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Chapter Fifty-Four: Prax Prax and our heroes are hanging out at a reception in the New Hague facilities on Lunar. The chapter begins with Mei spitting out some of her food into Amos' palm, Prax apologizing, and Amos being like, hey man, this is just what kids do. It's a nice bit. Avasarala is there, too, of course. So is Argjun and a ton of people in suits and military uniforms. Prax doesn't really know any of them. If not for the crew of the Rocinante, he'd be hanging out with a scientific group that's present. Holden asks Prax about childbearing for Belters. Prax says that five out of six "naturally occurring pregnancies" end with an 83% chance of "developmental or morphological abnormality." Prax wonders why Holden is asking but Naomi says he's just making conversation. Mei wants tofu so Prax goes off to find her some. Along the way, he's accosted by a drunk woman named Carol Kiesowski who beings drunkenly complimenting him. Caliban's War, Chapter Fifty-Four posted:"Son of a loving whore," Avasarala said, loud enough to cut through the background buzz of conversations. Avasarala's annoyed because Fred Johnson just took out all of "Nguyen's monsters." The UN had been waiting to do it closer to Mars, presumably for some strongman reason. Well, Fred did it of his own according. He used the missiles he took control of in Leviathan Wakes to blow away all of the missiles carrying proto-monsters. Avasarala thinks he is doing it to prove that the Belt has an offensive arsenal. I think the story should've reminded us just how many missiles that Fred has. At the end of Leviathan Wakes, Holden handed him 3573 thermonuclear missiles. Even if he used one for each of the approximately 200 that were heading for Mars, he still has a lot of firepower at his disposal. Prax wanders away and grabs his tofu. He returns to his seat and strikes up a conversation with Bobbie. She's going back to Mars. He's going back to Ganymede to help rebuild. The following section has been highlighted a lot and I think is one of the core pillars of the ideas running through The Expanse. Caliban's War, Chapter Fifty-Four posted:All of human civilization had been built out of the ruins of what had come before. Life itself was a grand chemical improvisation that began with the simplest replicators and grew and collapsed and grew again. Catastrophe was just one part of what always happened. It was a prelude to what came next. And while the cycle of rise and fall is ultimately as certain as day and night--over time, everything trends toward 1, after all--the fact is, being alive when the catastrophe hits and everything collapses and the reigning civilization falls to ruins isn't exactly so grand and romantic. The civilization that arises out of those ruins isn't really anything like the one that went before. Prax lived through a localised version of that on Ganymede and I don't really remember him being so romantic about it when he was starving, looking for his abducted daughter. You know who I think would talk about the arc of history like that? Dresden, Mao, Nguyen, Errinwright, Strickland. Suddenly, everything goes silent. Avasarala walks out of the room. Holden thinks something is wrong and the Rocinante crew (and Prax) follow her. They end up in a meeting room with a massive screen. On the screen, is Venus as of forty-seven minutes ago, and then: Caliban's War, Chapter Fifty-Four posted:Vast filaments thousands of kilometers long like spokes on a wheel lit white and vanished. The clouds of Venus shifted, disturbed from below. Prax had the powerful memory of seeing a wake on the surface of a water tank when a fish passed close underneath. Vast and glowing, it rose through the cloud cover. Spoke-like strands of iridescence arced with vast lightning storms, coming together like the arms of an octopus but connected to a rigid central node. Once it had climbed out of Venus' thick cloud cover, it launched itself away from the sun, toward the viewing ship, but passing it. The other ships in its path were scattered and hurled away. A long plume of displaced Venusian atmosphere caught the sun and glowed like snowflakes and slivers of ice. Prax tried to make sense of the scale. As large as Ceres Station. As large as Ganymede. Larger. It folded its arms—its tentacles—together, accelerating without any visible drive plume. It swam in the void. His heart was racing, but his body was still as stone Not a bad chapter, but also not as good as the two previous. It feels like the chapter isn't really doing anything until the reveal of the Ring rising out of Venus (the chapter barely cracks 2000 words, which makes it probably the shortest chapter of these novels so far) which is why my summary and thoughts is so slim. But the reveal of the Ring itself is a heck of a moment -- what is it, where is it going, why did it emerge now? It's a great element to wrap the final chapter of the story up on. But there's one more chapter, too--and it ends on an even better note. Epilogue: Holden Holden's watching the replay, and he's been watching for a while. He's even ignoring a cup of coffee! I've ragged on Holden's coffee trait before, but it works here. Naomi asks Holden to come to bed, but Holden is like 'holy poo poo, that thing is loving big, this is what the protomolecule came here to make.' She goes to bed and Holden starts watching it again. Then, behind him, a man clears his throat. Caliban's War, Epilogue posted:Holden turned reluctantly away from the image on the screen. The man stood next to the galley refrigerator as if he’d always been there, rumpled gray suit and dented porkpie hat. A bright blue firefly flew off his cheek, then hung in the air beside him. He waved it away like it was a gnat. His expression was one of discomfort and apology. After this, I'll do a bit of a summary, talk about the way the TV series adapted this novel and the improvements it made, and then we'll move onto Abaddon's Gate. As mentioned, from the third book onward I'll be breaking each update into groups of chapters which means we'll power through it faster and, hopefully, involve me repeating myself less.
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Jan 20, 2022 05:19
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At the start of this re-read of Caliban's War, I said it was a 'top three contender.' I think it still might be, but I'm less certain. My other points were that the plot moves more evenly and that the character work is much improved. I think both of these are still correct, although not without some of the caveats I've mentioned. I think the middle of War was weaker than the middle of Wakes and while the character work is better, there's still some characters who feel underutilized given the word count. War also ends in a much stronger fashion than Wakes did, something which counts for a lot. TV Adaptation (Episodes 16-29) The TV series adaptation makes a number of changes to the events of Caliban's War. I think most of these alterations have very obvious reasons, some of them stemming from the unclear positioning of Holden on Ganymede (why is he there, what is his mission?) and the awkward middle sections of the novel. As mentioned, the second season does not open with Mei. We open with Bobbie on Ganymede but there's been a substantial change in the timeline. There is no years passing between the novels, the events go down pretty quickly after Eros impacts Venus. Bobbie's stuff is pretty similar to how it is in the novel at this point--surprise UN marines, monster, everyone dead. There's a new invention of a subplot with Holden, Amos, Anderson Dawes, and the Protogen scientist Cortezar. Fred Johnson struggles to keep the OPA together, and so on. There's also some good character work between Amos and Alex, including one great scene where Amos almost kills him. In that disturbingly childish manner, Amos tells Alex that he doesn't want to get into any fights because "then who will fly the ship?" We meet Prax on a refugee ship out of Ganymede. He's there with his friend Doris who appears to have a crush on him. Doris, however, gets spaced. Prax ends up on Tycho but can't even get justice for the people who were spaced--he doesn't even know the name of the ship he was on. Meanwhile, Holden and Naomi are trying to figure out how the protomolecule ended up on Ganymede. They find the link between Protogen and Doctor Strickland, then they link Strickland to someone who just arrived on Tycho: Prax. Once they find Prax, they find the footage of Strickland abducting Mei. Prax begs to go to Ganymede with Holden and Naomi. When they head to Ganymede, we know more about why Holden is there -- Fred tells him that he is to bring back a sample of it, otherwise he won't be welcome back on Tycho. The Rocinante crew commandeer the Weeping Somnambulist, still a relief ship en-route to Ganymede. I wondered why they changed the name before (from Wandering Somnambulist) and I assume it's because, well, a somnambulist is a sleepwalker and wandering is therefore a redundancy. When they arrive on Ganymede, a shootout gets one of the Suputayaporns killed. On Earth, Bobbie is made to throw one of her marines under the bus in order to avoid a war with Earth. But Avasarala thinks it is bullshit and questions her and eventually Bobbie mentions the "man who wasn't wearing a vac suit." Errinwright has a bit of a crisis of conscience and tells Avasarala that Mao was behind the events on Ganymede and the protomolecule stuff and says he knows it because he's been working with him. Bobbie finds out from Martens that Mars was in on the Ganymede incident, that 'Project Caliban' was a field test and the drone she saw when it went down had footage of it. Bobbie escapes to the UN and asks for asylum. Back on Ganymede, the crew run into the young hacker and Amos beats the poo poo out of him with a can of chicken. At one point, Prax tells Naomi that she's never lost a child but Naomi says, in fact, she has (likewise, Marco gets a bit of a nod later in the season as Naomi's former lover although he is not named.) In the tunnels, they find the Protogen scientists and the shootout happens. But afterward, things change up again: Naomi doesn't come with them to the Roci, instead, she stays behind on Ganymede to try and do some good. As the Rocinante goes to lift off Ganymede, the crew spots a proto-molecule monster which leads to them trying to hunt it down, with Holden going full Captain Ahab despite the protests of Alex and Prax. Meanwhile, Naomi's attempt to evacuate civilians via the Somnambulist doesn't go so well -- Naomi has to tranquilize Amos and Naomi is almost killed. When the Somnambulist lifts off, it is targeted by the Martian ships in orbit, only for the Rocinante to swoop in and save the day. I think having Holden's particular windmill be the protomolecule is a better decision than this nebulous concept of vigilante justice, especially when it directly plays into why they go after Mei. The intrigue deepens on Earth. Errinwright is going to be put before a hearing but can't seem to take it--he writes a suicide note, but then reconsiders and assassinates the Martian defence minister. Meanwhile, Avasarala goes up to Mao's ship, more aware that it's a trap, with Draper and Cotyar, her head of security. Mao tells Avasarala that his plan is to sell the protomolecule to both sides of the UN/MCR conflict. Not only will he profit from both but, he argues, he'll keep them in balance. But then Errinwright interrupts them: he tells them about the Martian minister and that he can destroy both Mao and Avasarala. Instead of Bobbie one-woman armying her way through the ship, it's a shootout (at least initially) where Cotyar gets shot. Bobbie does escapee via a duct, finds her armor, and saves the day, however. The Rocinante crew find the proto-hybrid in the cargo bay and deal with it much like the novel, although it's more dramatic and interesting with more tension and danger. This takes us to the middle of the season which gives us three big cliffhangers:
Holden finds a signal on Io that aligns with the protomolecule and thinks that is where they're holding Mei. Naomi wants to go back to Tycho but Holden says they should go rescue Mei -- he doesn't care about stopping the protomolecule anymore now that he knows all three sides have access to it. The two plots align when the Rocinante saves Avasarala and Bobbie from a pursuing UN warship but Cotyar is captured. There's a little bit where they give more humanity to Julie-Pierre Mao while making him more of a presence in the story. He goes to Io to destroy the whole project, partially because he sees Julie in Mei. Mao works on shutting down the project until he realizes that the protomolecule is trying to build something--and so then wishes for it to continue. Personally, I really like what they did with Mao. You get to see his humanity and then his conflict as he quashes it. But there's an element of sympathy there, shouldn't we try to find out what this thing is up to? I also like what they did with Nguyen and Souther. Nguyen, who is a Fleet Admiral, orders Souther to apprehend Cotyar and then to rendezvous and transfer him to his control. Nguyen tells Souther that Avasarala is a traitor, but Souther interrogates Cotyar -- against Nguyen's orders -- to determine the truth. Cotyar tells him, of course, that Errinwright is the traitor. Nguyen then relieves Souther of command and takes the Agatha King to Io. There's also some stuff with Errinwright and the Secretary-General where Errinwright pushes for a pre-emptive strike on Mars' missile attack platforms, only for it to backfire when they don't hit them quickly enough and a Martian missile strikes South America in response, killing millions. As the Rocinante reaches Io, Nguyen and Souther end up with a mutiny with Souther trying to diffuse the situation (particularly when it comes to MCRN ships who are also gathering near Io) but gets shot dead by Nguyen in the middle of his speech. The Martians watch the UN ships fire on each other. The whole crew goes down to Io, and sees the hybrid missiles launched. Alex tries to shoot them down but runs out of ammo. One of the missiles strikes the Agatha King. Alex and Naomi do go over to try and disable the missiles but are unable to do it. As the protomolecule consumes the ship, it's up to Cotyar to stop it which he does by detonating the fusion reactor. Naomi and Alex escape, of course. On Io, Bobbie keeps the proto-hybrid busy to cover the others and kills it -- but this is because it becomes distracted by something during the battle, something in the stars above. Holden spots Mao and goes after him while Strickland is confronted by Amos and Prax. Strickland gives them Mei. Prax looks as if he's about to kill Strickland but Amos tells him to go with Mei, telling him he's not "that guy." Strickland thanks Amos for saving his life. Only for Amos to get one of his best moments. Amos turns back, says "I am that guy," and blows him away. Meanwhile, Holden apprehends Mao. On Earth, Errinwright is arrested. Naomi and Holden reconcile, although it still seems like Naomi isn't likely to stay on the Rocinante. Meanwhile, Amos is feeding the kids in the galley, and says "What the gently caress is that?" in response to something on the screen. It's the Ring leaving Venus and, presumably, the event that was responsible for the distraction in Bobbie's proto-zombie... Even at the time, I was shocked they didn't end on something like a silhouette emerging into frame with a few blue fireflies and a familiar voice. "We need to talk" before a smash cut to black. Regardless, I think it's pretty obvious how much better the adaptation is, basically correcting all the issues I had with the novel's version of the story. No convenient phone calls, no bizarre 'My First Crowdfunding' moments, a reason for Holden to go to Ganymede, tension between everyone in the crew over their decisions, a clearer idea of the Earth political intrigue, more well-realized villains, the complete excision of Soren, no asinine idea that the Mao-Nguyen conspiracy will stop Prax by having his ex-wife call him a child molester... You can really see how odd many sections of Caliban's War are when you set it against the adaptation's take on events. Like, there's whole sections of the novel that are ultimately meaningless and deserve maybe a paragraph of text, not an entire chapter -- if that! Sure, you miss out on some nice character moments and the fun of Avasarala saying she'll beat someone with a chair, but the plot and character work is just overall far more effective in the TV series and, ultimately, I think it matches closer to what the Coreys wanted to write in the first place: a cinematic action-adventure set throughout the Solar system with a complex web of characters and conflicting motivations and political intrigue. Some of this is because the TV series has the freedom to diverge from the strict A/B viewpoint the Expanse novels stick to (to their detriment.) Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 14:22 on Jan 21, 2022 |
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Jan 21, 2022 01:53
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Book 3: Abaddon's Gate Prologue: Manéo I've mentioned before that Abaddon's Gate was the first Expanse novel that I started with. I was going across state for a trip and figured I'd grab a book. I saw the title ABADDON'S GATE on a brightly-colored spine (somehow missing the Book 3) and checked out the blurb. Wow, a mysterious ring has appeared in the Solar System? Rocinante is a fun name for a ship. Some kind of personal drama amid the discovery of alien life and a weird starless void? I'm sold! Because I had no experience with the first two books, I think this primed me to actually enjoy Abaddon's Gate more than some readers did. Because as a standalone, it was a fun read (although it began to drag in the last third or so -- but more on that later.) But as the third novel in a trilogy, it's a little... odd. Regardless, Abaddon's Gate had to do something right if it ended up with me reading all nine books of this series and generally enjoying it. Take the prologue, for example. The prologue follows Manéo Jung-Espinoza, a Belter slingshot racer who has taken his jury-rigged ship the Y Que on a three month trip to make history. He's out of food and all he can drink is his recycled piss. He's done everything he can to make his ship invisible. His goal? To bypass the massive Mars-Earth blockade of the mysterious Ring and shoot through it. That's pretty fun and a neat concept for a prologue to fill the reader in on the world of the novel. The prologue tells you everything: Belters, Earthers, Martians. Esptein drives. The history of the Ring. The Protogen/Mao-Kwik conspiracy. The fact that this is a hard-ish space opera setting with 'real' space travel... It's all there and it's not as clunky and terrible as it sounds. It's pretty neat to read it with no knowledge of the setting, but less so when you've read two books about all these events. It also features Belter creole which... I know that other people like it, I know it's a big part of the Expanse's fandom, but I really don't enjoy it. During Book 5, I just wanted it to go away. But as a first-time reader, there's a novelty to it. The weakest part of it is the debate between Rabbi Kimble and a Martian woman. I think the Coreys are trying to sum up the themes of the novel (and series.) Rabbi Kimble feels like a caricature ("The Ring is a temptation to sin!") and the Martian woman ("Can we move past the 1940s, please? We’re not talking about space Nazis here.") doesn't even get a name. While I don't know the religious leanings of either part of the Corey team, it brings to mind my thought on the Mormons in Leviathan Wakes -- their inclusion was more of a joke, or some remnant from the RPG, than anything else. After getting through all the exposition, Manéo is closing in on the Ring. The Martian frigate Lucien warns him to leave the area or be fired upon. Manéo, of course, does not leave and so he is fired upon. That's pretty exciting, and then... Manéo makes it to the Ring! Abaddon's Gate, Prologue posted:As one, the stars all blinked out. Abaddon's Gate, Prologue posted:In the unbroken darkness, the exterior high-speed camera kept up its broadcast, sending out a thousand frames per second of nothing. Is there value in having a prologue that just off-loads all the setting worldbuilding? I suppose that's an argument. Is that the best thing to do for the final novel in the trilogy? I'm not so sure. I liked both the Clarissa and Mei prologues, but Manéo serving as our introduction to Abaddon's Gate isn't as gripping. A missing girl situation -- right, I get it! Some guy turns himself into salsa and his ship sees "something?" There's a certain hook there (What is the something?) but it's not gripping and feels like a cheaper 'trick' than Julie finding the still-living face of her friend on the reactor core or Mei coming face to face with a proto-monster. TV Adaptation The events of the prologue are covered in 3x07 Delta-V. It's basically as it is in the novel, although there're some changes. Some small -- the frigate Lucien is replaced by the cruiser Hammurabi, a ship that has shown up a few times in the series -- and some large. Manéo isn't out to shoot the Ring from the beginning but changes course from Saturn after his girlfriend breaks up with him. It adds a bit of stupid bravado (and tragedy) to the character. However, the best change is when Manéo sees footage of Jim Holden and the series uses one of the model-esque promo shots of Steven Strait, leading Manéo to basically roll his eyes at the sight of stupid, sexy Jim Holden. Another neat change is that slingshot racing was mentioned in the first season of the Expanse. The novels haven't mentioned it at all.  Zach Villa as Manéo Jung-Espinoza
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Jan 24, 2022 13:01
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drat I started  ing when I got to the end of this. I want to hear more of your thoughts on this book, as this is further than I've even seen of the TV show.
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Jan 24, 2022 16:11
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Kchama posted:drat I started You should give the Abaddon's Gate adaptation a look. It's easily the strongest overall season of the show and shows just how good the writers were at taking a shaky novel and turning into some fantastic television. They cram the whole novel into seven episodes and it's a great ride from start to finish. Like, they turn the character of Ashford, one of the worst antagonists in the whole series, into one of the best, most memorable characters in the whole series. I feel like Abaddon's Gate is interesting for two reasons. The first is that it's probably the closest The Expanse gets to feeling more like classic sci-fi than space opera. There's a mysterious Ring that leads to a place of weird physics -- what do we do? The first half of the novel which is about the Ring loving with everyone is the most interesting part. The mutiny stuff towards the later half, I think, overstays its welcome. Even reading it for the first time, even with no exposure to the Expanse, I started skimming. The second point is because Abaddon's Gate is where this series was supposed to end. It's really quite obvious when you get to the epilogue. The series was successful enough to get extended out to nine books, which is great for the Coreys, but there's nothing to the series past the first three books. Everything it has to say has been said. The fourth book is a great epilogue to the whole series, I think, and a fun novelty, but there's a part of me that thinks the series should've stopped at the end of this novel. I imagine I'll talk about some of this as we go through the novel, but I'll leave off with a teaser -- there's something that bugs me about The Expanse's central theme of 'humans will keep doing bad things in the future.' It feels like the writers of The Expanse are in conversation with the utopic ideals of Star Trek. But sci-fi has been through this conversation with texts like Babylon 5 and Battlestar Galactica, just to name two of them, and I feel this is part of why the books feel so hollow and rather cynical because it tries to dress this up as profundity (or blue collar wisdom.)
