humanity just like they snuffed out the architects of the protomolecule. After the events of Persepolis Rising, the main characters are scattered and dealing with or adapting to a new way of life under the Laconian regime. They've become a dancing bear; a captain of a stolen Laconian gunship; her friend and pilot; a stowaway architect of the resistance; a respected Laconian scientist with definite misgivings; and the latest addition to our cast - the teenage daughter of the emperor who's learning what life in a de facto cage is like. Our heroes all have their motivations and plans, even if those plans aren't known to each other. Corey once again beautifully intertwines the story arcs of all the characters in a very satisfying way, letting you see events from multiple perspectives. There is plenty of action, suspense, political intrigue, heartbreak, and even a few chuckles along the way. We do say goodbye to a couple friends, but that ultimately leads to my favorite thing about Tiamat's Wrath - showing how we all deal with the death of a loved one or a close friend. We carry them with us, and in doing so, they help guide our actions and influence our decisions, giving us the strength to carry on. And also... there's a dog, and I really loved that too. Definitely read this book if you've already read the first 7 novels. And why haven't you? It's easily the best sci-fi book series currently being written.

I am so glad I heard about the Expense series, and I cannot wait for the next book! The TV series is also great as an adaptation, and I'm looking forward to more seasons of that as well!

A book that only rode the edge of uninteresting for one chapter (maybe one and a half) swings the series back to a quality that had been lacking for several prior entries. Quiet non-violence allows characters to be complete people again, and the action, when it comes, carries through better because the people are cared about by the reader. One Laconian death is particularly satisfying precisely because of how much petty villainy was revealed through his character moments. There are multiple instances of overlapping experiences split by chapter to clearly show reactions with immediacy rather than as a recalled experience of days or weeks before. It becomes particularly effective at showing the differentiation of characters and their vast differences due to their immediate reactions and thoughts about how to approach what has been experienced.

I appreciate the careful compression of time in this book as it avoided filler chapter and characters. Previous novels in the series had been severely hurt by trying to be both following the instant by instant lives of characters and leaping forward by days or weeks. It was messy in a way that this book avoided by only keeping character moments and skipping the rest of the travel with one sentence summaries.

Most important about this book is that it actually, for the first time since maybe the second or third book, makes me want to read the next entry (which happens to be the last). The previous entry just made me want to quit the series once and for all from boredom, but I gave this book a chapter to grab me and it did well enough that I stopped thinking about setting the series aside and am looking forward to see how it all shakes out.

Four solid stars out of five on the strongest entry in a while for this series. Recommended read.