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Jan 25, 2022 05:10
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Abaddon's Gate, Chapters 1-4 Our first chunk of chapters is the set that's immediately obvious -- the chapters that introduce us to our four protagonists. One of them is, of course, returning everyman idealist Jim Holden (Chapter 1) but the other three are completely new. Bull, who is the focus of Chapter 2, and Melba and Anna who are Chapters 3 and 4 respectively. I think three of these are great and one of them is not. But which is which? Chapter One: Holden Chapter 1 begins with a Coreyist pair of paragraphs telling us that one of Holden's mothers had spent three years suffering terrible migraines that were so terrible that Holden thought she would die and thought it was equivalent to being haunted by something. Whatever effect Franck is going for is undercut by the fact that, well, Holden doesn't name which mother. More on that later. We get introduced -- or re-introduced -- to the crew of the mercenary warship Rocinante. They're in a casino which, credit to Franck, he does not describe as "an all-out assault on the senses." The crew is riding high and business is good. No matter how stupid Alex and Amos get on the tables, Holden knows they have more than enough money to cover it. We get a brief accounting of their recent history (the Rocinante has been extensively refitted, including with a railgun) and a decent enough intro the crew -- Holden is the kind of guy who knows the house always wins, Amos and Alex are a fun pair of bros, and Naomi is... Well, Naomi is just kind of there, unfortunately. Then Holden heads off to take a leak and we get to the reason why there's those paragraphs about being haunted by something terrible that might show up at any time. It feels like the biggest jump in Franck's ability so far. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter One posted:He put one hand on the wall to steady himself while he did his business. He was mid-stream when the room brightened for a moment and the chrome handle on the toilet reflected a faint blue light. The fear hit him in the gut. Miller's dialogue is interesting here because while I'm not sure it gets mentioned in Abaddon's Gate it definitely links to Cibola Burn, the next novel, with the idea that Miller is basically killed every single time he gets too intelligent. As it is, it's pretty cryptic and intriguing. Then Miller says, "gently caress. It happened," and vanishes as someone else enters the restroom. It's a bit reminiscent of Gaius Baltar and Head Six in Battlestar Galactica but that's not a bad thing because the Baltar/Six dynamic is great and Miller is a wonderful character whose interactions with Holden might play off well. Later, on the Rocinante, Holden gets the idea of what exactly "happened." Some mad bastard tried to shoot through the Ring. So, that's our first chapter -- here's a fun bunch of characters and the hero is haunted by the ghost of something that might be his old police friend or something alien wearing his skin, and it's linked to the Ring. Neat! Chapter Two: Bull The Holden chapter contrasts with the Bull chapter in a very big way, and I'd argue that Bull is the weakest of our four perspective characters in this novel. His first chapter is our introduction to Bull and Ashford and reintroduction to Fred Johnson. tl;dr: Mars and Earth are sending expeditions to the Ring and Fred wants the OPA to be there, too. All three of them feel a bit same-ish. The flagship of the OPA expedition is the Nauvoo -- or, as they're calling it now, the Behemoth. The OPA has turned her into the largest battlewagon in the Solar system. Intimidating but dead in any real fight. Bull, an Earther, doesn't think the Behemoth is ready. Ashford, a Belter, doesn't think there's a problem. Johnson takes the middle road and thinks they can sort out the lingering problems en route to the Ring. I feel like the chapter is too tied up with exposition and worldbuilding to really give me a feel for any of these characters. Ashford, whom is referred to as a pretty uniform around a vacuum, is in charge because it looks good to have a Belter in charge of the Behemoth. Bull is somewhat upset that he's going to be chief security officer instead of the XO (going to, and this surprised me, Michio Pa.) but ultimately goes along with it. Chapter 3: Melba Our third protagonist, Melba, is stepping into a gambling house. She's got an appointment to see someone called Travin. She also refers to herself inwardly as Clarissa and she isn't comfortable in a place that's filled with depictions of women being sexually assaulted. She's on Earth, in Baltimore. It's interesting that both she and Holden are introduced in gambling places, with Holden in a fancy place that serves Earth alcohol and Melba is in a very sketchy locale. Given what we will soon learn about Melba, I wonder what the Coreys were trying to say with the comparison. When she meets with Travin, he tells her that he's got her new identity ready: she'll be one Melba Alzbeta Koh, born on Luna. Both parents dead, no siblings, a job as an electrochemical technician. She'll also be heading to the Ring, aboard the Cerisier. A civilian support for the Earth mission. But then there's a complication -- Travin reveals that Melba is Clarissa Melpomene Mao, daughter of Julie-Pierre Mao. Somehow, she's escaped the fall of house of Mao. Travin wants to extort more money from her. She lies that she doesn't have any more money. Fine, Travin says, then why does she want to move heaven and Earth to get out to the Ring? Travin's thugs stand up and Clarissa... Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Three posted:Her implants were triggered by rubbing her tongue against the roof of her mouth. Two circles, counterclockwise. It was a private movement, invisible. Internal. Oddly sensual. It was almost as easy as just thinking. The suite of manufactured glands tucked in her throat and head and abdomen squeezed their little bladders empty, pouring complex chemistry into her blood. She shuddered. It felt like orgasm without the pleasure. She could feel conscience and inhibition sliding away like bad dreams. She was fully awake and alive. Then she kills Travin, too. There's a problem, though. The comedown from her implants is rough, basically putting her into shock for a few minutes. The technology never took root in the military for that reason. Once she recovers, as Travin's people knock on the door, she slips out the window. But why is she so set on going to the Ring that she'd get those implants grafted into her, that she'd kill for it? Well... Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Three posted:She had been Clarissa Melpomene Mao. Her family had controlled the fates of cities, colonies, and planets. And now Father sat in an anonymous prison, barred from speaking with anyone besides his lawyer, living out his days in disgrace. Her mother lived in a private compound on Luna slowly medicating herself to death. The siblings—the ones that were still alive—had scattered to whatever shelter they could find from the hatred of two worlds. Once, her family’s name had been written in starlight and blood, and now they’d been made to seem like villains. They’d been destroyed. Chapter Four: Anna Anna, or Annushka Volovodov, is a Pastor and a Reverend and a Doctor of a congregation on Europa. She's talking with a wife beater which is notable given that the previous chapter had Melba mention all the depictions of violence against women. It's an odd little theme but I don't recall the Coreys doing much with it in this novel. It's very easy to establish a character as a bad dude because they beat or threaten women, and that's about what we get from the wife beater, Nick. he's kinda dumb and cowardly and compared to a rodent and he gets really cartoonishly angry when Anna basically sees right through him and lays down the law. It might just be that I work with domestic violence but this is not something that feels real. So, all in all, he's an Expanse antagonist. Nick, a Belter, tries to intimidate Anna. Anna, an Earther, basically has nothing to fear from him even though he's a construction worker who is "tough as nails." Anna kinda-sorta tricks Nick into assaulting her and she tases him then gets the police to come and get Nick. Later, Anna returns home to her wife, Nono, and her daughter Nami. Both actually have the same name, Namono. Later, Nono and Anna talk about her day. Anna feels bad because she lied in the course of helping Nick's wife. Nono feels bad because Anna has been invited to go out to the Ring. After a nice chat, it's agreed that Anna will go to the Ring and Nono and their daughter will go to Earth. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Four posted:Nono got up and took two plates out of the cupboard, then dished up dinner and put it on the table. As she spooned Waldorf salad onto her plate she said, "I'm very afraid of that thing. The thing from Venus. I'm afraid of what it will mean for everything we care about. Humanity, God, our place in His universe. I'm afraid of what it will do, of course, but much more afraid of what it means." However, it's also similar to Bull's first chapter where it feels just a little strange. Holden and Melba are clearly the core of the story, with Anna and Bull providing wider context and texture. This isn't a bad thing but I struggle to recall what, if anything, the two bring to this story as it goes on. It's like 'Here is the good guy starship captain and the woman out for revenge. Also, there's a security officer and a female Pastor.' I think you're supposed to wonder, like, how are these four people going to cross paths and influence each other? I'm not sure who pioneered this method of storytelling. I want to say George R R Martin but I'm sure someone did it before him -- these stories where you get a bunch of different characters and maybe they'll cross over at some point and maybe they won't and maybe they'll be important two books from now and maybe they won't. The thing is, I'm not sure how much it works or how much readers enjoy it. From what I know of discussing it with writers and readers, and getting feedback on my work which has a similar 'characters intersecting' theme, it seems that no one actually likes it. I don't think either side of the Corey team has mentioned just how they defined the scope of their stories. The first one was easy -- two guys caught up in the same mystery, one's an idealist and the other is a cynic. The second one is kind of like that, with Prax and Bobbie, although I'd argue Avasarala (and maybe even Holden) are secondary to it. I don't know if they've ever mentioned why they select the number of protagonists they do or how they plan for their stories to intersect and bounce off each other. Going by the previous novels, it doesn't seem like they give too much thought to it. Write the stories independently, put the chapters into chronological order, hope it works. Notably, as far as the TV adaptation goes for Abaddon's Gate, Bull is entirely absent which reinforces my earlier comments about how pointless he feels, I think. I won't take too many notes on the adaptation as I go but, basically, the Abaddon's Gate adaptation was shockingly good and is probably the most substantial alteration they have done to the books and best overall season the series. I'd say the only reason the series survived its first cancellation was because the third season was so strong. Now, here's something in Chapter 1 that I'm not sure is a goof but certainly feels like it. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter One posted:At a glance, Holden guessed they’d won something like fifteen thousand Ceres new yen in just the last hour. Given that Ceres went from Earth to OPA control at the end of Leviathan Wakes, I assume that the New Yen is the currency of the outer planets and that this is why Ceres is suddenly dealing with it. If this is true, then this has never been directly disclosed. Not when Holden was working for Fred and keeping the Rocinante flying. Not when Prax was crowdfunding. Not when Miller and Holden had an argument about whatever. Not when Miller referred to the OPA as the IRA, a group that never minted its own New Dublin Dollar. That's not to say I want a long diatribe about how these currencies interact but, well, I didn't want Prax Learns About GoFundMe either and I know which one I'd prefer. The only mentions of New Yen across the first two books are what I just mentioned, that it's the currency of two places. You could be forgiven for thinking it is specific Europan currency which Eros deals with because it's the Las Vegas of the outer system. The concept of the New Yen is so irrelevant that it rates only a single mention on The Expanse fan wiki where the "Ceres New Yen" is mentioned as the currency of the OPA. But Leviathan Wakes has it in use on Europa and Eros prior to Ceres switching to the OPA, so, why is it the Ceres New Yen? It kind of comes back to that thought I have about these books and the Coreys -- how much is subtlety and how much is laxity? Did Franck throw in that reference to Ceres' currency as a subtle hint to how things have changed since the first novel, or did he throw it in because he was writing quickly and vaguely recalled that there was a fancy space currency in the outer planets? People might think I'm being unfair by accusing an author of ever being lax. To that, I say, in the very chapter we get this New Yen stuff we get Holden being unable to name which of his mothers was left with terrible migraines that even some thirty years on he still feels haunted by. I would also point to the two-car pile-up that was the Soren plot in Caliban's War. To a lesser extent, perhaps, that nothing in Leviathan Wakes hints at Julie having a sister. Sometimes these things happen, sometimes readers pay more attention than authors ever do. Being a writer, I know what it's like. But I think it's safe to say the books aren't intricately plotted or considered. I don't consider myself an adversarial reader -- I want to be entertained! -- but I don't consider myself the kind of reader who gives the author the benefit of the doubt, either. I'm not into redemptive readings or fannish accounts of genius. I want to be entertained but I also want to see genuine signs of skill and authorship in the process, especially in a multi-book series. My brain keeps tracks of all the little things and it really likes it when it feels like the writers have, too. Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 09:19 on Jan 25, 2022 |
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Jan 25, 2022 09:17
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The earliest books I've read with that setup would have to be the Wheel of Time books, which do it incredibly annoyingly. Also it feels like being a prologue character in these books is insanely hazardous, considering the nasty fates Julie and this book's one had. And yeah I probably should get on watching the rest of the show. I just ran out of steam with it.
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Jan 25, 2022 11:37
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Consider this a double post because I didn't reread far enough into the let's read before commenting. I mentioned System Shock 2 and how Eros seemed like The Many then. And it's still true. Especially with how it came from human/alien hybrids made from parasites that fuse together into a giant collective mind that takes over a space station. Though Eros dodging makes me think of that great bit in Super Robot Wars Destiny where during a climatic battle to stop a group from dropping an asteroid on Earth, the Earth just... disappears and the asteroid hits nothing. And everyone just freezes and has no idea what to do next.
Kchama fucked around with this message at 04:55 on Jan 30, 2022 |
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Jan 30, 2022 04:24
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Abaddon's Gate, Chapters 5-13 Our next batch of chapters takes us from the introduction of our protagonists to when they arrive at the Ring. Chapter Five - Bull In this chapter, Bull grumbles about Pa being XO, recounts the history of the Behemoth to himself at length, finangles a way for Sam to work on the Behemoth's railgun mounts, reviews a bunch of security reports, and then works on busting a drug operation among Sam's work crew. It's still a genuine surprise to me that Michio Pa shows up as the Behemoth's XO. It'd completely passed from my memory. The real problem I have with Bull is that he's so boring and so are his chapters. Given the sheer amount of exposition this chapter dumps on us about the Nauvoo, I took this for a Franck chapter -- but Abraham handles the Bull chapters. This makes sense. Bull feels like another version of Miller and his chapters give me a similar vibe to Miller in Leviathan Wakes. It's almost a day-to-day procedural with Bull and his buddy (returning character Samara Rosenberg) discussing ship maintenance instead of cop stuff. The fact that Bull is an Earther, something of an outcast among the OPA, similar to Miller's 'city Belter' identity doesn't help things. Bull even ends up needing to track down a drug pusher among Sam's work crew. Him alienating her so he can do his job at Chief Security Officer is pretty good, after they've just been so chummy, but it really doesn't help the feeling that he is Miller Again. The man who must solve the case. Chapter Six - Holden The Rocinante crew has been hired to take a job heading out to Uranus's moon of Titania. Naomi thinks it sounds like a bad deal -- the company name, Outer Fringe Exports, sounds fake and someone's hiring a warship to transport something to Titania, where there's nothing but a tiny research base. Why does Holden want to go there? Because Uranus and the Ring are as far as anything in the Solar system can get from each other. Well, it turns out that Outer Fringe Exports just dropped the job due to Holden's "current situation." Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Six posted:“Interferes?” Naomi said. “What’s going on... Okay, why is Amos going out there with a shotgun?” I remember commenting that I would've liked to see this come up again, especially given that you can't just claim a warship under "salvage." So, it's nice to see it happening. I think Abaddon's Gate, being the first I ever read, is the one where I remember the least. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Six posted:There had been any number of times in his travels on the Roci that he’d imagined—even expected—it all to come to a tragic end. But those scenarios had involved firefights or alien monstrosities or desperate dives into some planetary atmosphere. He’d imagined with a sick thrill of dread what it would be like if Alex died, or Amos. Or Naomi. He’d wondered whether the three of them would go on without him. He hadn’t considered that the end might find all of them perfectly fine. That the Rocinante might be the one to go. In the end, a UN news team offers to get the impound taken off the Rocinante because they're protected under the Freedom of Journalism Act. Unfortunately, this means Holden has to take the team to the Ring. Holden thinks it's a setup and blames Miller, which is a nice beat. Naomi, ever the voice of reason, is like how could Miller do it when he can't even string a sentence? And so, Holden, his crew, and their intrepid team of UN reporters, set out for the Ring -- the once place in the system where Holden doesn't want to go. It's a good chapter. Chapter Seven - Melba Meanwhile, Clarissa Mao alias Melba Koh is aboard the Cerisier, also heading out to the Ring. She's leading a team of four technicians--Stanni, Ren, Bob, and Soledad. She plants a bomb aboard the ship, adn we get some details on her plan. As a maintenance worker on the flotilla, she's getting shuttled to each ship to do various things. Presumably, she's planting a bomb on every ship she visits. She also has forged footage of Jim Holden, one she's made from all the various broadcasts he's been in over the years. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Seven posted:“This is Captain James Holden,” he said. “What you’ve just seen is a demonstration of the danger you are in. My associates have placed similar devices on every ship presently in proximity to the Ring. You will all stand down as I am assuming sole and absolute control over the Ring in the name of the Outer Planets Alliance. Any ship that approaches the Ring without my personal permission will be destroyed without—” I feel like with any 'master plan' plot like this you can poke holes at it if you think too hard, so, I won't. But overall I think the story isn't really served by telling us so quickly that Melba's got someone in the camera crew, and can take control of the Roci, and probably had something to do with that legal battle that necessitated the camera crew in the first place. It hangs over the next Holden chapter like a shadow but leaves it feeling just a little slow instead of tense. Chapter Eight - Anna Pastor Anna is travelling about the UNN Thomas Prince, a Xerxes-class battleship. We get our first real big historical insight into the relationship between Earth and Mars. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Eight posted:The Martians had made noises about independence, the UN had built a lot of ships, Mars had built a few. And then Solomon Epstein had gone from being a Martian yachting hobbyist to the inventor of the first fusion drive that solved the heat buildup and rapid fuel consumption problems of constant thrust. Suddenly Mars had a few ships that went really, really fast. They’d said, Hey, we’re about to go colonize the rest of the solar system. Want to stay mad at us, or want to come with? The UN had made the sensible choice, and most people would agree: Giving up Mars in exchange for half of the solar system had probably been a pretty good deal. Once she's settled in, Anna is invited to a VIP meet and greet. We meet a lot of various characters but I can't say it's very interesting. Even when a young man immolates himself in the name of the "Ashtun Collective" it doesn't grab my attention. The young activist is fine, by the way--a warship is going to have world-class fire suppression systems. Chapter Nine - Bull Bull investigates what's going on with the Behemoth's black market. It feels too similar to Miller's Leviathan Wakes chapters still. The big difference is that while Miller was supposedly a dirty cop and he did shoot people, Bull is far more of a thug willing to assault people. There's a sense of comparison and contrast there, but I still think Bull's 'headspace' is far too similar to Miller's. Anyway, with all that said, they find the drug dealer and Bull promptly spaces him via public execution! Turns out there's no brig on the Behemoth which feels like a bit of an oversight, but it's a ship full of problems. Bull tells everyone to throw their drugs in the airlock and he'll space them all in sixteen hours. No harm, no foul, no big deal. Captain Ashford, of course, has a problem with Bull publicly executing a member of the Behemoth's crew. And, as a reader, I'm not really sure why Bull did it beyond the mention that there's no brig. Like, there's no temporary holding cell, no repurposed storage room? Ashford relieves Bull of duty. Bull is, like, hey the guy was selling drugs and this isn't a space station. The Behemoth is a warship and Bull thinks his job is to "maintain combat discipline in a potential combat zone." Admittedly, I don't have much military experience, but I feel like executing someone doesn't do much to maintain combat discipline and, in fact, would undermine it. The argument Bull makes is that it's OPA tradition--if someone endangers the ship, they get spaced. Ashford and Pa point out that he's basically being a prick about it. But in the end, they let him go--which feels somewhat disappointing. I think the reason this bothers me is that Bull doesn't seem to regard Belters highly. I know the TV series basically made him drop slurs and so far in the book it feels like he should be more anti-Belter than he is -- like the authors won't go far enough to make him as much of an rear end in a top hat as he is kind of shown to be. Look at it this way: so, here's Bull, an Earther, throwing a Belter out an airlock and then saying, to his superiors, two Belters, "Well, that's what your precious traditions say, so, deal with it." Michio Pa sends Bull a message and basically says as much, guessing that it's a risk he took to undercut Ashford by being "more-Belter-than-thou." Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Nine posted:“You can’t sugarcoat it with me. We both know that killing someone doesn’t make you admirable. I’m not about to forget this. I just hope you have enough soul left that what you’ve done still bothers you.” Chapter Ten - Holden The Rocinante crew is enduring having the reporters aboard and doing their best to avoid the inevitable interviews. The Rocinante crew has a big Saturday dinner and they, with some distaste, figure the reporters should come along--but without their cameras. During the dinner, Amos offers to be interviewed but Monica immediately asks about his past in Baltimore. Amos' reaction is... interesting. I know it's my usual thing, but does this feel like what Amos would do? The Amos we know more of from later in the series? Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Ten posted:Amos started to stand, but a gentle hand on his arm from Naomi stopped him. He opened his mouth, closed it, then looked down at his plate while the pale skin on his scalp and neck turned bright red. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Ten posted:“She’s looking stuff up about us,” Amos said to no one in particular, his gaze still on the floor. “Stuff she shouldn’t know.” And, I mean, shame? From Amos? Fear, anger -- sure. But shame? About his past? Alex, Amos, and Naomi all mention they have skeletons in their past that they don't want exposed -- but not what any of them are. Interestingly, we get this from Holden about Naomi's past. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Ten posted:She was about the most talented engineer he’d ever met. He knew she had degrees from two universities, and had completed her three-year flight officer training in two. She’d started her career on an obvious command track. Something had happened, but she’d never talked about what it had been. Anyway, the crew basically tells Holden has has to be the one the reporters interview. Later, Miller pays Holden a visit. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Ten posted:“Listen, you’ve gotta clear the room,” Miller said, his face twisted with confusion and intensity, like a drugged man trying to remember something important. “If you don’t clear the room, the room eats you.” It also feels odd that people know that Julie Mao was driving Eros. Given that Holden isn't surprised, it seems to be common knowledge. They catch up to the Behemoth. Naomi's bothered by something that's eating memory in the Rocinante's computers. Holden's surprised by how shoddy the Behemoth construction is -- in a fight, she'll rip herself apart firing her railguns. And that's kind of it. It's not a bad chapter but I think that disconnected nature of The Expanse writing rears its head here again. Melba's outlined her plan, we know the journalists are in on it, but there's no real tension in this chapter now that we know that. We're just waiting for the shoe to drop. Or, really, to get to the fireworks factory when Clarissa Mao springs her trap. Chapter Eleven - Melba Over the weeks, Melba's learned how to become a pretty good technician. Nowadays, she's aboard the Thomas Prince. She's so close to her victory now she isn't sure what she'll do afterward. Maybe she'll just remain Melba Koh. But if she did that, she thinks, she'll be just like Julie. Turns out, Julie was the smart, pretty, champion yacht racer one. Turns out Julie has multiple siblings that were never mentioned, either: Petyr and two twins, Michael and Anthea. There's a bunch of talk about the Mao family and then about Eros. Then things get complicated -- Ren, one of her work team, and someone who has helped train her in being a tech, has found traces of a moldable explosive about the Seung Un! Given the guy who tried to immolate himself, they might want to investigate. Turns out he was a "performance artist" and not an activist though. Huh. I think Melba might be lying but it'd be nice to know. She breaks his neck and hides the body. It's actually not a bad moment. On some level, she wants to be Melba, but she's committed to her revenge for her family, etc. etc. Chapter Twelve - Anna Anna's at an interfaith prayer meeting. After two hours of it, she's bored. She reflects that the immolation thing at the party was "an attempted suicide." Guess he's not a performance artist, then. Afterward, Anna meets up with her friend Tilly in the officers' mess. Tilly's part of the flotilla because she's rich. Anna's concerned that despite all the prayers no one is talking about the Ring and the protomolecule and what it means for God, Christ, dying for sins, and so on. Did Christ die for the sins of all life everywhere or just humanity? Did God make the species that tried to wipe out all life on Earth? Later, the ship goes on alert. Nothing major but since Ganymede, Earth ships go to alert when they're in weapons range of Martian ships. Anna spies someone who I'm 99.99% sure is Melba but she isn't named or described beyond that she's a pretty girl with a terminal. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Twelve posted:“Hi,” Anna said. “I’m Anna. What’s your name?” Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Twelve posted:Maybe the girl had woken up from a nightmare too, Anna thought. Or maybe she hadn’t. Chapter Thirteen - Bull Everyone's arrived at the Ring. The command staff of the Behemoth have met for a briefing. Turns out the Ring is a gate--what they're calling a "sustained Einstein-Rosen bridge." tl;dr: it's a wormhole gate. But not just a gate, a beachhead. Whoever built the gate would want to use it, wouldn't they... But no one's sure what's on the other side. The Y Que--the ship from the prologue is still there, it appears--but there's nothing else. No stars, for example. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Thirteen posted:“Meaning what?” Ashford said. Caliban's War, Chapter Two posted:Whatever the alien’s hijacked, confused programming was, it was still going on under that planet’s thick cloud cover, and no one had so far been able to offer any scientific conclusions more compelling than Hmm. Weird. At the end of the briefing, Sam gets demoted and restricted to her quarters for misusing ship resources. This comes back to the trick Bull used in Chapter 5 to get Sam working on the railguns. Bull tries to say it was his fault and Pa says, well, we'll investigate you, too. Obviously, this comes down to Pa and/or Ashford wanting to get back at him for spacing the drug dealer. Bull contemplates refusing. But Fred said he had to make the mission work (what, even after the drug dealer thing?) and so goes along with it. We get a bunch of Bull's backstory -- turns out Fred, his former commanding officer, saved his life and Bull spent three years living it up on Ceres but giving in to alcoholism. Fred saved his life again by getting him in the OPA. Bull goes to visit Sam and explains the situation -- Pa's going after Sam to get to him. Sam tells Bull to stop looking so repentant which, again, makes me think of Miller. Remember his hangdog look with his hat in his hands and all that? Sam's angry at Bull but knows that Pa wants him to lose allies, so, she sticks by him. Then Bull gets a message to return to his office. The reason? The Earth destroyer Seung-Un just blew up. It's all coming together! By now, I'm slowly coming around on Bull but Anna still, unfortunately, feels like she's dangling about without much purpose beyond to bluntly talk about the Big Themes and Ideas. I don't think the story is quite balancing it's multiple threads. It feels someone like a step up from Caliban's War, however. Chapter 13, for comparison then, was where Amos beat up the hacker and the Rocinante crew geared up to go find Mei. So, Prax and Holden had tied together but Avasarala and Bobbie still hadn't had their big meeting. A strength of Abaddon's Gate is that at least all of our characters are fairly close to each other, at least. Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 04:00 on Jan 31, 2022 |
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Jan 31, 2022 03:22
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Milkfred E. Moore posted:It feels odd that two years + however many they'd spent on the Canterbury, Holden still knows so very little about the people he calls his friends and trusts to have his back in a crisis. It seems like Holden is just like, well, we'll let sleeping dogs lie and that no one ever talks about their background and that Holden never picks up on hints or theorises or whatever. Never even really speculates. Never seems to be bothered that the past is sometimes prologue. The feeling I mostly got is that the old Canturbury had sort of a "nobody resorts to working on this lovely space truck without a reason, and nobody cares about that reason as long as you do your job and don't cause problems" thing to it. Holden's a discharged navy officer, Naomi's in hiding, Alex had that bad split with his ex-wife, Amos is Amos. Everybody's got a past and nobody wants to talk about it, so nobody talks about it. Also, I like Bull. Yeah, he's a bit Millery, but I also liked Miller. 
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Jan 31, 2022 05:38
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Khizan posted:The feeling I mostly got is that the old Canturbury had sort of a "nobody resorts to working on this lovely space truck without a reason, and nobody cares about that reason as long as you do your job and don't cause problems" thing to it. Holden's a discharged navy officer, Naomi's in hiding, Alex had that bad split with his ex-wife, Amos is Amos. Everybody's got a past and nobody wants to talk about it, so nobody talks about it. My opinion of Bull has definitely improved over the last few chapters. I do think there's a purpose to Bull feeling like Miller in this novel. Given that the series was to finish with Abaddon's Gate, I can see why they have a character who feels like Miller (and, of course, Miller himself -- to a certain extent.) Anna is the same. All of her chapters that talk about God and faith tie into the ending of Abaddon's Gate, I think, and what was to be the last image the series left you with. But then, for better or worse, the series continued. The Canterbury absolutely has that vibe. Holden himself reflects as much when the crew are freaking out about the reporters. Something along the lines of 'No one wanted to be on the Canterbury, everyone there was running away from something. He himself was a dishonorably discharged naval officer.' But still, it's been two years of living in a tin can that's smaller than a Boeing 747. Alex has never gotten drunk and said something about his family back on Mars? It reminds me of how everyone in Caliban's War, despite being Fred's right-hand bounty hunters and high-value OPA asset, were still wearing Tachi jumpsuits that didn't even fit right. At first you think they might be poor, but then it turns out they actually have a heap of money and a powerful OPA backer. I'm not sure how to put it other than it feels like aesthetics over verisimilitude. It feels better if the crew are wearing old, shoddy jumpsuits, y'know? It helps them feel like an underdog even though they're not really that. Holden not really knowing anything about the people he's been living with for two years feels similar. It does make the complaints people had about the TV series making everyone less friendly to begin with interesting in the proper context, though. For all the talk of the Rocinante crew being a tight-knit found family, it feels like you've got the Holden and Naomi power couple, the latter's loyal hound Amos, and then the guy who chauffeurs them around. They feel much more like four people who got tied together due to circumstance and have just coasted on it because it's easier. I think three novels in, this is about what we know of each member of the crew: Jim Holden: self-righteous idealist, multiple parents, UNN officer who was dishonourably discharged for striking an officer (or the bulkhead next to him), likes coffee, Earther. Kinda cute. Naomi Nagata: multiple degrees from two colleges (possibly an error/oversight, Avasalara in Caliban's War says she has two), offered a PhD scholarship on Ceres but turned it down, did her three year fleet officer training in two (is this Canterbury specific training or did she attend some kind of academy? I can't imagine Pur'n'Kleen springing for that stuf...), implied that whatever career she had was derailed by a specific incident. Doesn't like carrying weapons, doesn't want kids despite having multiple backups of her genetic material. Belter. Amos: mysterious murder man from Baltimore, accused of several murders but never put on trial, product of a child sex ring -- seemingly ashamed of it? Had a vasectomy. Protective of kids. Earther. Kinda ugly. Alex: drives the ship, Texan accent, multiple drunk and disorderly charges many years ago, has a son he doesn't know about. Martian. Most of this info comes from Chapter 45 of Caliban's War where it's infodumped on us via Avasarala's research (Alex in particular.) And I think a lot of these get changed up for the TV series, especially Naomi who I think, from memory, says or implies that her degrees are from "Belter University." Amos is presented from the very start as being the character he is post-The Churn. Alex, I think, is more openly running away from his wife and son so he can play spaceship pilot. Here, we don't even know he has a wife. I'm interested in reaching Nemesis Games to see how they tie Marco into what they've established of Naomi's background. I'm not sure I can really speculate on Naomi or Alex's background prior to joining the Canterbury, but if I had to bet on Amos, I'd have thought his background went that he was a in a child sex ring, murdered the operators, cops let him go, and he fled to the stars. It's all tied up with guilt and shame. The Churn twist is really good but I've never thought it was particularly neat with what we saw of Amos before.
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Jan 31, 2022 08:46
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And while we're on the topic of characters, I feel the initial 'meeting' between Clarissa and Anna is a bit of a missed opportunity. While it somewhat parallels the end of Chapter 10 with the Rocinante and Behemoth basically telling each other to keep their distance, it's not two warships -- it's two women. It tells us that Anna thinks Clarissa is beautiful but not why. Given Anna is an Earther, does she maybe think she bears a resemblance to one of the Mao scions, isn't that funny to think about? Does Clarissa do something with her hair that contrasts with her technician's uniform? It's these small things that can tell us about a character without, like, having another character do research or have them think about their own background and I think it's these small things that the Expanse books lack, and therefore prevent their characters from being more than thin sketches. I think they only tend to show up whenever Holden notices something Naomi does.
Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 10:46 on Jan 31, 2022 |
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Jan 31, 2022 10:44
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I dunno if I'm alone here, but Holden is actually one of the main reasons I can't actually like the books, because Holden is a loathsome moron and the fact that everyone lets him keep being in charge despite doing his damnedest to blow up the whole solar system with his stupid broadcasts so it just poisons my view of everyone.
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Jan 31, 2022 17:32
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Kchama posted:I dunno if I'm alone here, but Holden is actually one of the main reasons I can't actually like the books, because Holden is a loathsome moron and the fact that everyone lets him keep being in charge despite doing his damnedest to blow up the whole solar system with his stupid broadcasts so it just poisons my view of everyone. A character like Jim Holden needs someone to rein him in and keep him in line. That character should probably be Naomi, but the closest we get to it is her breaking up with him because he's imitating Miller. And I mean, given Naomi's relationship with Marco Inaros who the books position as a dark mirror to Holden, you'd think she would be wary of Holden's behavior and be his voice of reason. If that planning had been there. Instead, it's not just the lack of planning that makes Holden what he is, but the roots of the novel series. Holden is the party paladin and the writers have said that the novels are something of a commentary on how much of a pain the butt a paladin can be. For the moment, we'll disregard whether it's a good idea to have your 'hard' space opera reflect a trope exemplified by bad roleplayers. It'd also be one thing if it was just Holden's crew who turned a blind eye to his worst traits, but even Avasarala is basically sucked in by him as soon as they meet. Everyone is. The series does do something with this with the character of Elvi in Book 4, which plays into why I think that novel is the perfect epilogue to the series, who has a crush on Holden up until she meets the man and realizes he's just kind of a dick and nothing like how she thought.
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Feb 1, 2022 01:24
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Milkfred E. Moore posted:A character like Jim Holden needs someone to rein him in and keep him in line. That character should probably be Naomi, but the closest we get to it is her breaking up with him because he's imitating Miller. And I mean, given Naomi's relationship with Marco Inaros who the books position as a dark mirror to Holden, you'd think she would be wary of Holden's behavior and be his voice of reason. If that planning had been there. I think the issue is, beyond nobody being there to even attempt to rein him in, is that he's not even a good paladin. He's not inflexible in his morality to an extreme, he's just very stupid. Like I think someone described him as a Lawful Stupid paladin and that's definitely closer. He's not putting the party in danger because he wants to avoid lethal confrontation until he's sure that the enemy will not accept mercy or surrender to the party bloodlessly. He's putting everyone else in danger because he immediately flies off the handle and just blurts out every little thing he finds without even doing any investigation or research to understand what he's uncovered. The closest he gets to being a reining in is when Miller talks to him and points a lot of this out but even Miller doesn't even try to stop Holden beyond telling him to do what Naomi would do, despite Holden being a known threat to, well, everything. He's definitely caused as much damage as Dresden did, who Miller shot on the spot the moment he thought the guy would get away with it. Holden's actions resulted in the set back of Mars terraforming for decades and the destruction of Deimos. Never mind everyone who died in the warfare caused. If he had just loving waited and pieced the clues together, Dresden wouldn't have gotten the wars he wanted to hide everything, at least not so easily.
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Feb 1, 2022 04:15
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Kchama posted:I think the issue is, beyond nobody being there to even attempt to rein him in, is that he's not even a good paladin. He's not inflexible in his morality to an extreme, he's just very stupid. Like I think someone described him as a Lawful Stupid paladin and that's definitely closer. That's true and that's what I mean by a trope that's exemplified by bad roleplayers. There was a wonderful thread over in Trad Games back in the day that talked about paladins through the lens of their literary inspirations: Why Do Paladins Always Get Played Wrong? Liesmith posted:Everybody knows what I'm talking about. The paladin who refuses to ever get paid for poo poo and who attacks the rogue because he's a rogue. The paladin who prevents anyone from doing anything because he's a douchebag. Worst of all, the paladin who never had a bad thought in his incredibly boring life and is somehow arrogant about it. Emphasis mine. If I understand the comments the Coreys have made on Holden as a character, then he's not supposed to be a "good" paladin and he's in fact supposed to be a Lawful Stupid kind of paladin but his heart is in the right place so it's all okay? It doesn't help that despite spending two novels in the guy's head, we've got really no idea what kind of code Holden lives by beyond some vague 'information for everyone' idea. Remember how he apparently left the UNN because he got tired of stepping on the necks of belters and such? When has that kind of thinking ever come up again? Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 08:11 on Feb 1, 2022 |
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Feb 1, 2022 08:04
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Abaddon's Gate, Chapters 14-19 This batch of chapters takes us from Melba's plan going into action to everyone about to head into the Ring. Chapter 14 - Melba Something interesting has been cropping up in Abaddon's Gate. I didn't comment on this the first time it came up in the novel, but it feels like there are sections where the authorial voice of the writer is slipping. I think both Maneo's prologue and the first chapter have these moments where it feels like we slip from third-person limited to something a touch more omniscient. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter 14 posted:When she’d thought about it, planning the final, closing stages of her vengeance, she’d pictured herself as the conductor of a private symphony, moving her baton to the orchestrated chaos. It didn’t happen that way at all. The morning she went to the Thomas Prince, she didn’t know that the day had finally come. Most of the chapter is filled up with Melba talking with her tech team who, with the exception of Ren, aren't really interesting (and he's dead) and giving us exposition on the make up of the Earth flotilla which we already know. People are looking for who killed Ren but it ultimately seems like everyone is willing to chalk it up to some kind of dispute handled with ship justice and general fear of the Ring has people willing to let it slide. I'm not so sure, personally. We see the chat with Anna from Melba's perspective, also getting our first description of Anna. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter 14 posted:A woman walked into the galley. Middle-aged, thick red hair pulled into a severe-looking bun that competed with her smile. Melba looked at her to try not to be at the table, then looked away. Anyway, I don't think much is gained from seeing the brief meeting from Melba's perspective. She's scared and angry and I think we got that from Anna's chapter. After that, Melba goes back to the Cerisier and prepares to put her plan into action. Her confirmation code for it is "jules-pierre mao" and the first step in her plan is blowing up the Seung Un and making it look like the Rocinante did it. From there, she'll launch her fake broadcast and have the Rocinante target everything around it. Dun dun! Chapter 15 - Bull It's odd that we don't jump to Holden given that, well, he's the one most affected by this and probably the character I most want to see react to it. This chapter ends up dropping another complication and Holden and isn't uninteresting in and of itself -- but it's that thing where it feels like the shifting perspectives are never as neat as they should be. Anyway, Bull's analysing the destruction of the Seung Un -- well, not destruction. They call it death but it seems more like the ship got holed and ejected its reactor core. There're enough survivors and the ship is whole enough for there to be rescue operations and distress calls. Melba's plan goes into effect: Abaddon's Gate, Chapter 15 posted:The handset screen blacked out, jumped, and then a familiar face appeared. Bull let the cart slow as James Holden, the man whose announcement about the death of the ice hauler Canterbury started the first war between Earth and Mars, once again made things worse. Bull rushes to the bridge but, when he gets there, Pa basically tells him to get back out and to his station which isn't on the bridge. Bull makes the argument that they have to fire on the Rocinante immediately to show that the OPA isn't complicit with Holden. Ashford, meanwhile, is asking Ceres whether Holden's following their orders. Bull thinks Ashford is a racist. Pa backs up Bull. It'll take four hours for their message just to reach Ceres. The Behemoth can take out the Rocinante but it can't take out the Earth and Mars fleets. The Rocinante begins to move towards the Behemoth and Ashford orders the weapons powered up -- and then to fire. Entertainingly and delivering on the various foreshadowing and issues, the Behemoth fires exactly one missile before its systems seize up, and then the whole ship loses power. Bull asks if he can release Sam from house arrest and Pa allows it. Chapter 16 - Holden Back a few minutes, the broadcast has just gone out. Holden says it isn't him but Amos says it sounds kinda like him. I don't think the speech sounds anything like Holden's voice, which is a good thing -- as Clarissa said in one of her chapters it's basically a computer facsimile that's to sound more threatening than accurate. So, I like that it sounds just a little off to us who've followed Holden for two books. Anyway, Naomi figures out the broadcast is coming from the Rocinante -- and she can't stop it! In the end, Holden gets Amos to offline the Rocinante's comms systems -- this cuts the broadcast but also means Holden can't transmit his defence. I like the following exchange as things go from bad to worse: Abaddon's Gate, Chapter 16 posted:“Um,” Alex said. “Are you guys warming up the weapons?” Abaddon's Gate, Chapter 16 posted:Before Holden could ask what he meant, Alex opened up the Roci’s throttle and the ship took off like a racehorse feeling the spurs. Alex has the idea to put a Martian cruiser between them and the torpedo. In response, the Martians just paint the Rocinante with their targeting lasers -- which means they're now guiding the torpedo to the Rocinante. It's a funny little complication. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter 16 posted:Holden marveled that he’d lived just long enough to finally see real Martian-OPA cooperation. It wasn’t as gratifying as he’d hoped. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter 16 posted:Holden sent the nav package to Alex, half expecting him to refuse. Hoping. Instead, the Roci accelerated for an endless twenty-seven minutes, followed by a nauseating zero-g spin that lasted less than four seconds, and a deceleration burn that lasted four and a half minutes and knocked every single person on the ship unconscious. The bad news is that, according to the Rocinante's sensors, there's nothing out there. Nothing, "not even starlight." And even the ghost of Miller is scared of that. Chapter 17 - Bull It's thirty hours since the Behemoth went dark. Everyone's trying to get the ship running again. Bull goes down to see Sam. She's having a problem with one of her team. A technician named Gareth is insisting he's an engineer and not supposed to be laying cables. Bull tells Gareth he can go back to Ceres and he'll handle the work instead. Humiliated, Gareth does it. Then, Ashford gets on the PA system. He's confirmed that Holden is not representing the OPA and therefore he has made the decision to pursue the Rocinante through the Ring and take him and his crew into custody within the next six hours. Sam and Bull are like what the gently caress is that guy doing. Bull says he'll go try to talk Ashford out of it. Bull tracks down Pa (having seen Ashford between scenes, it appears) and basically says it's a bad idea. Pa says: Abaddon's Gate, Chapter 17 posted:“Do you want an alien civilization taking its ideas of humanity from Jim Holden?” Chapter 18 - Anna Anna's giving a worship service and has a Big Thematic Talk with some marines. It's okay, I guess? Then they start talking about Holden and recounting what we know. Anna talks with a bunch of people. Turns out Doctor Cortez, who is like a huge celebrity, has asked the UN fleet to follow the Behemoth into the Ring via a petition. And they've asked for the Martians to come with them. The idea is that they'll go from three angry factions to one joint expeditionary task force. Anna says she'll sign the petition. And that's it. Chapter 19 - Melba Meanwhile, Clarissa's having a bit of a freak out: she's pulled off her plan and Holden just dove into the Ring and survived through sheer luck. Had he been any closer to the Behemoth - dead. Had the Martians fired anything - dead. If Holden isn't dead then it means her whole plot might be exposed. One of Clarissa's people is refusing to board the Thomas Prince and head into the Ring. Clarissa takes his place. But she also goes and retrieves Ren, the man she had killed, from where she had stashed him and brings him with her to the Prince as leaving him there means it'd be inevitably discovered -- or maybe she's just guilty Other than that, it feels like a lot of the chapter is procedural stuff -- here is your keycard, if it turns red you're in a restricted area, etc. etc. There's a neat moment where Clarissa spots Tilly Fagan, who is high society socialite friend that Anna has made. Clarissa is worried that Tilly might recognize her -- their families had dinner parties together. Then she gets her quarters and tells herself, in a bit of a dissociative episode, that she needs to start improvising.
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Feb 8, 2022 08:53
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Abaddon's Gate, Chapters 20-22 Things go from bad to worse very quickly, and for more people than the Roci crew! Chapter Twenty - Holden We return to Holden recording a video of what they are calling the 'slow zone' -- the ring space with strange laws of physics. Alex wanted to call it 'dandelion sky' but was seemingly thrown out on the basis of sounding stupid. It feels a little on the nose if you know that Dandelion Sky was the pre-release title of the third novel. Holden says: Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Twenty posted:“The slow zone, based on the sensor data we’re able to get, is approximately one million kilometers across.” Holden pointed at the 3D representation on the screen behind him. “There are no visible stars, so the location of the zone is impossible to determine. The boundary is made up of one thousand three hundred and seventy-three individual rings evenly spaced into a sphere. So far, the only one we’ve been able to find that’s ‘open’ is the one we came through. The fleets we traveled out with are still visible on the other side, though the Ring seems to distort visual and sensor data, making readings through it unreliable.” The big thing Holden has discovered is that there's a speed limit to the slow zone, with that limit being "six hundred meters per second." If you travel faster than that, you get locked down and dragged into "the garbage field." It does this by slowing the exterior of the objects, which is why Maneo got splattered against his bulkhead. Holden's plan is to remain motionless to avoid attracting any kind of attention from the Ring Station. Naomi hasn't had much luck repairing the comms because the computer virus keeps getting back in despite her best efforts. Then Amos comes in, and he's found a transmitter in the bathroom lighting -- uh-oh! Holden accuses Monica's team. Monica says it couldn't be them. Amos gets a good line: Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Twenty posted:“Let me drag one of ’em down to the airlock and space them right now. Even if only one of them did it, I got me a twenty-five percent chance to get the right one. Got a thirty-three percent chance with the second one I toss. Fifty-fifty by the third, and those are odds I’ll take any day.” Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Twenty posted:“I was thinking I’d have a tough time spacing a blind guy, but turns out I’m gonna be just fine with it.” It's an... interesting development because while I think it's fine for Holden to confuse Clarissa for Julie, I honestly didn't get the impression that they looked that much alike. Clarissa herself says that Julie was "the pretty one" for example which made me think that she herself was just a bit plain. Anyway, they can get the comms fixed now and Holden has a bit of a paranoid moment where he thinks the protomolecule is using Julie for a secret plan which would force Holden to go through the Ring. And this is where the multi-character storytelling of the novel falters slightly, I think, because, like... We know that it's Clarissa. While it's still a paranoid beat for Holden's character, I think it come off as more 'silly' than 'traumatized.' More to the point, does Holden not know that Mao had other children? Going by Clarissa's chapters, it appears that Mao had five children. Did that never come up in the fall of the house of Mao? Did Holden never pay attention? Did no one ever mention it in passing? This comes immediately before Holden takes a look at the Ring Station promptly and decides that he has to go there in order to find out why the protomolecule wants him to go there. I don't know, the logical chain of 'That's Julie!' -> 'The protomolecule set this chain of events in motion to bring me here!' -> 'I must go to the Ring Station to find out why.' is just a little off. Chapter Twenty-One - Bull The Behemoth transits the Ring. Upon arrival, they get a message from Naomi aboard Rocinante saying that they were sabotaged, the saboteur has confessed, and they have data to prove it. Bull wonders why Holden isn't on camera given how often he did things like that. Everyone starts talking all at once. People want to know where Holden is, people want Naomi to surrender the Tachi, and someone wants to know who is doing EVA activity near the Rocinante. Naomi tells everyone that Holden may have been 'called' to the Ring Station. Later, Earth and Mars have sent out marine skiffs to go catch Holden. Ashford wants to know if they can do a matching force. Bull says they can't do it -- the Inners have scary powered armor and expert soldiers. Bull goes oves the file from the Rocinante and thinks it seems legit but is sceptical of the Julie Mao From Beyond The Grave story. The Earther marine skiff decides to floor it and gets nabbed by the Ring Station. Bull calls up Naomi and asks to take the prisoners off her hands. Naomi agrees. Chapter Twenty-Two Holden is making his way to the Ring Station. He's still hours away. He reflects that maybe they're wrong about the protomolecule, that maybe it wasn't a weapon. We get one of the more memorable passages from the series: Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Twenty-Two posted:Holden was starting to feel like they were all monkeys playing with a microwave. Push a button, a light comes on inside, so it’s a light. Push a different button and stick your hand inside, it burns you, so it’s a weapon. Learn to open and close the door, it’s a place to hide things. Never grasping what it actually did, and maybe not even having the framework necessary to figure it out. No monkey ever reheated a frozen burrito. Holden then reflects that, when he was nine, Rufus the family Labrador died. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Twenty-Two posted:Mother Elise had told him that Rufus probably wouldn’t last the night, and even if he did they’d have to call the vet in the morning. Holden had tearfully sworn to stay by the dog’s side. For the first couple of hours, he held Rufus’ head on his lap and cried, as Rufus struggled to breathe and occasionally gave one halfhearted thump of his tail. John Steakley, Armor posted:She looked at us as if pleading. Back and forth into our dead frozen eyes. "But he couldn't. He couldn't. He wasn't a motor. He wasn't a machine. He was a puppy! I could hear how it hurt him. He was in agony! The way the Coreys sum it up as 'Well, Holden loved his pet but realizes he just kinda got bored...' is both less interesting and somehow far more grotesque as an insight to Holden's character. It's sort of a half-assed appeal to the idea that the Ring Station is no longer fascinating given that Holden's been looking at it get bigger for a while but it feels weird. The other thing is, like, if social media has taught us anything, I think people are able to "maintain a heightened emotional state" for a very long time. Much longer than three hours, anyway. If there's a little issue these books have, I think, and you can compare it to the excerpt from Armor, it's that they never really engage with the emotions of being human. From one of the discussions I've had with General Battuta about these novels, I believe he stated -- and I'm paraphrasing here -- that the approach the novels take is "That thing you think is wonderful and amazing? It's actually really boring." After a few hours of exposure, the Coreys argue, everything turns out to be profoundly meh. I think this is why, or part of the reason why, people like Amos so much. Because he's the most pure distillation of that belief -- an emotionally-stunted sociopath who knows that emotions happen to other people and isn't that bothered by it and yet still remains a sympathetic 'good person.' I remember a post somewhere in this forum that once said that the belief underpinning the novels is that Amos is, basically, the ideal man. And frankly, given how the series treats Amos and his final scene in the final book, one could probably have more evidence for that argument these days. Or maybe Holden's just a sociopath. Anyway, later, Holden arrives on the Ring Station -- or inside the ring station, to be precise. As he gets closer, it opens up and swallows him. Miller is there, too. The marines are five minutes behind. Miller leads Holden into the station, telling him there's something they "should probably do." Miller tells Holden that he shouldn't have come. Holden is like, what, I thought you wanted me here. Miller is like you have no idea what's here, doors and corners, kid. It's fun but I think blows a hole in the Big Secret Theory from Book 9 -- but maybe we'll get to that later. Miller mentions that the Ring Station was part of an empire but all that's left is basically a bunch of locked doors. He also says that Miller is dead and Julie's dead and he's just a "machine for finding lost things." The Martian marines find them. Holden says they can talk things through but the Martians open fire on sight -- and nothing hits him. All the bullets get stopped centimeters out of their weapons and dragged away. The Marines charge Holden, and a alien robot attacks them. One of the marines throws a grenade which the alien robot ignores. Then, the grenade goes off and damages the construct. And all hell breaks loose. A dozen other constructs descend on the guy who threw the grenade and rips him apart. They turn him into a yellow goo to fix the damage but Miller says he just killed a lot of people. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Twenty-Two posted:“What? How?” We'll leave it there for now, if only because I had a bit to say for these chapters. As an aside, I think Chapter 22 is the longest Expanse chapter so far, coming in at about 5000 words. I think most chapters have come in around 3500 or so. Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 10:45 on Feb 16, 2022 |
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Feb 16, 2022 10:42
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I know I say something like this a lot, but I think Chapter 22 illustrates the issues the multi-narrative construction of the novels keep having. While the novels present themselves initially as, say, four stories that twist around each other and gradually tie into one big plot-rope, I don't think that's really the case in execution. For the most part, I think there's a central story to each of the novels and the other perspectives can often be reliant on that story hitting certain points (like plot flags in an RPG) to advance rather than advancing at their own pace. One of the neat things the multiple perspective format does for The Expanse novels is that it lets them skip over the time periods where nothing much happens. Given that this is a sci-fi setting without FTL travel, there're days or weeks where nothing happens beyond the Rocinante going from Here to There. We hop over to Miller or Avasarala or Melba and get to read about something more interesting than a travelogue, y'know? So far, I think Abaddon's Gate is both stronger and weaker than both Leviathan Wakes and Caliban's War because the perspectives are more closely tied to Holden's story. The problem is, they're tied so closely to Holden's story that it feels like they're hanging out in little side rooms until it's their time to walk on stage. Anna is a neat character but she's spent most of her time having big thematic speeches. I'm more fond of Bull than I was initially, but he's kind of doing his own thing on the Behemoth and Ashford isn't an interesting antagonist to him. Clarissa is fine, all in all, but everything she does serves to complicate Holden's plot while sort of undermining it and I feel like the Holden part of the book might be stronger if we didn't have Clarissa in the novel (and vice versa.) (So far, as of the end of Chapter 22, the novel has been split as thus: seven chapters for Bull, six for Holden, five for Melba, and four for Anna.) Chapter 22 strikes me as odd, however. Chapter 21 tells us Holden has left the Rocinante and is heading to the Ring Station. It doesn't feel like it should be a Holden chapter -- it feels like we should head over to Clarissa or Anna for a bit, especially with the whole 'Julie Mao's revenge plot' thing being thrown out there. Instead, we go back to Holden and we get a very long chapter that covers a fair amount of ground (and time.) I haven't kept exhaustive notes on chapter word length but, as I noted, it really does feel like the longest chapter yet across the first three books. That's always interesting to think about when a series has otherwise kept its chapters of a similar average length. Why is this one so long? Why the rush to get to the Ring Station when we've just had the possibility of Clarissa getting unmasked, so to speak, dangled in our faces? Well, the first is that it isn't quite time for that revelation to show up -- that's coming up in Chapter 24. The second, and arguably more pointed issue, is that the next big plot development -- the event at the end of Chapter 22, the slow zone changing the speed limit -- is what drives the next few chapters, including that revelation. So, Holden has to get there before anything else happens. But he can't just get there, there has to be a Thing that makes it happen, which is the marines, and so on. I mentioned, too, that Holden's argument for going there feels a bit screwy. But the novel really needs to get him there now to mark off the XP3_RING_STATION_BIG_SLOWDOWN = 1 flag. It's that 'extruded narrative product' feeling. The story obviously outlined this event as being a big thing but Chapter 22 feels like Franck or Abraham realized they really needed to jam it into place instead of maybe recalibrating the outline. Anyway, onward! Abaddon's Gate, Chapters 23 - 27 The Ring Station has decided that Chapter Twenty-Three - Melba Clarissa isn't too worried about Holden's talk of Julie Mao. He's primed them to be looking for Julie Mao armed with the protomolecule and wreaking havoc. Even Clarissa seems to think that she and Julie look enough alike that it's more Holden's mentioning of Julie that's concealing her than the fact she looks different. She does disguise herself based on Cohen's image and it mentions that Cohen's image of her was based when she was on Earth and she looks different in zero gee -- it's a nice touch. She's fine with Holden going to the Ring Station. After all, the marines might kill him for her. All she has to do is take care of the rest of things, such as the Rocinante. She'll grab an exoskeleton mech suit, break into the Rocinante, kill the crew and blow the reactor. She might die in the process but she's fine with that. She's sleeping when the Ring Station changes the speed limit. There's a dream sequence before it and... I don't like dream sequences. They often feel like a cheap way to do psychodrama or demonstrate a character's emotional state instead of doing it when the character is, y'know, conscious and awake. Very rarely do stories do them in a way that is actually interesting, I think, or even just fun to read. Clarissa is guilty about killing Ren, Holden and her father are similar in some way, etc. etc. Outside her room, the corridors of the Thomas Prince are filled with bodies and blood. So much so that naval personnel are just sticking bodies to the walls for now to keep them out of the way. I like the stuff we get about injury effects in zero gee: blood doesn't drain, lungs fill up. Basically, everything and everyone on the ship that wasn't part of the the ship was thrown bow-ward at six hundred meters a second -- drat! It's probably one of the more memorable events in the entire series, up there with the Inaros ELE in Nemesis Games. Melba helps out with some disaster stuff but eventually palms the keycard of a Lieutenant Commander, which I feel would be more interesting if we had met "Stepan Arsenau" at some point prior to this. Like, in an Anna chapter or something, y'know? Have Stepan be a fun character and now he's dead, kick the audience in the guts, Coreys! Anyway, she grabs the card and goes off to enact her plan with the mech suit. Chapter Twenty-Four - Melba Anna had been reading when it happened. Her arms got dislocated (and then un-dislocated!) and she was thrown into the ceiling. There's a whole thing where Anna rejects the glee many religious people take in the face of Armageddon because of the idea where that surely the faithful will be spared but that the grotesque, apocalyptic scenes aboard the Thomas Prince are more like it. Anna runs into her friend Tilly. Tilly does some first aid, dosing Anna up with painkillers and amphetamines. Anna wants to find her congregation but Tilly thinks they should get help first. No one knows what happened -- Tilly guesses the slow zone changed -- and there's hundreds of casualties on the Prince alone. And the Prince wasn't moving near the old speed limit. Anna spies an image of Julie and wonders if people will blame her. But then Tilly laughs and says that is isn't Julie, that's Claire! Clarissa Mao. And Anna puts the pieces together: seeing her in the galley, the explosion, Holden's crazy message, and she says that Clarissa blew up the ship. And she's on this very ship! A member of the Prince's crew runs a face recognition scan and, yep, there's Clarissa down in hangar B. But he says she's probably broken in five different places and maybe a false positive anyway. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Twenty-Four posted:“You have software that could have found her at any time?” Tilly asked in disbelief. “You didn’t check?” And so Anna goes off to catch Clarissa. It's not a bad thing, but there's a part of me that thinks it's a little rough that they effect this by basically dosing up Anna on drugs and then drawing attention to that she's only doing it because she's drugged up. I don't think you really need to do that! Anna's demonstrated some pretty severe moral character and I absolutely buy that she'd try and go after Clarissa even in a sober state of mind. I think it lessens the impact by seemingly attributing it to drugs. Chapter Twenty-Five - Holden Holden can't get through to Naomi. He wants to go back to the ship but Miller is like, look, if you want to help everyone then you have to come with me right now. Miller needs Holden to unlock the station. As he puts it, you need a "certain level of status" to "walk around the fallen world." That is, to be embodied in the physical world that you and I exist in. It goes into a bunch of jargon and scientific explanation for how the connection between Miller and Holden works and the highlight of it is this bit: Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Twenty-Five posted:“Well,” Miller said. “Now you’re asking me to explain microwaves to a monkey.” So, this is our first real lore dump about the civilization that created the protomolecule. I won't go too much into it just yet, but it aligns well enough with some of the revelations from later books. I've alluded to not being the biggest fan of where the Coreys took this part of The Expanse, but we can talk about that towards the end of the series because that is where they misstep in my opinion. Anyway, Miller says it explain everything but also nothing. Holden says to tell him what it explains and Miller says there was an attempted quarantine to stop what was killing the locals. That was two billion years ago. Miller says that the protomolecule builders were a "galaxy spanning hive consciousness" which is not a revelation that I remember coming in this novel (or even being addressed at all in any of the novels later) and whatever killed them survived a hundred star systems being supernova'd. And that's still a problem. Miller says he can tell the station to come off its war footing but Holden's going to need to do something else... and Miller vanishes. Because, unfortunately, the Martian marines have returned to arrest Holden. poo poo. Chapter Twenty-Six - Bull Unsurprisingly, we get told what Bull was doing when the event happened. He was in his office and then he ended up in the medbay. He calls Sam and she tells him what happened -- rules changed, whole flotilla is being dragged toward the Ring Station. Turns out one third of the Behemoth's crew was in their crash couches but two thirds were not. Then it turns out that Bull's broken his spine and is now a paraplegic. They can maybe fix it if they can get him under one-gee thrust but they'd need to put him in a medical coma until then. Bull refuses because there's so much work to do. Sam tells him to take his medicine. Bull says he can handle it when the ship is out of danger and asks Sam to give him a damage report. The Behemoth has taken it well due to it being a generation ship and build for long-term wear and tear. Virtually every single person who wasn't in a crash couch is dead. A bunch of ships have a bunch of different problems. Pa thinks it was an attack but Ashford thinks it was a restraint mechanism. Someone did something on the Ring Station and the rules changed. Pa thinks that providing the Ring Station doesn't feel threatened again then things won't get any worse. But there's no telling how worse things could get if anything else goes wrong. Bull calls up Sam and says they need to get all the wounded from the other ships onto the Behemoth, mainly to prevent anyone from doing anything too stupid -- but also because the Behemoth has something no other ship does: a rotating drum to provide spin gravity. Bull wants to know how long it'll take to spin up the drum. Chapter Twenty-Seven - Melba Clarissa is making her way over to the Rocinante. She's imagining Holden returning to the Rocinante as she's destroying his ship, begging for forgiveness and then not getting it. Maybe she'll get to kill his crew or maybe they're already dead. She reaches the Rocinante and cuts her way into it, being careful to not vent too much atmosphere. You can't get vengeance if everyone asphyxiates! The Rocinante is a mess and it seems like Clarissa's boarded the ship with no one being aware of it. Clarissa takes stock: the ship has four crew including Holden, two of them have military training and experience, but even with the mech suit she might not be able to take more than one of them in a fight. She can't risk using her implants as she'll be vulnerable after the fact. Given the possible threats, she decides to go straight for the reactor and runs right into Naomi. Naomi, credit to her, leaps right at Clarissa and the pair engage in a melee. Clarissa's suit isn't quite armored, it's an exoskeleton thing, so Naomi is able to land some good hits and busts one of Clarissa's ribs. Of course, there's a part of me that wonders if maybe she's even strong enough to do so because I think the books have mentioned a few times that Belters just aren't a match for even an average Earther. Much less one in a mech suit with fighting experience. It's a moot thought, really, because Clarissa promptly grabs Naomi's shoulder and breaks it with her mech claw and then hurls her against the far wall. drat! When I read this the first time, I really did feel like this might be it for Naomi. Clarissa turns from Naomi's prone, floating form and gets about halfway out of her mech suit. She plans to sabotage the reactor at a slow enough pace that she can call up Holden and tell him so. Then, Naomi returns, swinging a wrench! Clarissa dodges but it gives Naomi a chance to get the reactor to dump the Rocinante's core and undo any harm Clarissa might do. That's fine -- she can just use one of the torpedoes instead. Clarissa wonders where the other members of the crew are. She manages to get Naomi by the neck, and decides to make it slow and painful. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Twenty-Seven posted:“You’re Naomi Nagata,” Melba said. “My name is Clarissa Melpomene Mao. You and your people attacked my family. Everything that’s happened here? Everything that’s going to happen. It’s your fault.” I feel like this is the strongest sequence of chapters across the three books yet. Even now, I think the fight between Naomi and Clarissa is a real series highlight. It was a chapter I really liked on my first read and one I've been wondering about, but it's still pretty good. So far, I think Abaddon's Gate is coming up better than I remember it. However, I also remember that the last third of the book or so was a bit of a drag, so, it remains to be seen. But so far, just past the fifty-percent mark as we are, I feel like I'd say it's the best of the first three. Will that estimation remain as we go on? I know I opened this post by saying it's a bit bothersome by how it felt like Anna and co. were just kinda sitting around until they had to cross paths but when they do cross paths, it's pretty good!
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Feb 17, 2022 11:47
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Apologies for the delay. I've been paying a lot of attention, perhaps too much attention, to the events unfolding in Europe. We're hitting the part of Abaddon's Gate where my recollection starts getting really hazy. Interestingly enough, this is also the part where I think the novel starts dipping in quality, and it comes right on the heels of my positive points at the end of the previous update. Abaddon's Gate, Chapters 28 - 30 Clarissa runs herself out of juice. Bull and Ashford finally have it out and the latter is just so goddamn crazy. Holden and Miller talk a bunch -- and I'm sort of thinking: 'well, now what?' Chapter Twenty-Eight - Anna We hop to Anna immediately from asking Naomi if she's all right. Anna starts performing first aid and we flashback to Anna's pursuit of Clarissa. Flashbacks are another thing I don't really like, and this chapter is a perfect one for illustrating why: it's needless. The story had established that Anna was going after Clarissa. Her showing up was a fun twist and the particulars didn't really matter. Just about half of this chapter is devoted to telling us how Anna got over to the Rocinante from the Thomas Prince. It feels jammed in there to bulk out the word count for this chapter. So, Anna's shocked Clarissa and knocked out her suit, too. As Anna is helping Naomi with first aid, something happens: Clarissa's exoskeleton reboots and she stands up. Anna and Naomi run for it, hoping to get a gun so they can kill Clarissa. Anna hasn't killed anyone before and doesn't think she can. They reach the airlock and storage lockers and Naomi pulls a handgun. She's never shot anyone either, she says. Remember, Naomi has been depicted as something of a pacifist to this point and has eschewed carrying firearms before. Then Naomi passes out, and Clarissa begins cutting her way through the hatch behind them. Anna, perhaps in something of a call-back to the prologue of Leviathan Wakes, hides with Naomi in a storage locker. Clarissa's cutting tool runs out of juice. She tells them to open the locker. Anna tries to talk it out but Clarissa flips out and begins smashing the door in with her bare hands -- with her combat drugs, she's strong enough to bend "thick metal" and break the door off its hinges. But then, of course, the crash comes, the onslaught ends, and Anna steps out to find Clarissa curled into a ball, in shock. It all feels a bit 'eh' to be honest. It's not exactly not foreshadowed or anything, but Melba's onslaught coming to an end because she used her combat implants even though she didn't really need to... It just doesn't work for me. I think these three chapters all suffer from a similar issue, which I'll mention at the end of this post. Chapter Twenty-Nine - Bull It's a Bull chapter. It's a lot of exposition -- Bull is still in sickbay, Monica is doing Radio Free Slow Zone from the Behemoth, a Martian warship is transferring supplies and crew to the Behemoth, as is the Thomas Prince. The Behemoth's drum hasn't been spun up yet, so, the medical crisis is continuing. Holden's being taken to the MCRN Hammurabi. Sam's doing a bunch of work and Ashford is upset. Bull decides to try hailing the Rocinante. To his surprise, he gets an answer -- from Anna! Anna mentions that she has the woman who tried to kill the crew of the Rocinante and the Seung Un saboteur in custody. Bull asks her to tell her all about it and, after a scene break, we can assume she does. We're introduced to Captain Jakande, then. She's got Holden in her custody which means she's Martian and she has no orders to release him. Bull offers for her crew to come over to the Behemoth in the name of pooling resources but she'll only come over if she can take control of the ship and, as Bull refuses it, in comes Ashford. Ashford is very upset that Bull has disarmed the ship by removing the railguns. This needs to be done to spin up the drum. Bull is also having Sam take apart and rebuild the thrust-gravity water reclamation system and it's implied that he didn't tell Ashford about that either. Bull's also allowed non-OPA personnel to utilize the communication channels of the ship. Bull thinks to himself that Pa allowed all of it. I'm not really sure an XO can authorize all of that but, hey, minor point. Ashford tells Bull that he has exceeded his authority, which is probably correct, and ignored the chain of command -- apparently, Pa hasn't told Ashford any of it. The Captain orders that Bull be placed under a medical coma. Bull promptly gets racist: Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Twenty-Nine posted:“drat right it’s not,” Bull said. “The reason you’re in charge of this mission and not me is that Fred Johnson didn’t think the crew would be comfortable with an Earther running a Belter ship. You got the job because you kissed all the right political asses. You know what? Good for you. Hope your career takes off like a loving rocket. Pa’s here for the same reason. She’s got the right-sized head, though at least hers doesn’t seem to be empty.” Eventually, Ashford is restrained, but he orders the Doctor to place Bull under a medical coma. Bull says that Ashford should be taken into custody, but it's interesting that he doesn't say why. I guess it's self-evident, but still. Pa breaks the deadlock and supports Bull and Ashford prepares to attack her, too before they grab him and drag him away. Bull and Pa chat for a moment -- she's the Captain now, and they may not like each other, but they'll do their best to keep people alive. Okay. The chapter's fine but it suffers because of the aforementioned issues that Ashford is just a thin, uninteresting antagonist. Having him assault a paraplegic in their hospital bed feels like a very cheap and easy way to have him relieved of command. Chapter Thirty - Holden Holden's stuck to the back of a Martian marine as they hoof it out of the station. Miller's not popping in and he can't get through to the Rocinante. He runs out of air and the Martians wait for him to be, like, at the last possible second of breath before giving him oxygen. We love our Martians, don't we folks? Holden asks the marines if he can contact the Roci -- he's refused, of course. Back on the Hammurabi, and yes it's about that abrupt, he meets Captain Jakande who tells him what's up and asks him what the heck he was doing with the Ring Station. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter 30 posted:“This is going to sound a little strange,” he said. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter 30 posted:He’d thought he was important. That he was special and chosen, and that what had happened to him and his crew had been dictated by a vast and mysterious power. He’d misunderstood everything. Doors and corners, Miller had said, and because he hadn’t puzzled out what the dead man meant by it, they’d all come through the Ring. And to the station. His relief and his growing self-disgust mingled with every phrase. He’d been a fool dancing at the edge of the cliff, because he’d been sure that he couldn’t fall. Not him. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter 30 posted:For a fraction of a second, his brain tried to fit two images—Miller floating beside him and the too-small cell—together and failed. The flesh on his back felt like there were insects crawling all over it. The two things couldn’t both be true, and his brain shuddered and recoiled from the fact that they were. Miller coughed. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter 30 posted:“I’m not sure it matters. I’m not in much of a position to set policy,” he said. I think these chapters all suffer from the same issue. I get the distinct feeling that all the opening parts of the story have basically been resolved, but not in a way that feels particularly interesting. Clarissa's quest for revenge has petered out and she's in custody. The "intrigue" between Bull and Ashford ended up with Ashford flipping out and assaulting paraplegic Bull, and now he's in custody. The whole Holden and the protomolecule thing has just kind of deflated and it'd had sort of relied on Holden making one hell of an assumption to make it all work in the first place. It's sort of like: what happens next? Will Holden be able to get everyone to turn their reactors off? Which is way less of an interesting hook than, like, will Holden get murdered by Clarissa Mao? What I'm wondering is what parts, if any, of Abaddon's Gate were rewritten when this series was extended. My hunch, and I feel like this is somewhat bolstered by parts of the final book and things the authors have said about it, is that it might just be the whole back half of the book. Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 12:23 on Mar 4, 2022 |
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Mar 1, 2022 12:35
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Milkfred E. Moore posted:
Antagonist, to correct your typo. Also, it does sound like this would normally be the wrapup for a book. All the antagonists are defeated summarily. Honestly, Bull's story seems extremely uninteresting since his entire plot is just "guy doesn't like what he is doing, and the moment he does something to stop Bull, he is instantly defeated." Clarissa's was a lot more interesting but just kind of abruptly stops. Anna and Bull actually feel relatively pointless as their own distinct plots.
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Mar 3, 2022 23:42
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Kchama posted:Antagonist, to correct your typo. Yeah, it really is a recurring issue that Anna and Bull are basically isolated from the rest of the plot -- Anna especially. Anna crosses paths with Clarissa in Chapter 12 but otherwise essentially doesn't have anything to do with the plot until Chapter 27. It's unfortunate because I do like her as a character. If there's one thing I didn't expect to come out of Abaddon's Gate with, it's how much I like Anna. The story just gives her absolutely nothing to do and little reason to care about her chapters. She's like a fun departure from The Expanse's usual cast. But it also feels like maybe they came up with the idea 'and the mild preacher lady catches Clarissa from behind -- bam!' but didn't really do anything else with her before that point. Meanwhile, Bull is slightly more relevant but, as you point out, virtually all of his chapters are similar. There's a problem, Bull gets Sam to fix it, Ashford grumbles about it. There's a part of me that finds it somewhat reminiscent of Battlestar Galactica. As I was reading Chapter 29, I found myself thinking of the Battlestar episode The Captain's Hand where Lee Adama has a confrontation with the out-of-his-depth Commander Garner. I'll quote the bit from Abaddon's Gate first: Abaddon's Gate, Chapter 29 posted:“You know it’s true,” Bull said, shifting to face Pa. Her expression was closed, empty. “If he’s in charge of this, he’s going to get it wrong. You’ve seen it. You know—” Battlestar Galactica, 2x17 posted:APOLLO: With all due respect, sir. But if this is a Cylon trap, then we are entering blind! We should send a force recon-- Meanwhile, Ashford is just incompetent from top to bottom. I don't think he does anything that could be considered reasonable and he doesn't get a single win. Unlike Garner, there's no consideration for his perspective. He's just a political appointee given the ship due to his race. Which is something of a rough thing to put in your novel -- not only is he a political appointee and not 'deserving' of the position, he's horrible at his job, too. And this is, of course, a bit of an issue with every antagonist in the first three books: they're all just bad at their jobs. Then, to make matters worse, Ashford just hands Bull his win on a silver platter. Remember, Bull's had the most chapters in this novel so far. You could argue that this is more Bull's novel than Holden's at this point. Ashford attacks a paraplegic in full view of a surgeon, guards, and his XO and is relieved of command. Pa even throws in a quick comment that Ashford's been drinking heavily which, I'm fairly, sure didn't come up at all before this chapter. So, it feels like the Ashford and Bull part of the novel has just... ended because Ashford threw himself down the stairs. What's a little annoying about it is that there's a bunch of different ways this could've gone. I try to avoid 'wouldn't it be better if...' critique but just picture a version of this where Ashford's word goes, everyone complies because he's the CO of the ship, then the last part of the chapter is Bull slipping into unconsciousness. Next chapter, it's the doctor and Pa waking him up and being like, poo poo dude, you were right, Ashford has to go. But I think some of this stems from certain things coming later, like Ashford and Clarissa teaming up (because of course they do) and therefore the story has to contort itself somewhat to make it fit. The other thing is like... Bull's a racist. I said back in Chapter 9 that you get the impression that Bull holds a negative view of Belters. I pointed out that the TV series, who drops slurs and is more open about his racism, feels far more appropriate -- which is an odd thing to say! So, and this is another odd thing to say, the moment Bull is dropping those proper-sized head comments (guess he's into phrenology...) it's like, yes, there we go, finally, that's interesting, this is who Bull is! How much of Bull's dire opinion of Ashford comes from him actually being incompetent versus Bull's own Earther biases? It'd also add some texture to their conflict. Okay, maybe Ashford isn't great at his job, but Bull is a racist who thinks the job is owed to him because he's Fred's buddy. Can you really blame the guy for not knowing how to handle everything to do with the Ring, which is a series of events you can very safely file under Things That Have Never Happened Before? My final point, and I won't touch on this one too much, comes back to the nature of this as a trilogy that became a series. From memory, and I'll see if I can dig up the evidence to make sure I'm not making this up, the Coreys have mentioned that Abaddon's Gate was pretty heavily re-written as the series was extended out during the production of the novel. I'm not basing this off much more than a general dissatisfaction with the final book and some points raised in this one, but there's a part of me that wonders if bits of the final book were supposed to take place in this one, especially when considered in light of the supposed 'secret plot' behind the series. Which, and this is very big spoilers but (in my opinion) is based more on the authorial 'word of God' than anything from the text: the protomolecule manipulates people into engaging with the Ring Station as a way to resurrect the builder species -- it's a trap. I feel like it lines up with some of Holden's thoughts (that notion of being manipulated by the protomolecule to come there) and some of what proto-Miller has said (that it's a trap and you just rushed right into it). Another thing that stuck out to me with proto-Miller is how the moment it knows what went down, it tells Holden he has something else to do in order to 'take down the lockdown.' But, again, I don't know and it may just be that I'm leaping at shadows and assigning too much importance to some lines of the novel. But this is also the novel that introduces the notion of the hive-minded species and the substrate and so on, things that play into that 'secret plot.' Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 12:39 on Mar 4, 2022 |
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Mar 4, 2022 12:22
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Abaddon's Gate, Chapters 31 - 37 The plot kind of goes on hold so the characters can talk about things for entirely too long. Then, a mutiny! Talk about a slow zone! Chapter Thirty-One - Melba The easiest way of summing up this chapter is with statistics. For two thirds of the word count, this chapter is about our perspective character, Clarissa, just not responding to anything. She's either lost in her thoughts, in the grip of a depressive episode, or feigning catatonia depending on your perspective. She floats in the cell and broods while people try to get her to do something and otherwise speak at her. The crew of the Behemoth have spun up the drum. Clarissa's been locked in a veterinary ward for large animals. There's one other man in the cells with her and I'm genuinely surprised and appreciative of how the Coreys don't spell out that it's Ashford. People are visiting him and mentioning words like mutiny but Clarissa doesn't pay much attention. Bull calls her up once and gives her the news: they know who she is and what she's done and all about her fancy implants. Bull mentions that the UN will blow her brains out but if she works with him then maybe they can avoid it. Clarissa ignores him. Ashford calls out, asking if she can help him break the doors down with her implants. He comes across about as desperate and insecure as he always has: Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Thirty-One posted:“Are you there? Are you awake? I saw them bring you in. Help me, and I’ll help you. Amnesty. I can get you amnesty. And protection. They can’t extradite from Ceres.” Anyway, Clarissa breaks down and cries for everyone she's hurt and says she's become a bad person and Tilly says that there's something she'd like her to talk to. No prizes for guessing who that might be. But all in all, this doesn't break our boring streak. Chapter Thirty-Two - Anna We swap over to Anna. She's just arrived on the Behemoth and it's been a full day since the events on the Rocinante (they left her there for that time after taking Naomi and Clarissa away which feels, I don't know, strange?) She's met on the Behemoth by Hector Cortez, that famous celebrity minister. They walk and talk and Cortez mentions that he thinks that the slow zone is a realm of evil. And I think this is somewhat interesting in retrospect of some revelations in the last novel, but I'll save that for later. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Thirty-Two posted:“The devil is here,” Cortez said. He shook his head at Anna’s protesting frown. “Not some cartoon demon. I’m not a fool. But the devil has always lived in men when they reach too far, when they fail to ask if they should do something just because they can do it. We have—I have fallen into his trap. And worse, we have blazed the trail to him. History will not remember us kindly for what we have done.” Anna heads to the refugee camp within the Behemoth's drum section and encounters Chris Williams. You might be thinking, Milkfred, why are you acting like we know who that is? You haven't mentioned him until now. And that's true! Chris Williams is a character who last showed up in Chapter 12 and was part of one of Anna's faith sessions and was generally unremarkable that I basically skipped over mentioning it. Anyway, Chris lost his left arm and left leg in the slowdown incident. Mention is made of another marine dying, who Anna thinks as her angry marine -- again, a character last seen in Chapter 18 and didn't even rate a name then. So, after that, Anna just kind of leaves and runs into Tilly. Unsurprisingly, Tilly tells her that she's going to help Clarissa and, unsurprisingly, Anna agrees. Chapter Thirty-Three - Bull Bull's still in sickbay but, now that they have spin gravity, they can get him out of bed. And it's important that they do because otherwise he's going to get pneumonia. But the Behemoth is doing better -- people are mostly stabilized or dead as opposed to everyone being sort of dying slowly or dead. Captain Jakande gives him a call and refuses to hand over Holden, even though two thirds of her crew are over on the Behemoth. She refuses on the grounds that she can't contact command to authorize it. Bull is worried that someone on the Martian ship may get upset and kill Holden but figures that the Martians will only obey him under threat of force. Sam shows up, and she's got a present! She's brought Bull a lifting mech which Bull will be able to operate with a joystick control. Not as comfortable as a wheelchair but a bit more accessible on a warship. Bull can move around again. As they're walking around one of the wards, Naomi calls out to Sam and it's a nice little scene. The rest of the Roci crew, Amos and Alex, are there too. Everyone's okay, although they maybe got busted up by the slowdown. Bull comes up with a plan -- he wants Sam to rig the Behemoth's comm laser into a weapon. Sam says she can do it but rightfully points out that the Ring Station can turn off inertia when it feels threatened -- who's to say it won't turn off photons if they weaponize light? Also, she'll only take such an order from Captain Pa because the last time she listened to Bull she got thrown under house arrest. So, Bull calls up Pa -- but whether she agrees or not is left on a cliff-hanger... Chapter Thirty-Four - Clarissa Back to Clarissa, whom the novel headings are referring to as Clarissa and not Melba anymore. Anna comes by to talk with her and tries to get a private conversation as her priest but the guard is having none of it. Ashford speaks up and says that they can go in the old meat freezer, and the guard complies. Clarissa notes that the freezer is larger than her old room on the Cerisier. Anna says she should've helped her before the Seung Un blew up. She's scared of Clarissa but is doing her best to look past it. Clarissa offers up her confession -- she sabotaged the Rocinante and the Seung Un, she killed Ren and some people back on Earth. I don't know whether it's me or a sign of the Coreys not properly making Anna and Clarissa different enough internally, but reading this chapter I forgot whose head I was in and was jarred out of the chapter by Clarissa's mental italics when I thought it'd been an Anna chapter. Anyway, they talk for a bit and it's all okay. Anna asks if Clarissa wants to be redeemed but Clarissa says that being sorry doesn't make it okay. The guard comes in to get them and Anna says she'd like to talk to Clarissa again. Clarissa is like, well, whatever. Chapter Thirty-Five - Now, this is interesting. My copy of Abaddon's Gate has this chapter down as a Bull chapter and this threw me pretty hard given that the first lines are: "Bull wasn’t in his office when she arrived. A muscular young woman with a large gun on her hip shrugged when Anna asked if she could wait for him, then ignored her and continued working." So, this is actually an Anna chapter. She sits around and listens to Monica interview an Earther who talks about how the events in the slow zone will basically herald a new era of understanding and such on Earth. I'm pretty sure this guy is the political artist who lit himself on fire back in Chapter 8. Bull shows up. Turns out the Martians are coming over because the comm laser plan worked but he wants them to surrender their awesome power armor when they come aboard. Anna asks Bull what the plan is with Clarissa. Nothing good, according to Bull. Anna brings up the spacing thing and asks him not to kill Clarissa. Anna says she deserves a trial. Bull says: Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Thirty-Five posted:“When Holden starts telling people who actually sabotaged the Seung Un—and he’s Jim Holden, so he will—the UN people are going to ask for Clarissa. And if they give me enough that I can get everyone here, together, and safe until we can get out of this trap, I’m going to give her to them. Not off the ship, but in here.” Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Thirty-Five posted:“Forget God for a moment,” she said. “Do you believe in the concept of forgiveness? In the possibility of redemption? In the value of every human life, no matter how tainted or corrupted?” This chapter might be the shortest one in the whole series, just barely cracking over 2000 words. Chapter Thirty-Six - Holden The Martians are taking Holden over to the Behemoth. They're as tough and taciturn as ever. Holden falls asleep on the trip from the Hammurabi to the Behemoth and we get one of those Corey echoes. In this case, a dream like Clarissa had, where the paternal male figure slips between two identities: Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Thirty-Six posted:He slept and woke and slept again. The proximity Klaxon woke him from a dream about making bread with someone who was his father Caesar and also Fred Johnson and trying to find the salt. It took him a moment to remember where he was. Anyway, the Martians bring Holden aboard. Whether the Martians are going to surrender their armor goes unsaid, but it seems like they will. Pa greets Holden and tells him that he can't talk about anything with anyone except Bull or herself. Holden blurts out that he knows how to shut it off, it being the Ring Station and the slow field and everything else, and explains everything to Pa in a paragraph. Holden asks where his crew is and Pa tells him they're in the medical bay. Anna finds him first. They have a brief chat before she asks him not to tell anyone about Clarissa. Holden's like, uh, who is Clarissa and what's she done? Anna tells him that someone attacked his ship and injured Naomi "badly" and that her name is Clarissa Mao. Holden takes it... somewhat oddly. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Thirty-Six posted:The mysterious and powerful Julie. The Julie rebuilt by the protomolecule like his ghostly Miller. The Julie who had hired Cohen the soundman to hack their ship, the Julie he’d sculpted for them later who’d never looked quite right. The Julie who’d been manipulating every detail of his life for the last year just to get them through the gate and down to the station. The reunion scene between Holden and his crew is pretty nice. At the end of it, Anna insists that she needs Holden to stay quiet about Clarissa otherwise she'll be executed. Holden says "Good" and comes off worse than Amos who says "She does kind of have it coming." Naomi says they'll keep quiet. Holden... Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Thirty-Six posted:“I won’t,” Holden said. “We’re talking about an insane member of the Mao clan, the people who’ve twice tried to kill everyone in the solar system, who followed us all the way to the Ring, tried to kill us. To kill you. She blew up a spaceship full of innocent people just to try and make me look bad. Who knows how many other people she’s killed? If the UN wants to space her, I’ll push the drat button myself.”  Well now, this feels closer to the Holden I've wanted to see! How is this little knot going to be navigated? Naomi wants to stay quiet so Clarissa isn't killed, Holden does not. Holden wants to indulge his Miller-esque blood justice ideas, showing that maybe everything in Caliban's War bounced off his self-righteous forcefield. How're Naomi and Holden going to handle this when they're both at such opposite sides? Well, Alex comes in with something that feels like the sidelines of a Twitter argument: Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Thirty-Six posted:“Yeah,” Alex said in his drawling voice. “I mean, Naomi only got beat half to death. She can cut this Clarissa slack, it’s no big deal. But the captain’s girlfriend got hurt. He’s the real victim here.” This could also be a much bigger scene than it is. Have Naomi and Holden throw down verbally. Maybe hint at the idea that Naomi has the empathy for Clarissa that she does because of her past that she's been trying to escape from. Maybe confront Holden with the fact that he's cloaking his desire for revenge in the façade of justice-for-all. Maybe bring up the point that, no matter how many individuals they've killed, just what exactly has changed for the better? Have the characters pressure each other a bit. Holden and Naomi should know how to solve this, even if it gets heated! Just get into the weeds a bit, Corey! But, in another nice moment, Holden does say: Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Thirty-Six posted:“Wow,” he finally said. “Sometimes I am just a gigantic rear end in a top hat.” Chapter Thirty-Seven - Clarissa Clarissa is (still) brooding in her cell. It's a bit, uh, Myspace profile title in intensity. "Hating herself had a kind of purity she found appealing." "She could live in the flames and know she deserved to burn." She's started watching Ashford, though. A lot of people have been coming to see him. UN officers, Behemoth crew members, even Martians. She begins to think that the priest and Tilly have been playing mind games with her. She works herself into an agitated state because Anna never came back for another talk but I'm also not sure at all how long it's been since they talked the first time. A few days? Clarissa thinks she could warn them about the imminent mutiny, but she's not going to. Father Cortez comes to see her and talk about recruiting her. Clarissa says she didn't join because his promise of amnesty was a lie. Cortez thinks his decision to lead this religious group to the Ring was a mistake given the, y'know, widespread death and pain and everything. He also says that none of them will be having amnesty because their plan is to destroy the Ring. Yeah, it's about that sudden. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Thirty-Seven posted:“Captain Ashford’s freedom is my doing because he and I have come to a meeting of the minds that I could not manage with the present captain. When they began to bring the crews of the various ships together here, they did it in part by creating a weapon.” If they destroy the gate, Clarissa points out, they'll be on the wrong side of it. But that's okay. By destroying the ring they'll save humanity and be cut off from everyone back in Sol. But they'll maybe even be killed for what they've done to strand everyone in the slow zone and thereby find some measure of absolution. Honestly, it's a pretty interesting plan, but also odd. Like, it seems pretty clear that people may not be so willing to go along with the Ring destruction plan and might just be saying so to get control of the Behemoth back. But it's a pretty cool plot idea, rife with division and intrigue and struggles for control. Will future chapters explore this? I honestly can't recall. Cortez says they need Clarissa due to her mods. She might die in the cell or die in the mutiny but only one of those deaths will have meaning. And everyone she has killed and everything she has done will have happened for that reason, too. Clarissa agrees to help. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Thirty-Seven posted:“I’m not afraid,” Clarissa said. Cortez looked over at her, a smile in his eyes. When he met her gaze the smile faltered a little. He looked away.
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Mar 8, 2022 09:08
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Abaddon's Gate, Chapters 38 - 42 The mutiny happens. A bunch of people get shot, and the mutineers almost immediately realize that, oops, maybe Ashford wasn't a good bet. However, we also get what's perhaps one of the most memorable moments in the whole series. Also, oddly, my eBook copy has every mention of 'Forty' in the chapter headings spelt as 'Fourty.' Chapter Thirty-Eight - Bull Bull's not doing so good. His spine isn't getting better and it's getting less likely they can make it better. The Behemoth is now host to most of the people in the flotilla, the other ships just have skeleton crews. After he's met with the doctor, Bull gets called by one of his people -- they've just lost the security office. Bull knows what it is and tells Corin that they need to contain the situation. The two people who took over the security office were Ashford's guards, so, Bull reckons that he's loose. He calls Pa and lets her know. Then he calls Sam and things go from bad to worse -- Ashford has just taken engineering. He has, by Sam's reckoning, two dozen people with guns. Sam lets Bull know Ashford's plan: supercharge the comm laser and take out the Ring. Bull narrowly escapes Ashford's people taking over the medical centre. He meets up with another of his people, Serge, who informs him that Ashford has about a third of their security force and a bunch of people from the other ships. They can't raise Pa. Serge wants to take some teams and secure the drum. If they find Ashford, what should they do? Bull says they don't have permission to kill him, but they'll probably be forgiven if one's finger slips. All in all, a decent chapter, I think. Chapter Thirty-Nine - Anna Anna's just finishing up a congregation. She goes off to get a drink with Tilly. After they drink and we get some entertaining-if-unnecessary stuff about how Tilly is paying for moonshine and dry ice in such conditions (she's rich and paying with IOUs), they go out to get food and run into a dozen people with guns. With rifles and shotguns, in fact. Then, here comes Serge with his half a dozen people, and they've only got hand guns. Even Anna realizes this isn't a good match-up, and it isn't. Serge asks Ashford's people to ditch their guns, and one of them shoots him in the head. It's not as effective as one might think, given to both how the Coreys describe it with that cold clinicism that suits a character like Amos but I'd argue doesn't suit Anna, but also that it kind of makes Serge look like an idiot. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Thirty-Nine posted:“Not anymore,” she replied and in one quick movement shifted her rifle and shot him in the head. A tiny hole appeared in his forehead, and a cloud of pink mist sprayed into the air behind him. He sank slowly to the floor, an expression of vague puzzlement on his face. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Thirty-Nine posted:Cortez stood up and called to the people waiting outside. A Belter with protective chest armor and a rifle came into the tent. Chapter Forty - Holden Meanwhile, Amos is telling Holden that there's a lot of armed guys going past and something's up. Holden's a little confused because the way Naomi told it, there'd already been a mutiny. I like that little bit, it's a nice little reminder that Holden and co. don't really have the view of Bull and such. Unfortunately, the Rocinante crew is not in good shape. Alex got thrown face first into a cockpit viewscreen and his skull is being held together with glue. Naomi can't walk. Amos has a broken left arm and a lot of busted ribs. They need someone who can help them, and Naomi calls up Sam. Sam calls Naomi "Knuckles" which is a nickname that hasn't come up before. It'd happened over the past year and Holden doesn't know why and Naomi can't explain. Sam offers them a hiding spot where she'll come and help them out ASAP, an unused storage space. Amos leads the group with Holden pushing Alex and Naomi on the same gurney. The Behemoth is filled with injured people. A lot of people look their way, including guards, but no one seems to care. But then a pair of OPA goons wander up and... Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Forty posted:They paused, looking over Naomi and Alex snuggled up in the rolling bed. One of them smirked and half turned to his companion. Holden could almost hear the joke he was about to make about two people to a bed. In preparation, he smiled and readied a laugh. But before the jokester could speak, his companion said, “That’s James Holden.” Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Forty posted:“Not everyone in the OPA hates us,” Holden replied, moving around the gurney to help Amos drag the unconscious men into the closet. “We did good work for them for over a year. People know that.” Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Forty posted:“I’ve seen what this station does to threats,” Holden said. “Miller showed me, when I was there. All this slow zone stuff is non-lethal deterrent as far as it’s concerned. If that big blue ball out there decides us monkeys are an actual threat, it will autoclave our solar system.” Sam is like, yeah well, I'm not sure I buy the stuff with the aliens and ghosts or whatever, but I've been sabotaging the work for as long as I can. She can buy them maybe thirty-six hours before Ashford can fire his weapon. Holden and co. will try to link up with Bull and help out his counter-counter-mutiny efforts. Chapter Forty-One - Bull Bull's in one of the storage cells. Holden shows up with Amos in tow and promptly explains the situation much as he did to Sam -- station on lockdown, protomolecule builders eaten by monsters, Ring Station can annihilate Sol if it thinks it is under threat, and so on. Bull decides that Holden is basically a rattlesnake. Bull rightfully asks Holden how does he know he's right? After all, what if the alien is bullshitting him? Holden makes the solid argument that even if that's bullshit, Sam says Ashford will melt half the ship if he fires the laser, so, they have to stop him for that reason. I like that little wrinkle. It would've been easy to just have Bull shrug and go, well, okay Holden. The plan is to retake engineering. If they can grab engineering, they can pump nitrogen into the bridge and knock everyone out and take out the mutineers that way. Bull leads Holden and Amos to the broadcast centre of Radio Free Slow Zone and takes stock of the situation -- he has about thirty people, Serge is dead, and Pa is alive but pretty banged up. He gets Monica to relay what's happening on the Behemoth: Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Forty-One posted:“Here’s what I need you to do. I want you reporting on what’s going on here. Broadcast. The Behemoth, the other ships in the fleet. Hell, tell the station if you think it’ll listen. Captain Ashford was relieved for mental health reasons. The trauma was too much for him. He and a few people who are still personally loyal to him have holed up in command, and the security team of the Behemoth is going to extract him.” But they need to get the one person who might be able to get on the comms and convince people to do something stupid. No, not Jim Holden. Anna. Chapter Forty-Two - Clarissa Ashford, Clarissa, Cortez and co. are taking the elevator to command. Clarissa knows that she's just a useful trophy to Ashford, a symbol of how strong his control over his ship now is. The fact that everyone looks at her like Melba, the crazy implant assassin, makes Clarissa feel like she is Melba. When they reach the command deck, it's beautiful. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Forty Two posted:The command decks were beautiful. The soft indirect lighting took everyone’s shadows away. Melba launched herself after Ashford and the Belters, swimming through the air like a dolphin in the sea. Two hours pass. Then there's an issue with the targeting system, and that's three more hours. Then there's an electrical short and that's two more hours. Ashford's mood gets worse. There's a bit here that stuck out to me, though. As they're wiling the hours away, Clarissa examines some of the access panels. She's surprised and astounded by how the Earth ships and Belter ships contain the same parts, and she makes the analogy that it's like how Earthers and Belters bleed the same blood. Disregarding that simile because a ship isn't a natural thing, but there is something there that is disappointing because the Coreys didn't really go far enough with it. Yes, the ships contain the same parts. But why do they? Well, if we remember Caliban's War, Bobbie mentions that Mao-Kwik built and ran freighters for both Earth and Mars. These ships don't just end up with the same parts. Someone is profiting from those ships being made from the same parts and, almost certainly, being blown up in police actions or open war. One of those people involved would be Clarissa's father. How much of Protogen's stealth warships were made from Mao-Kwik parts, y'know? I really wish the Coreys had done more with this. It would've been an interesting thing for Clarissa to grapple with -- she's already turning against her father! Grappling with her father being part of the military-industrial complex, of playing both sides for his profit margins, or happily selling parts and weapons to people who make ships to hurt humans, could've been really neat. Like, it isn't just that he was playing with the protomolecule. One could argue that the protomolecule experiments grew out of Mao-Kwik's normal operations, a new way to profit off the conflict between Earth, Mars and the Belt. It might be a different, more radical story but I think it might've been really compelling if Clarissa was like, wow, the Behemoth/Nauvoo, the greatest achievement of the Mormons, is still stamped in places with the atrocities of my father. But, then again, this is The Expanse and the answer to Admirals being war-like was to hire more female ones, so, hey. Anyway, Ashford's really pissed off now. He orders his people to bring Sam and her second, one Anamarie Ruiz, to come up to command. Cortez asks what's up but Ashford says it's fine. Sam and Anamarie arrive. Ashford points out that they're on their "fourth" last-minute delay. Sam says that she needs to be as thorough as possible given that they're doing something they're only going to get one shot at. Ashford asks simply: you said we were ready to fire in two hours and that was two hours ago, well, are we ready to fire? Sam says... No. Because now she needs six and a half hours to upgrade the reactor's breakers and replace some cabling. Ashford springs his trap and asks Anamarie whether she agrees with the Chief Engineer's assessment, and she does not. Anamarie says they can use conductive foam instead of replacing the cabling, and that'll only take two hours: Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Forty-Two posted:Ashford drew a pistol. Almost before the chief engineer’s eyes could widen, the gun fired. In the tight quarters, the sound itself was an assault. Sam’s head snapped back and her feet kicked forward. A bright red globe shivered in the air, smaller droplets flying out from it. Violent moons around a dead planet. Anyway, Sam's death was genuinely shocking on my first read through and I think it's still a very effective scene now. At the start of this post, I said that it's one of the most effective moments in the series, and I stand by it. The execution of Sam Rosenberg is great drama and a terrible end to a lively, fun character. I don't think there's a single person who reads this book who isn't shocked and angered by this moment. If you didn't hate Ashford before, you do now. I think it's also one of the most shocking moments because it's one of the few moments where I can recall a character dying and dying without fanfare. She just dies because she maybe didn't think Ashford would shoot her for her espionage. It's a great way to not only up the stakes but sell the danger to all of the cast as the mutiny kicks into gear. The tragedy of it is that I think this is maybe the only time a character dies like this. From Book 4 onward, I can't really recall any of the main cast being imperilled or otherwise feeling like they were in danger. A fairly major character dies in Book 6, and another more prominent one in Book 8, but I don't really think those moments are nearly as effective as the death of Sam. There's also another character who dies in Book 8 and should stay dead but doesn't. Otherwise, I think that's just about it for what I guess we could call severe narrative consequences. I'm not sure why this is. I imagine some of it comes down to this book being the big climax for the initial trilogy. After this, the series took off and I think the Coreys stopped taking as many risks. I think they really wanted to please fans, for better or worse. But that's a bit outside the scope of these chapters and something we can discuss as we get further in. Anyway, yes, I think Sam's death is a great moment and I wish the novels had been more willing to kick the audience in the heart like this. Of course, to play devil's advocate, I think you could make the argument that of course the spunky redhead lesbian tomboy engineer who may or may not have had sex with Naomi ('Knuckles') would be the character to bite it so the authors can sell to the predominantly male readership that poo poo just got real. Everyone loves Sam, so, killing her off is a very easy way to get the audience energised and invested. Anyway, Clarissa thinks that Ashford enjoyed the psychological terror he inflicted by shooting Sam. Cortez is like, oh my God, Ashford, what have you done? Yeah, what a surprise, Cortez -- the guy who been an incompetent weirdo for the whole story turns out to be really into public executions! Clarissa leads Cortez to the bathroom. She thinks Sam looks like Anna and doesn't think she deserved to die. Cortez composes himself, saying that he just wasn't ready to see it. Clarissa says: Chapter Forty-Two posted:“If we’re all sacrifices, it doesn’t matter when we go,” Clarissa said. “She went a little before us. We’ll go a little later. It doesn’t even matter if we all go willingly to the altar, right? All that matters is that we break the Ring so everyone on the other side is safe.”
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Mar 13, 2022 06:23
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Posting here to remind you that I really like what you're doing. I've been busy and quiet, so I haven't responded, but know that I am eager for more from you.
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Apr 4, 2022 00:58
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Kchama posted:Posting here to remind you that I really like what you're doing. I've been busy and quiet, so I haven't responded, but know that I am eager for more from you. Thanks! I'm hoping to get some more chapters done tonight.
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Apr 4, 2022 06:16
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Abaddon's Gate, Chapters 43 - 45 The mutiny or counter-mutiny or counter-counter-mutiny continues. Our heroes prepare to put the plan to retake the Behemoth into action and everyone gets ready to go over the top. Then they do. Chapter Forty-Three - Holden Holden's hanging out in the Radio Free Slow Zone offices. He's a bit upset by the drab nature of what would've been colonial administrative offices. It's one of those Expansian anti-comments on human nature. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Forty-Three posted:The Mormons had been planning to run the human race’s first extrasolar colony from a place that would have been equally at home as an accounting office. It felt anticlimactic. Hello, welcome to your centuries-long voyage to build a human settlement around another star! Here’s your cubicle. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Forty-Three posted:“If you die,” Holden said, “can I have all your stuff?” Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Forty-Three posted:“Then you kill him,” Amos said, his words terrifyingly flat and emotionless. “None of this trial bullshit. No righteous man among the savages bullshit. You loving kill him, or so help me God..." Bull calls everyone over and explains the plan: in thirty minutes, Bull will take a team (including the Rocinante crew) to engineering. Once they have engineering, Monica will broadcast and tell everyone to kill their reactors. Anna will help out because everyone likes Anna. The target is two and a half hours away. Bull expects that Ashford will launch a strike on the broadcast office the moment the broadcast goes out -- Amos and the rest of Bull's people will hold the line. With all that done, they take control of the ship and get back to Sol. Then, Bull's new second in command, Corin, shows up with four Martian marines. It's Sergeant Verbinski, the guy who led the operation to capture Holden. He says he wants to sign on, and that's about it. Not a bad chapter. Just one of those necessary setup ones. Chapter Forty-Four - Anna Anna's not taking it as well as the action heroes. She wishes she could've reached Cortez, but Tilly says it'd be better if he was dead and that he doesn't deserve Anna's sympathy. Anna argues that he does. That Cortez is afraid, that Ashford is afraid and humiliated, and just about everyone is in the same boat. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Forty-Four posted:“This isn’t about good guys and bad guys,” Anna said. “Yes, we’ve picked sides now, because some of the actions they are about to take will have serious consequences for us, and we’re going to try to stop them. But what you’re doing is demonizing them, making them the enemy. The problem with that is that once we’ve stopped them and they can’t hurt us anymore, they’re still demons. Still the enemy.” Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Forty-Four posted:Anna pointed at the people getting ready in the room around them. “How many will be dead by the end of today?” Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Forty-Four posted:"Amos doesn’t process grief well. It usually turns into anger or violence for him. I have a feeling he’s about to process the poo poo out of it on some Ashford loyalists.” Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Forty-Four posted:He was sitting quietly by the front door to the broadcast office, some sort of very large rifle laid across his knees. He was a large man, tall and thick across the shoulders and chest. But with his round shaved head and broad face, he didn’t look like a killer to Anna. He looked like a friendly repairman. The kind who showed up to fix broken plumbing or swap out the air recycling filters. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Forty-Four posted:Amos nodded thoughtfully. Anna waited for the words of encouragement. Chapter Forty-Five - Bull Bull and his group are moving out. Six carts with twenty-five people: Jim, Naomi, and Alex; four Martian marines, twelve of the Behemoth's crew, and five Earth soldiers. There's this odd little line about that last group that feels like an error was made somewhere. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Forty-Five posted:They had some riot armor that hadn’t been taken out of the armory before Ashford’s forces occupied it. Sergeant Verbinski doesn't rate their chances and he's like, hey, if I still had my power armor, I could've done it myself. Suddenly, they come under fire. One of the Martians, Juarez, is a marksman and he shoots a whole bunch of people. In fact, there's a whole bunch of shooting and it is okay in that 'genre action' sense but it doesn't really feel like anyone's in danger and Bull himself is really passive throughout and I feel like maybe this should've been a Holden chapter since Holden would at least have an immediate goal of 'cover Naomi' whereas Bull feels like an observer who sometimes shouts things. Anyway, long story short, the Martians are basically getting Bull's team through the defenders. Ashford's people begun shutting the decompression doors but Naomi manages to break something in one of the wall panels and the door stops closing -- hooray! Unfortunately, the space between the two decompression doors is a bit of a killzone. Luckily, Verbinski has smuggled on-board some 'spine cracker' grenades with a yield of "two thousand kilojoules." I don't know if that's a lot but it's a fun little moment where Bull's like, hey, you smuggled those on my ship? Holden's like, hang on, are we throwing grenades near the reactor? Bull points out that they are, but breaching the reactor is not the worst case scenario -- Ashford killing the Solar system is the worst case scenario. Verbinski's singular grenade clears out engineering. Garza gets shot by Corin. They take six of Ashford's people prisoner and find Ruiz alive. Naomi goes to work shutting things down. She can do it quickl if they mean simply dumping the core, but that'd mean that maybe the Behemoth wouldn't boot up again. Naomi's first priority is getting the laser offline, however, while Ruiz will pump nitrogen into command to put the mutineers (counter-mutineers?) to sleep. Meanwhile, Holden and Corin will go up there to apprehend all the passed out people. But what about Verbinski? Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Forty-Five posted:“You and your people,” Bull said when they were out of earshot. “You did good work back there.”
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Apr 4, 2022 08:31
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Abaddon's Gate, Chapters 46 - 48 Unsurprisingly, the plan to make Ashford and his people visit sleepytown doesn't go off without a hitch. Time gets a bit wonky and there's a bunch more shooting. Chapter Forty-Six - Clarissa The chapter begins with Ashford seeing the broadcast from Monica. Now, I had to pause here and check a few things because something has been bothering me since the end of Chapter 44. At the end of Chapter 44, we see Monica beginning her broadcast. Now, this conflicts with what Bull tells us in the chapter immediately previous: "Once we control engineering, Monica and her team will begin a broadcast explaining to the rest of the fleet about the need to kill the power." Emphasis mine. At that time, the assault team has only just left the broadcast offices. But it doesn't mean much. Maybe Monica is rehearsing or pre-recording bits of it. Then we see in Chapter 45, Bull and co. take engineering from Ashford's people. This brings us to the start of Chapter 46, where Ashford is hearing Monica's broadcast. Now, Milkfred, I hear you saying, what's the issue? Well, the issue is that, at the start of Chapter 46, Ashford's people are still in control of the Behemoth's engineering section. Maybe this comes down to miscommunication between the Coreys (Franck wrote the Anna chapter where we see the broadcast beginning, Abraham wrote the Bull and Clarissa ones.) Maybe it just comes down to a change made in the writing process. It might seem like a small thing, but I feel like this is the sort of thing that could scuttle Bull's strike before it ever begins. It didn't, of course, because we just saw it play out in Chapter 45 and they took Engineering pretty easily. But were Ashford competent (or even just more paranoid) you could very easily see him reinforcing Engineering by guessing that Bull and his people will want to take it. The broadcast starting before the assault team has taken Engineering strikes me as a bit of problem, one that only really works out because the writers never employ competent villains. That, or they simply don't want to take too much time writing these novels. If there's an issue between Abraham and Franck, they might just iron it out as best they can without any significant editing or rewriting. To paraphrase a conversation I had with General Battuta recently, there's an element to these novels that stems from Franck having worked with GRRM: put out one book a year no matter what, don't get too bogged down in thinking about it. Anyway, Ashford's pissed about the broadcast, ranting about how it's his ship and under his control. Cortez points out, like, who cares? Once we destroy the Ring it's all irrelevant. Clarissa states that Ashford is "the father" and "the ship is his house." Which feels odd because I don't think we've seen anything that demonstrates her falling into this sort of weird father-daughter disassociation or otherwise associating Ashford's position with that of a patriarch. Speaking of disassociation, this chapter picks up immediately after Chapter 42. It feels very strange. Because that means the events of Chapter 42 -- Ashford killing Sam, Ruiz being made Chief Engineer -- played out immediately prior to the events of this chapter and what's happening concurrently -- broadcast being sent out and Bull and his team taking Engineering. It feels very messy. I think I've mentioned before that I don't like multiple-perspective stories that run their stories out of sync like this as I think it reflects a lack of planning on the part of the author to weave the various stories into a neat whole. Ashford sends people to go stop the broadcast. Clarissa has a nice moment where she wishes for Anna to get out of there as "God's not going to stop bullets for you." Anna outlines what's up: the Ring Station thinks people are a threat and says that they should shut down their ships, making the argument that the Ring Station basically sees them as an invasion, and that if everyone does that they can go home. Ashford calls up Ruiz who reports that she still has half an hour before the laser is ready to fire. She's still figuring out what Sam did to the laser and whether it might backfire. Ashford snaps "Have we shut those bitches up yet?" because I guess it's not enough for him to be a scumbag drunkard moron but he has to be a misogynist as well. The "suppression teams" are hitting the broadcast office by this point. Lieutenant Williams, who has shown up in some Anna chapters, gets a nice little cameo. Monica mentions that they're under attack while Anna argues that they have to make a choice. Cortez says he respects Anna and Clarissa basically calls him a pessimistic moron which is... somewhat interesting, given that approximately five minutes (but four chapters) ago, she had that fatalistic argument about sacrifice and death not mattering. One of Ashford's people calls out that they're taking fire at engineering and there's a live broadcast of the Martian grenade going off. Ashford yells for Ruiz to fire the laser but there's no connection to fire it with. After fifteen minutes of watching Holden, Bull and the assault team "sweep through" the engineering deck, Ashford finally orders the suppression teams to Engineering. See what I mean about competency? Not to armchair this but, like, I feel like it'd be pretty simple to immediately tell the suppression teams to redeploy (where maybe they'd catch Holden and co. from behind) and re-take the critical part of the ship. Once you have that, you can crush the broadcasters at your leisure, y'know? Ashford's people realize that the atmosphere of the bridge is being altered. Here is another little point I wanted to make about this plan -- in the universe of The Expanse, people regularly suit up when they vent atmosphere in a battle situation, right? Now, I don't really know how a warship like the Behemoth might work, but I assume you'd keep the environmental suits nearby in case you needed them quickly. I feel like it would've been nice to see someone go, hey, what if Ashford and co. can get into space suits before we knock them out? It'd help underline just how desperate this plan is. Not that it matters. Clarissa uses her technical know-how to disable the remote access to the bridge and Bull's plan is immediately screwed. Honestly, I don't quite buy her doing that at this point. It feels like her mental state is ping-ponging around without feeling organic, so to speak. Ashford orders one of his people to go find four people who can wear the Martian powered armor and then go down to Engineering and take control of the ship. Thirty minutes later, four of Ashford's people show up in power armor. They don't have ammo but Ashford tells them to just beat everyone to death. Ashford's people still haven't taken the broadcast station at this point. Cortez asks Clarissa if she believes in redemption but she says she doesn't, just sacrifice. While Anna asks for everyone to turn off their ships, Ashford calls Clarissa over to do... something. Speaking of Ashford, here's a statistic I jotted down over the course of this chapter. Ashford says nine things. He shouts/snaps/demands/yells/barks ten things. I don't know if that qualifies as over use of fancy dialog tags but it definitely stuck out. Chapter Forty-Seven - Holden Holden's moving up the elevator shaft. We get this... odd little bit of Holden's internal monologue. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Forty-Seven posted:But so far they hadn’t reinforced the elevator shaft at all. They’d been expecting to hold both ends, and apparently it hadn’t occurred to them yet that they didn’t. Holden touches base with Bull -- they've got basically everything important except the bridge because they've been locked out. So, Holden and Corin are going to need to fight their way through about fifteen of Ashford's people. Holden says, correctly, that there's no way two people can do that. Bull's about to send people up when Naomi relays that, uh-oh, those powered armored guys are on their way to engineering -- and they're going to come straight down the elevator shaft that Holden's in. It's not a good spot to be in! Even disarmed, the power armor is strong enough to rip Holden apart and tough enough to shrug off anything he and Corin can throw at them. Holden reflects on his life and I won't say it doesn't add up but I'm not sure it really gels with Holden as we've seen him so far: Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Forty-Seven posted:When he thought back to the man he’d been before the death of the Cant, he remembered a man filled with righteous certainty. Right was right, wrong was wrong, you drew the lines thus and so. His time with Miller had stripped him of some of that. His time working for Fred Johnson had, if not removed, then filed down what remained. A sort of creeping nihilism had taken its place. A sense that the protomolecule had broken the human race in ways that could never be repaired. Humanity had gotten a two-billion-year reprieve on a death sentence it hadn’t known it had, but time was up. All that was left was the kicking and screaming. Chapter Forty-Eight: Bull We hop immediately to the marines storming engineering and their initial entrance -- just throwing crash couches around like toys and shrugging off rifle fire is actually pretty strong. One of the dudes in power armor careens into the wall which is a good reminder of what's going on: they're strong as gently caress but they haven't actually used the armor before. Naomi needs three minutes to shut the ship down. Bull doesn't think it's going to happen: "At this point, their best hope was that the enemy force would beat itself to death against the walls." Bull orders Naomi to get out of there and for his people to retreat. Bull gets hit by... something and even re-reading those lines I'm not sure what exactly happened or why it did. Either way, they fall back toward the elevator shaft. But there's a problem: Bull, in his walking mech, won't fit in the shaft. The marines haul him out of it. The power armor goons aren't far behind. The Martian sniper, Juarez, manages to knock out one of the dudes by shooting through his visor. But Sergeant Verbinski gets hit, too -- or had been hit and finally bled out. Bull sends the rest of his people (and Naomi) up to storm command. Bull will stay behind and he takes out the grenades he took from Verbinski, setting them on the shortest fuse. Monica calls up. She tells Bull that she thinks Anna is dead. Bull mentions they've lost Engineering and pretty much everyone is dead. The Behemoth's core has bene dumped by the ship still has power from the electrical grid and it's enough to fire the laser. The power armor goons are getting closer. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Forty-Eight posted:“Monica?” Bull said. “Look, I’m sorry, but I kind of got to go now, okay? You folks just do your best. Hold it together in there, all right? And hey, if it all works out?” Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Forty-Eight posted:“Hey,” Bull said, even though the man couldn’t hear him. “Hold this for me.” All in all though, I think this was a pretty good chapter and overall a decent ending for Bull. There's a real sense that things are going really bad and everything's about to go wrong. It's a feeling that I think these books failed to capture after Book 4, Cibola Burn. But it feels kinda crazy that there's still six more chapters.
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Apr 5, 2022 06:18
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To go a bit further about Bull and his apparent glee at getting to blow up Casimir, it's a strange thing because the only things we know about Casimir are that he is a Europan (so, a Belter) and that he once stank out the office with a bean curd masala. This means all I can think of is that Bull is, at best, basically going "This is for eating vegan, you son of a bitch" or, at worst, is relishing in taking out one more Belter as he blows himself up. Like, I know I've said that more should've been made of Bull's racism but, jeez, maybe not that much. Also, guys, I've screwed up. I can't take credit for this but I can't believe I didn't catch it. General Battuta pointed out something I've missed in regards to a supporting character. We'll get to it in Chapter 53 but we'll see if any of you guys and girls following along are able to figure it out before I get there.
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Apr 6, 2022 04:35
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Abaddon's Gate, Capters 49 - 51 Anna isn't dead and Holden isn't getting anywhere. Clarissa does a thing and the timeline gets out of sync again. Chapter Forty-Nine - Anna Perhaps unsurprisingly, Anna isn't dead. On one hand, it'd be really something if Anna just died in Chapter 48 but that wouldn't fit the tone of these novels and would be rather cruel to the character of Anna. What she is, however, is waking up from being knocked out. The gunfight is still going on. Anna manages to get into cover while Amos and whoever is left hold of Ashford's people. Anna wants to get back on the air and manages it over Monica's protests. In fact, Anna gets on the channel to Holden's assault team. Holden says things aren't going much better -- if someone can't open the bridge doors, the assault is over. Amos does some cool poo poo. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Forty-Nine posted:Amos grabbed the second man through the door and yanked him up off his magnetic hold to the floor, then threw him at his partner. They tumbled off across the room together and then Amos fired a long burst from his weapon into both as they spun. Clarissa wants to know more about that stuff about everyone dying. She says Holden said it and that she's taking it on faith. Cortez jumps on the line and Clarissa tells him what's going on: Anna wants her to open the airlock. Cortez says Anna's just afraid. Anna implores for Clarissa to save everyone, especially the people -- Bull, Naomi, and Holden -- who gave her a second chance. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Forty-Nine posted:“Those are the people I’m asking you to help,” Anna said. “The person I’m asking you to betray is a man who kills innocent people for expedience’s sake. Forget Earth, and the Ring, and everything else you’d have to take on faith. Ask yourself this: Do you want to let Ashford kill Holden and Naomi? No faith. Just that simple question, Claire. Can you let them die? What choice did they make when the same question was asked of them about you?” Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Forty-Nine posted:“Cortez?” Anna said. But when Cortez’s voice came, he wasn’t speaking to her. Chapter Fifty - Holden Hopping back in time, immediately after Bull's sacrifice, Naomi's trying to hack her way into the command deck airlock. Naomi can't get the doors open. Holden's exhausted, emotionally and physically. Holden, Naomi, Corin and two of the Martian marines, including the sniper Juarez, are left. Juarez reports that Bull blew himself up and took out one of the guys in power armor. Unfortunately, it's only bought them a few minutes. Naomi goes off to do something technical. Everyone opens fire on the power armor goons but, of course, don't really accomplish much. Then Naomi's thing pays off: she drops the backup elevator into the non-backup elevator and sends them crashing down onto the power armor guys. Then: Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Fifty posted:Corin, who’d turned to look at the airlock when Naomi mentioned it, said, “Open sesame,” and the outer airlock door slid open. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Fifty posted:When they reached the junction, Juarez signaled the stop, then leaned around the corner. He pulled back and said, “Looks clear to the bridge entry point. When we go, go fast. Stop for nothing. Maximum aggression wins the day here.” Chapter Fifty-One - Clarissa Clarissa has just opened the doors and Ashford is pissed. I like her reasoning. "I didn't kill them," she says, "so you don't get to." Cortez says that she's in distress, Ashford calls for someone to shoot Clarissa, but no one manages to do it in the chaos of Holden's team firing. Clarissa tells Cortez that Holden might've said a lot of things but he's never been a liar. Cortez doesn't really care and says that he'll smooth things over with Ashford and he'll forgive her. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Fifty-One posted:“Who is Ashford to forgive me for anything?” she said. Like her first chapter, I just want to mention again that the Corey style does lend itself well to these moments where Clarissa activates her implants and it's like time slows down. She slams into Ashford, evades the gunfire from some of the goons who notice, and spins away. She finds one of the access panels and, using what Ren has taught her, basically shorts out a component that causes the Behemoth to freak out with a cascading failure. No laser will be fired. Ashford, recovered, doesn't take it well. As Cortez leaps at him with a taser, Ashford swings his gun to bear--and fires. It's a short update because there just wasn't much to say about these chapters. The Coreys tend to write decent climaxes and they've done so here. Everything after this is just the dénouement. Comparing this to the climaxes of the previous two books, I think Abaddon's Gate comes out at the top. It isn't as strong as Miller's stuff in Leviathan Wakes, but Holden's stuff in that was fairly pointless. Caliban's War was fine, but it suffered from Holden's vigilante justice moment (and the artificiality of sending him to the Agatha King) and Bobbie's reckoning against the monster being a bit of a let-down. Abaddon's Gate balances everyone a little better and no one feels like they're just 'bolted on' to someone else's story. Maybe Clarissa's big moment of atonement isn't set up as well as it could be, and maybe Holden feels a little like Franck is really stretching the word count out, and maybe it isn't as written as strongly as it could be, but I think each of the four protagonists generally lands their place. Of the first three novels, I think Abaddon's Gate is one where I'm actually coming out of it with a better impression than what I went in with. Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 01:40 on Apr 7, 2022 |
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Apr 6, 2022 13:19
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Also, did anyone pick up on all the doors and corners stuff that's been going on? Juarez gets shot going around one. Amos kills two dudes who rush into a room. Clarissa's big moment is opening a door. I guess Proto-Miller was right about those being where they get you. But like a lot of things in these novels, I'm not sure if it was intentional or just a happy circumstance.
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Apr 7, 2022 01:47
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Milkfred E. Moore posted:Also, did anyone pick up on all the doors and corners stuff that's been going on? Juarez gets shot going around one. Amos kills two dudes who rush into a room. Clarissa's big moment is opening a door. I guess Proto-Miller was right about those being where they get you. But like a lot of things in these novels, I'm not sure if it was intentional or just a happy circumstance. It's just how it is. Corners and doors are dangerous, and Miller was the kind of guy who would know that kind of thing. Imagine you're entering a room with the intention of shooting me, and I know you're coming. That's not a great situation for you, because you have no idea where in the room I'm going to be and you can't shoot me until you find me and get your gun pointed at me. On the other hand, I already know that you're going to be in the doorway so I'm going to be off to the side somewhere with my gun aimed at the door, probably behind cover of some sort. Corners are similar. I could be behind cover 50 feet down the hall with my gun aimed at the corner you're trying to turn.
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Apr 7, 2022 02:58
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Khizan posted:It's just how it is. Corners and doors are dangerous, and Miller was the kind of guy who would know that kind of thing. Oh, I understand that. This is what I get for phone posting, hah. Even if the reader doesn't, something like that is spelled out in a paragraph in the most recent Clarissa chapter -- Holden can't advance past the corner but neither can Ashford's people, and the latter don't need to because Holden's team will run out of ammo. It's just stuck out to me how much the 'doors and corners' motif has appeared in these climactic chapters. The first mention is in Chapter 16 of this novel. I could've sworn Miller mentioned it in the first two novels but a search isn't finding it, so, maybe he didn't, and I'm not really surprised by that given the general Corey writing style which doesn't really do foreshadowing. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Sixteen posted:“Doors and corners,” Miller said. His voice was soft and rough. “I tell you check your doors and corners, and you blow into the middle of the room with your dick hanging out. Lucky sonofabitch. Give you this, though, you’re consistent.” Chapter 48: Casimir gets blown up after coming through the hatch where Bull is waiting with grenades. Chapter 49: A pair of Ashford's goons rush into a room and Amos, hidden behind the doorway, kills them both. Chapter 50: Clarissa opens the command deck door. Juarez takes a bunch of bullets around a corner. Chapter 51: Holden and his team are caught at a corner. At the same time, it might just be a consequence of the big climax basically being set in a mass of corridors on a spaceship. It feels like it sticks out when compared to the other novels but, at the same time, it doesn't feel like it was a conscious inclusion. But it is there from both authors. Being honest, however, I don't really expect that subtlety from the Coreys and I feel like they'd have Holden mutter something like, "Y'know, an old friend always said I had to check my doors and corners" if they were drawing attention to it. Abaddon's Gate, Chapters 52, 53, and Epilogue. Ashford's plan ends in failure and, with the promise of the gates, the future for humanity is bright -- or is it? Chapter Fifty-Two - Holden Holden's still exchanging fire with Ashford's people when Clarissa knocks the power out. He finds himself on an alien but Earth-like world, and Miller is there. He seems better, more whole, and talks about having a whole bunch more processing power now -- which is why he can beam a whole world into Holden's brain. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Fifty-Two posted:“Am I still in a gunfight?” Miller reiterates the doors and corners thing: Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Fifty-Two posted:“I keep warning you. Doors and corners, kid. That’s where they get you. Humans are too loving stupid to listen. Well, you’ll learn your lessons soon enough, and it’s not my job to nursemaid the species through the next steps.” Hector Cortez seems to be in control of things because he just tasered Ashford who has just shot Clarissa. Holden doesn't really care and wants to get aboard the Roci and get out of there which is understandable, given the circumstances, but feels like another of those moments of Holden just kind of being a casual rear end in a top hat. But he asks whether Clarissa will live and, when Cortez says that Clarissa did everything, Holden just remarks that he guesses he's glad they didn't space her. It's a very sudden end to the chapter, but the real strength of it is what it sets up -- but we'll talk about that after the epilogue. Chapter Fifty-Three - Clarissa Clarissa wakes up somewhere. She knows she's pretty badly hurt and she isn't even well enough to speak. Tilly comes in, and Anna, but not Cortez. At one point, she wakes up to see Holden and his crew. Interestingly, Clarissa likens Amos to "a truck driver" which feels fair, and Alex to a "schoolteacher" which doesn't feel anything like Alex. Anna wants Holden to take Clarissa about the Rocinante but Holden, of course, isn't happy about it. After all, she tried to kill them all, and almost did kill Naomi. Anna points out that she also saved everyone. Holden says that her being a decent human in the end doesn't mean he owes her something. I like Holden here. Okay, he's being an rear end, but it's understandable -- and he's also arguing against Anna who, we've established, is basically the moral voice of reason. Speaking of voices of reason, Amos says this: Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Fifty-Three posted:“Look, Red,” Amos said. “Everybody in this room except maybe you and the captain has a flexible sense of morality. None of us got clean hands. That’s not the point.” While for Holden, it is the point, Amos, Alex and Naomi make what might be a better argument -- transporting her risks dangerous attention from three different legal systems. Anna, and I do still really like Anna, basically pins them: if it's just a matter of risk, how much does she have to pay them to make it worthwhile? She doesn't want to let people kill Clarissa, and she has Tilly on hand to bankroll everything. What if she bought the Rocinante? Holden, being an idiot, tells her it's not for sale. Anna is, of course, saying she'll buy it from Mars. If she can do that, Holden says, then he'll smuggle her out. Now, of course, I'm not sure a Pastor -- even a Pastor with a lot of money -- would be able to purchase a Corvette-class light frigate/corvette fleet escort ship/torpedo bomber which has been established as a cutting edge military vessel. But, whatever, it's a happy ending. Funnily enough, Holden thinks she was bluffing. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Fifty-Three posted:Clarissa held out her hand, astounded by its weight. It took them all a moment to understand what she was doing. Then Holden—the man she’d moved heaven and earth to humiliate and murder—took her hand. Wait, Samantha Rosenberg? Who the hell is Samantha Rosenberg? This is what Battuta brought to my attention. In Leviathan Wakes, Sam is introduced as, well, Sam. We don't even get a surname, actually. She doesn't get one in Caliban's War or a full name either. Then, back in Chapter 5 of Abaddon's Gate, she is called Samara Rosenberg. In Chapter 13, she is also called Samara twice. Here, she is called Samantha and this is what her name becomes for the rest of the series. It's funny. In my head, she's Samara Rosenberg. I guess it's just because it's the first name I heard for her. And with Abaddon's Gate being the first one I read, by the time I hit the later books I'd forgotten that Sam was short for Samara. Back when the Expanse series was airing its first season, I recall some people being upset that they'd renamed Samara to Samantha and that this was another sign of how the adaptation was terrible. Not only is this really funny in retrospect, but it's funny because it appears the authors renamed her themselves--and didn't even realize they'd done it. I'd put it down to authorial miscommunication, but Abraham wrote Bull and Clarissa! You could put it down to Clarissa mishearing or not caring enough to get it right, but later characters also call her Samantha in later novels. As far as I know, the writers have never commented on this and it's never been brought up. The wiki has her listed as Samara Rosenberg for some reason, despite mentioning that she's called Samantha at the end of Abaddon's Gate, in the later novel Nemesis Games, and in the TV series where she appears for one episode and was basically combined with Drummer. I know I say something like 'I feel like the Coreys don't really check things over much' but I feel like a surprise renaming of a prominent supporting character is a fine feather for that cap. Anyway, the memorial service -- Clarissa notes that no one mentions Ashford and no one mentions her. Alex mentions that the Martians are staying behind to survey all the gates. She's wearing a Tachi jumpsuit because, y'know, why mess with a good thing at this point but it also makes sense -- we don't know if they have new uniforms at this point, but she'd only get an old spare. Then there's a little bit of, well, scatological humor between the Roci boys and it kinda sucks and I'm reminded of what Omi said about all the peeing and such. Later, Holden's relaying the news to Fred. Fred apologizes to Holden for what went down between them in Caliban's War which doesn't really feel earned because, well, Fred was in the right and Holden is a self-righteous jackass. Anyway, Fred's keeping the Behemoth where it is in the Slow Zone and he'll offer Holden some contracts to run escorts from Ganymede to the Ring. Holden spots Clarissa watching. Abaddon's Gate, Chapter Fifty-Three posted:“Hey,” she said. Anyway, Clarissa bumps into Amos who compliments how much she messed up the Rocinante. They talk shop for a while before Clarissa asks if she'll be killed when they reach Luna. Amos says, yeah, but that's better than being stuck in a tiny cell for the rest of your life. And then they go to work to fix the Rocinante. "Feels good to fix something," Clarissa says, which is our last line of the chapter. Epilogue - Anna Anna is aboard the Thomas Prince and she's recording a message for her wife. Her baby girl has grown up and is crawling. Anna thinks she did the right thing and that God put her there but that she also has a lot of apologizing to do. Abaddon's Gate, Epilogue posted:Would Nami spend her life at one of those points of light she could see right now? It was possible. Her baby had been born into a world where her parents couldn’t afford to give her a sibling, where she’d have to work two years just to prove to the government she was worth receiving an education. Where resources were rapidly diminishing, and the battle to keep the waste from piling up used more and more of what was left. Abaddon's Gate, Epilogue posted:“I want her to have them,” she said, pointing at the spray of light around her. “My little Nami, I want her to have all of that someday.” There's a lot I want to say at this point, given that this was supposed to be the end of the series and I'm going to make the argument that the series should have ended here for a few reasons, but this post is already pretty long and, so, I'll do it tomorrow. Of course, we'll also look at the TV adaptation of Abaddon's Gate because it's probably the best overall season of the TV show with some of the most dramatic changes from the source material. Among other things, it makes Ashford into a character you love to watch as opposed to one you hate to read (and completely excises Bull!) But as for the novel as a whole, as I mentioned in the previous post, I think Abaddon's Gate is one I've come out of this with a better opinion of. It still has a bunch of issues and it's still got the Corey "style" of being entirely too long, but I really do like how it ends and what it promises to setup. Which makes what comes next a bit of a shame. Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 12:48 on Apr 7, 2022 |
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Apr 7, 2022 12:46
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I imagine saying that a nine-book series that is generally well regarded should've ended at the third instalment might be a somewhat contentious issue, but it's a thought I had while reading the final book, Leviathan Falls, and it's only become more coherent as I've gone through Abaddon's Gate. Everything after this novel is just an awkward post-script, an attempt to drag a three-book story into a nine-book epic, and it just feels unnecessary. Beyond Cibola Burn, which functions as an extended epilogue to the first three novels and is the most unique book in the whole series, I'd argue that there's zero point to books five through nine. See, one of things that I appreciate about Abaddon's Gate is how is how it ends on that note of hope for the future. It might not be particularly strong, of course, nor particularly bright -- but it's fine. I think the need from the Coreys to remind us that maybe there's bad things out there that might make life difficult for baby Nami is a bit, well, edgy. It's that 'everything great actually sucks' energy peeking through the pages. And I think the fact that both Anna and Holden think a new golden age for humanity rests on everyone being able to have as many kids as they want and not, say, ending the exploitation of Belters or reforming the UN welfare state or disrupting companies like Mao-Kwik is a bit of an eyeroll. But that's the Coreys, that's what they do. The characters all get a reasonably decent send-off, too. Maybe Clarissa will make something of herself, maybe she'll be executed -- who knows! Anna will get to go and live out a nice life with her family. Holden and his crew get to go off and have adventures and, much to his chagrin, he's got the ghost of Joe Miller hanging around. I mentioned that there's some strength to the final Holden chapter and it really comes from that thought of, wow, what comes next? What will they find out among the gates? I don't think it's any surprise at all that this series got extended out for so many more books. I just think it's unfortunate where they went. I'll try to avoid particular spoilers, and mark them in spoiler bars if I can't, but there will be unmarked generalities. It's impossible to discuss the ending and what I think of it without going forward from what we might call Initial Ending to the Final Ending. The opening of the gate network is the titular Expanse. This probably seems obvious but I think it's worth pointing out. Humanity, free of being caught in Sol politics, might just have the chance to turn a new corner. Opening the gates is the obvious narrative moment to end the trilogy and series on. But where do you go if you're suddenly expected to write six more books? While I think this is a question the Corey team really struggled with when constructing an overall narrative arc, hence a thirty year timeskip, there's one thing that's clear -- you can't really go anywhere else, ending-wise, except eliminating the gate network (and thereby changing the meaning of the title.) See, for all this hope at the end of Abaddon's Gate, the seeds of apocalypse have been sown. In approximately thirty years the entirety of human civilization is going to collapse. It will be preceded by the four horsemen of the apocalypse -- war, famine, pestilence and death -- and the ascendancy of an authoritarian god-dictator. Millions of people will die in what can only be described as the single worst terrorist act in the history of mankind, and that may be a conservative estimate. Then, later, the collapse itself will hit. It is not a term to use lightly. At the end of book nine, virtually everyone we have come to know is dead and what's left of human civilization is -- except for one cloying moment of fan service -- totally unrecognisable. The lucky ones got to die quickly and the unlucky ones got to grapple with starvation and guilt on the way to an unburied grave. The Coreys skip over this, leaving it all implicit, hoping that fan service and platitudes make up for it. Perhaps the most unfortunate thing is, it did. There was a comment on Reddit that stuck with me, so much that I put it in my Goodreads review of Levithan Falls: "Can't go wrong with an ending that isn't an utter dumpster fire, right?" Because it's not, if only because the Coreys pull out all the stops to trick the reader. But it's absolutely a worse ending than the one we just read. The climactic book of a nine book series is somehow more forgettable than this one. It's not the only issue, of course. The later books put greater emphasis on the protomolecule mystery while the Coreys refuse to, until the final book, really provide any clear information on everything surrounding it. This culminates in the idea of a secret protomolecule gambit which I mentioned back after Chapter 30. Essentially, according to the writers, the protomolecule exists to resurrect the builder species and the ring station is a trap to do so, everything it has done is part of a failsafe plan I've mentioned that some of this feels like it is present around Chapter 30, but everything Miller said in Chapter 52 makes it clear, I think, that there was no such plan at this point in the series. Similarly, I don't think Holden's vision in Chapter 25 really lines up with what the final book establishes. Again, not much of a surprise, the Corey team never really displays much foreshadowing. With six more books on the line, I feel the Coreys knew where the story had to go, if only because there was nowhere else it could go, but lacked the skill and flair to really pull it off. I also think that, by Leviathan Falls, they'd really run out of steam on the series, the writing quality noticeably dips -- but we can talk about that later. It is, however, another point for the argument that the series should've ended here. For better or worse, we've seen everything the Coreys can bring to the table at this point. Every antagonist that follows is basically one of the first three, and they weren't particularly distinct as it was. Additionally, every single protagonist we get from this point fits into one of three categories: returning character, scientist nerd, or military officer. This is what makes Anna so interesting -- she is distinct from what's come before and from what comes later. Having someone like her close out the story is a good moment. That's not to say there aren't good moments in the later books. The fifth book, Nemesis Games, is generally regarded as being the best in the series and I think overall puts the focus on what the Coreys do best. But on the other hand the sixth book, Babylon's Ashes, is easily the worst and the last three don't properly realize a lot of the ideas and concepts in their premise. Regardless, the story has been told. It was told when the ring gates opened up. One can't blame the two writers for leaping on a deal for six more books, but I think when you step back and look at the series it's pretty apparent that this initial ending with the opening of the Expanse was by the best place to leave the story.
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Apr 8, 2022 13:15
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This was a really interesting post and brought up a lot of stuff I hadn't thought about about the overall structure of the series. I like reading your analysis more than the recaps—the recaps aren't by any means bad, but I liked the heavier mix of commentary at the end of AG. I don't know if we'll ever make it to Book 9 but boy oh boy I'm excited to read some thoughts on that. I may be alone in thinking that Book 7 was actually pretty strong as a kickoff for a new arc—curious about that too.
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Apr 9, 2022 01:03
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General Battuta posted:This was a really interesting post and brought up a lot of stuff I hadn't thought about about the overall structure of the series. I like reading your analysis more than the recaps—the recaps aren't by any means bad, but I liked the heavier mix of commentary at the end of AG. We'll make it to the final book because I'm a stubborn jerk, although the recaps will probably get broader. As far as Leviathan Falls goes, I imagine my thoughts will align mostly with my review over on Goodreads (which is climbing up toward the #1 spot on the page, heh) where I call it the most boring epic conclusion I've ever read. I don't think you're wrong about Persepolis Rising. The epilogue of that novel is filled with a grand promise that I don't think the next two books ever really deliver on. I mean, we both appreciate the value of a story where Earth's authoritarian descendants kick in the door after a generation or two  . And the idea of our heroes and their beloved ship now being thirty years out of date is a neat one, too. But then it really just pastes over that whole element, I think, and the eighth book does very little ultimately leaves the final book of a nine book series needing to do an insane amount of legwork to actually end the series.
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Apr 9, 2022 13:11
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TV Adaptation Episodes 30 - 36 Yeah, that's right. The TV series compresses the whole third novel into seven episodes. That's about seven and a half chapters per episode! How do they do that? Well, by basically taking the process we've seen from the first two seasons -- cut out the junk, streamline the plot -- and do it again. But this time, they basically retrofit the whole story. Perhaps the two most significant changes are the wholesale removal of Bull and the radical redesign of Ashford. Ashford, who was never even given a first name in the novel, is now known as Klaes Ashford and he is not the Captain of the Behemoth, but the First Officer. The person in command of the Behemoth is returning character and fan favorite Camina Drummer who inherits much of Bull's role. As an aside, Samarantha Rosenberg remains absent from the series. While Sam is a more enjoyable character than Bull, very little is lost by dividing her elements up between Drummer and Naomi. In the novels, Ashford is a career minded and fairly unremarkable choice for the position. In the series, Ashford is practically a pirate king -- wily and charismatic. Instead of being one of Johnson's people, he is one of Dawes' people, and his position as Drummer's 2IC is meant to bring the two biggest factions of the OPA together as the OPA strives to become a 'respectable' power like Mars and Earth (going along with this, Ashford rocks a new OPA uniform.) As mentioned, Drummer herself inherits much of Bull's role, including the whole business with the drugs in the airlock (where Ashford provides valuable counsel) but with some differences. Ashford is also the one who advocates firing on the Rocinante later, for example. It's probably the biggest change. Gone is the "dynamic" of straight-shooter Bull and his incompetent CO. In its place, we have two characters who are both quite good at what they do, but Ashford has more experience and more savvy. And the clashing OPA sects, together with Drummer being familiar to the audience and Ashford being new, primes the audience to expect that Ashford is up to no good (especially with David Strathairn's incredible performance.) But things aren't so simple. Ashford goes from being, perhaps, one of the worst antagonists in the novels to absolutely one of the best, if not one of the best characters in the whole TV series. I'm not going to go too in-depth here, but I think it's very interesting to see how they, essentially, redeemed a fairly unwieldy story into what many consider the best run of the series. Episode 30: Delta-V
Bobbie showing up again works. Diogo showing up to finally meet his end works. Drummer inheriting Bull's role works -- and did a single person really miss Bull? It's fun to watch Holden grapple with spectral Miller and fun to watch no one believe him. Cutting out all the chaff, whether it's exposition, infodumping, or rather meaningless plot beats works. Much like Bull, did anyone really miss any of that? While I've said before that I do appreciate how the Expanse novels have that 'stand-alone series' element to them, the Abaddon's Gate portion of the series really demonstrates how effective a story can be when you assume the audience understands what has come before. Naomi flat out leaving the Rocinante due to everything that happened, including Holden's 'Ahab' moment, is much better for her character than how she's often depicted. But overall, it's a very strong string of episodes and, as I've said, I think it's so strong that it's a big reason why the series was renewed. But, much like the book series it draws from, I don't think the TV series ever hits such heights again. If it's not a surprise that the series was renewed after season 3, then it's not a surprise why it wasn't after season 6. From here, we go to Cibola Burn which is one of my favorites in the series. I think a lot of fans consider it one of the worst books in the series but, well, I think it's interesting as a final capstone to these first three. It takes what some readers might love about the series and throws it out, while writing a book that -- I think -- is an interesting choice for what would have been a conclusion.
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Apr 19, 2022 09:49
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Thanks for making this thread. I read the first 8 books in the months in the fall leading up to book 9/TV season 6, and you do a great job pointing out the good and the bad.
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Apr 30, 2022 09:06
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pthighs posted:Thanks for making this thread. I read the first 8 books in the months in the fall leading up to book 9/TV season 6, and you do a great job pointing out the good and the bad. Thank you! I'm trying to be as fair as possible. I thought I'd get more done while I was recovering from surgery and, well, let's just say I overestimated how much effort I'd be able to put into anything that wasn't lying around on oxycodone. But, here we are! Cibola Burn is perhaps the most interesting of the books in The Expanse. It is, as I've mentioned before, essentially a fancy extended epilogue that addresses the themes and ideas of the series in a very different setting. It is, also, the most disliked book in the series. On Goodreads, Cibola Burn comes in at 4.20 stars. Somehow, the actual worst book in the series -- Babylon's Ashes -- comes in at 4.23. I think if you asked most fans of the books which is the worst, they'll say Cibola Burn. I don't think this is necessarily wrong per se, because Cibola Burn does have some issues, but those don't tend to be the ones people raise. People just tend to be upset that it's in a different setting to the first three -- but that's why it's interesting! For the sake of reference, here are how the users of Goodreads rated the first four books (and check out that Corey consistency showing up!)
Book 4: Cibola Burn Prologue: Bobbie Draper The prologue to Cibola Burn brings us back to Roberta 'Bobbie' Draper. She's grappling with the idea of a thousand worlds for humanity to spread to, and the fact that whoever had once occupied them is missing. This following quote, according to my Kindle, has been highlighted 233 times and it's one of those Coreyisms: Cibola Burn, Prologue posted:It was astounding, Bobbie thought, how quickly humanity could go from What unimaginable intelligence fashioned these soul-wrenching wonders? to Well, since they’re not here, can I have their stuff? Bobbie walks through the halls of Mars and reflects how it's all emptier than it was because the promise of a new frontier, one people don't need to spend generations terraforming, is causing a bit of an exodus. More will be talked about re: Mars and Martians in the wake of the gates opening up, but it's always struck me as a pale version of Herbert's depiction of the changes to Fremen culture in the Dune series. That said, it's still maybe the most intelligent thing in the whole series. I wish the prologue, and Bobbie, had drawn more of a line between that and the lying beggar instead of letting him feel like a charlatan out for a quick buck. But that comes back to my usual bugbear about systemic issues versus personal failures, etc. Bobbie's family -- nephew, sister in law, brother -- are arguing about just that. Her brother thinks Mars is still important, her nephew does not. It'll be years before there's functioning colonies out past the rings but it'll be generations before the Martian surface is safe to walk on. Mars is basically using its shipbuilding facilities to retrofit and construct ships heading out to the colonies. One of the more prominent colonies is called New Terra. Then, rather abruptly, the news shows, uh, news about TRAGEDY ON NEW TERRA. Dun dun! Yeah, it's not a particularly gripping prologue, really. There's a few reasons for that, but the biggest one is how underwritten it is. The prologue is only 1675 words long! That's the shortest chapter in these four novels by far, and I'm willing to bet it will remain the shortest chapter in these books. That just isn't enough words to fill us in on what's going on with Mars, what Bobbie has been up to, the stuff with her family, and why she's so shocked about the tragedy on New Terra. It's not a prologue that leaves you excited to learn where the story is going to go. Leviathan Wakes had Julie Mao finding a weird flesh-construct. Caliban's War had a little girl meeting a monster. Abaddon's Gate had weird space artifacts. Cibola Burn rushes through this whole thing to basically go 'Wow, a tragedy happened on a planet that we've just said isn't a functioning colony and was only just named.' Maybe had New Terra been built up a bit more, maybe Bobbie had some connection to it, the idea of there being a tragedy there might be something that grabs the audience's attention more, y'know?
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Apr 30, 2022 13:31
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Cibola Burn, Chapters 1 - 4 It's time to be introduced to our viewpoint characters this time around. As an aside, I think one of the issues with the series stems from considering its character as "viewpoint characters" and not as "protagonists." It goes along with that recurring thought that the characters aren't really given arcs or even, arguably, that much agency -- they just kind of coast along, sometimes going through whole chapters of very little. Anyway, this time around, we have returning character Basia Merton (Chapter 1), Elvi Okoye (Chapter 2), returning character Dimitri Havelock (Chapter 3), the ever-present Jim Holden (Chapter 4) and a strange presence introduced an an interlude: The Investigator. Chapter One: Basia Cibola Burn, Chapter One posted:Basia Merton had been a gentle man, once. He hadn’t been the sort of man who made bombs out of old metal lubricant drums and mining explosives. It's not a spoiler, and while I wanted to bring it up later, the biggest change between Cibola Burn and the rest of the novels in the series is that Cibola Burn is, essentially, set entirely on Ilus. In some ways, the story is closest to a frontier Western drama than the sci-fi political action thriller of the previous three novels. This is, I think, a lot of the reason why Cibola Burn is seen as the worst book in the series. But I think it's interesting to see the ideas of The Expanse, as thin as they can be, transposed into a setting where the biggest threat isn't a government or corporation or a battle fleet, but just some angry people. The threat is no longer who has the most nukes but whoever has the most guns. Anyway, back to the chapter -- Basia isn't exactly angry, but he's intent on his plan to take his improvised bombs somewhere. His wife, Lucia, comes out of their little home to try and convince him not to go through with it, this plan to blow up the landing pad, but Basia refuses. We get their backstory: they left Ganymede, turns out they abandoned Katoa, and Basia is wrapped up with guilt and anger. The little town on Ilus is called First Landing. Basia leaves it behind and heads for the landing pad. The problem facing Basia is as follows: a bunch of refugees showed up to colonize it and have been selling lithium they're mining from the protomolecule builder ruins but now the Royal Charter Energy corporation, with a UN mandate, are coming down to take control of the nascent colony. In order to do that, they need the landing pad. Basia's mission is to blow it up and buy them all some time. However, not every colonist is against the RCE mission. Basia arrives at the landing pad and we meet some of his pals Scotty and Coop. Like Basia, they are Belters. Coop is the guy who came up with the plan to blow the landing pad and he's a fairly unsettling, bloodthirsty presence. They set the bombs and just as they've done that, a guy named Peter shows up, saying that the RCE mission is on its way. Basia is like, well, of course. Peter clarifies that the RCE mission is already on the way down to the planet now. And, in fact, there's a shuttle already on the way down now. Basia wonders if Coop was paying attention to it and he shrugs -- the implication being that, yes Coop knew, and yes this is what he was hoping for. Of course, this being The Expanse, it's spelled out a few lines later: Coop wants them to land on the landing pad while it's wired up as it'll probably set the charges off. There's not enough time to disable the bombs, although Basia tries. And then the shuttle is just there, seemingly right on top of them, and Basia blows the charges under the thought that if he can do it early enough, the shuttle might be able to pull away (?). Yeah, honestly, it doesn't really feel too clear to me what's happening, how close the shuttle is, how much time has passed, and so on. Like, okay, this operation was a bit of an improvised thing and Coop probably arranged everything for this exact outcome but it just feels messy. Anyway, Basia blows the charges and just about dies in the process -- and the shuttle, it appears, has crashed. And now, by knocking down a shuttle, he knows that the powers-that-be will be coming with more than just a corporate mission. Uh-oh! Chapter Two: Elvi We hop over to Elvi just about at the time the shuttle is hit. The pilot says there's been a "critical malfunction" at the landing pad and they'll head back to the Edward Israel in orbit. The pilot adds that they can't do it and that they're going to try and head to a "secondary landing site." Elvi understands it pretty quickly: they're going to crash. And then they crash and she loses consciousness. And then it's flashback time. It's time for Elvi's whole backstory. I know I've said before that I don't like flashbacks because I think they tend to arise from unclear outlining and planning, but this bit from Elvi's chapter feels like an obvious case of it. Here's the opening paragraph from the second section of Chapter Two. Cibola Burn, Chapter Two posted:Centuries before, Europeans had invaded the plague-emptied shell of the Americas, climbing aboard wooden ships with vast canvas sails and trusting the winds and the skill of sailors to take them from the lands they knew to what they called the New World. For as long as six months, religious fanatics and adventurers and the poverty-stricken desperate had consigned themselves to the uncharitable waves of the Atlantic Ocean. Eighteen months ago, Elvi Okoye left Ceres Station under contract to Royal Charter Energy... So, Elvi's going to New Terra aboard the Edward Israel, a massive colony ship that had taken the first elements of humanity to the Belt and Jupiter. Then, much like the Cant, it'd been a water hauler and now, with the Rings, it is back to being a colony ship. Elvi is working for RCE as an exozoologist. Elvi chats with Governor Trying about things and it feels a little on the nose. Cibola Burn, Chapter Two posted:“You will be famous,” he said. The pilot announces that they'll be making landfall in one hour and then we hop back to Elvi who is waking up after the crash. So, yeah, bit of an awkward contrivance to have the character's big backstory flashback when they're passed out, but it's doubly as awkward when the series hasn't done anything like it before. I really do feel like it's a result of Elvi's chapter being written in a more chronological order, then slipped into place as the second chapter and awkward reflowed. Regardless, Elvi wakes up in a dry lake bed, looking up at the alien ruins on Ilus. Cibola Burn, Chapter Two posted:Elvi had the sudden, powerful and disjointed memory of an art exhibit she’d seen as a girl. There had been a high-resolution image of a bicycle in a ditch outside the ruins of Glasgow. The aftermath of disaster in a single image, as compressed and eloquent as a poem. (Of course, feedback I've gotten back on my manuscript is that audiences prefer infodumps than "historical references and allusions" so, hey.) Anyway, Elvi's okay. Concussed but okay. She's being seen to by Doctor Merton, Basia's wife. Fayez is fine and he and Elvi appear to have a bit of a thing. Eric is dead but, I mean, who cares. Governor Trying is also dead but also who cares and no one knows who is in charge. Fayez says: Cibola Burn, Chapter Two posted:“Yeah, well. We’re on an alien planet a year and a half from home with our initial supplies in toothpick-size splinters, and the odds-on bet for what happened is sabotage by the same people who are presently giving us medical care. Dead’s not good, but at least it’s simple. We may all envy Trying before this is over.” Chapter Three: Havelock Havelock, Miller's sidekick from his time on Ceres, is back. He's watching over an engineer in the brig. The news has just hit that the shuttle has gone up and Mutry is pissed but focused -- so, he and Havelock are keeping it clamped down as best they can. After the requisite backstory paragraphs -- which mention that he worked for Protogen yet not how he escaped which is what I'm most interested in -- Havelock goes off to a meeting with Murtry. Also present are Chandra Wei, information specialist, and Hassan Smith, 2IC for ground operations -- make that the 1IC for ground operations as his superior, Trajan, was killed in the crash. Murtry wants to discuss how they respond to what just happened. Wei suggests to drop a rock on the squatters. Murtry says that he's asked the home office what latitude they have. They have to proceed carefully. While they might be a year and a half from Earth, they're only hours away from the news. Reeve, Murtry's 2IC, says: Cibola Burn, Chapter Three posted:“This sucks, but we’ve got the moral high ground. If we overreact, it’ll be another round of the evil corporations oppressing the poor Belters. We’re in a post-Protogen world. We don’t win that.” Wei and Reeve squabble. Murtry brings them in line. The [i[Barbapiccola[/i], the refugee ship that brought the Belters to Ilus, is staying where it is. Wei wants to take it over. Murtry asks Havelock about the crew status and he says everyone's pretty shocked and angry and there's a lot of drunk and disorderlies, hence the guy in the brig earlier. He suggests evacuating the people on the ground but Murtry says nope -- they're going to make sure the mission moves forward, because he doesn't want to let the squatters win. This basically constitutes the main thrust of Cibola Burn, the conflict between the Belter "squatters" and the corporate thugs of RCE. Reeve and Murtry will head down to the surface with Wei keeping an eye on the Barbapiccola. Wei asks if she can upgrade the Israel's comm laser to use it as a weapon. Yes, really! It feels a bit odd. With the Behemoth, it felt like it was only really possible because of how powerful the laser was due to it being an extrasolar generation ship (and, indeed, Chapter Two of Abaddon's Gate implies it's a particularly powerful comm laser.) But the Israel's "ancient" comm laser can be "hacked" to "cutting strength." Either way, Murtry shuts the plan down. Havelock, for his part, will stay aboard the Edward Israel and coordinate things on the ground. Afterward, Havelock is in his quarters and Murtry shows up to basically go, hey, do you want to kill some Belters, wink wink? Havelock thinks Belters are insular and tribal and that they hate the inner planets and that they cultivate their hatred of Earth -- oof. Murtry says "You know, some people would call you prejudiced for saying that" but Havelock says it's okay because he worked on Ceres. Murtry tells Havelock to keep an eye on all the Belters onboard in case they side with the squatters. Unfortunately for Murtry, it turns out that the home office has shot down his request for latitude -- the UN and the OPA are trying to figure out where to take things. Cibola Burn, Chapter Three posted:“But we have the charter. We have a right to be here.” Anyway, Havelock wonders how they can do their mission if they have to worry about being shot at by, y'know, the people who just killed a bunch of them. Murtry says someone's coming -- a mediator. You'll only need one guess to figure out who. But that isn't who we swap to... Interlude: The Investigator This is a hard chapter to discuss because it's written in an odd stream of consciousness style. It's a short chapter and it isn't clear what's going on beyond that it's something called 'the investigator' and it reaches out. While I'm not going to say much about it, I think these chapters tend to be very well-received, and I honestly think they're pretty neat, which makes it pretty obvious why the Coreys tried to do something similar in Leviathan Falls -- and their attempt to recapture the magic, so to speak, was terrible. Chapter Four: Holden Okay, so here's our mediator -- Holden's aboard the Rocinante and they're escorting an OPA freighter through the Sol ring. Miller -- well, the proto-Miller ghost -- is there, too. Amos wants to spend some time aboard Medina Station (the new name for the Behemoth) but Holden says there's no need. Fred's paying them a handsome amount for milk runs back and forth from the ring. It's been two years since the events of Abaddon's Gate. For all that time, the proto-Miller has been trying to get Holden to go through all the Rings. Holden has so far refused. Alex and Naomi want to spend some time on Medina Station, too. Naomi goads Holden as a "chicken" because he doesn't want to hang out in the slow zone which, I don't know, feels like a bit of a dick move from her given everything they've been through (and, indeed, Holden does have some lingering trauma from it.) Even Fred calls them up and is like, hey, aren't you going to spend some time on Medina? It's not a bad joke but it's a bit much, I think. Well, Fred tells them to dock anyway as he has something he wants to discuss. As they head toward Medina Station, Alex reflects on the name. Cibola Burn, Chapter Four posted:Alex shrugged. “It’s interestin’, the evolution of that ship and its names. Started out as the Nauvoo. A place of refuge, right? Big city in space. Became the Behemoth, the biggest baddest warship in the system. Now it’s Medina Station. A gathering place. Same ship, three different names, three different things.” Then we get this reply from Holden, just effortlessly carving through the Ship of Theseus problem, and a very interesting line from Amos: Cibola Burn, Chapter Four posted:“Same ship,” Holden said, feeling a little surly as he instructed the Rocinante to begin the docking approach. The crew boards Medina. Holden thinks Fred is trying to position Medina Station as the location for a "League of Planets" entity. It's been five years since Fred and Holden met in Leviathan Wakes and Fred is not aging very well. Fred fills Holden in: Chrisjen Avasarala wants to send Holden to New Terra. Cibola Burn, Chapter Four posted:“He’s close when he’s out at Medina, and everybody hates him equally, so we can argue he’s impartial. He’s got ties to you, Mars, me. He’s a loving awful choice for a diplomatic mission, so it makes him perfect. Brief him, tell him the UN will pay for his time at double the usual rates, and get him on New Terra as fast as possible before this thing gets hosed up any worse than it already is.” Holden wonders when the UN got to be in charge of the thousand worlds through the Ring Gates. The OPA disagrees with the UN assessment and there are now UN and OPA people squabbling on the surface of Ilus. So, the two politicians are trying to get it handled on the sly -- hence, Holden. Holden says that he won't be a boot on the necks of the colonists. Fred points out that he has to go out there as an impartial mediator to prevent things from getting worse since the colonists just blew up an RCE shuttle and they need to get everything settled before Belters and the UN end up going to war. His mission is to get everyone talking, and keep them talking, and maintain "absolute transparancy." "Should be right up your alley," Fred says. But Holden wonders aloud if Avasarala has sent him as a match to the powder keg. Hmm... Outside Fred's office, Miller wants Holden to take the mission. Holden does everything he can to keep people around him so Miller won't reappear. When he gets back to the Rocinante, Naomi's like, hey, are we going to Ilus? Holden outlines his reasons for:
But for now, we're following:
The thing is, I think any single one of these chapters could've been the chapter that followed after the prologue. For the initial bunch of chapters, it feels like we've basically had the same information put before us a few times. We began with Basia but could've easily begun with Elvi, Havelock, or Holden as far as following on from that prologue is concerned. Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 08:53 on May 1, 2022 |
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May 1, 2022 08:13
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