If there is
anything Ty Franck and James Corey have done superbly in the Expanse
series of novels to date, it is to maintain a strong sense of
momentum through each of the plots. Plot devices that a lot of other
writers would introduce at the beginning then string out throughout
the narrative into a climax are dealt with at midway points, leaving
the remainder of story to evolve in surprising ways through a new
series of surprising devices and scenes. This results in stories
which not only move briskly but unexpectedly, as well as
entertainingly given that each subsequent revelation has been made to
fit organically with the wider setting and character arcs. The
series remains space opera to the core, but if anything is extremely
well plotted space opera—to date. Let’s see if 2013’s
Abaddon’s Gate,
third novel in the series, keeps the engines burning. (Yeah, I know,
bad pun. Sorry.)
Picking up
events more than a year after Caliban’s
War, Holden and crew traverse
the system, running odd contracts. Things are going profitably for
the crew when a notice arrives that the Martians want the Roccinante
back. In the meantime, Julie Mao’s sister Clarissa has been
plotting revenge on Holden for the losses he caused her father and
family. Posing as a mechanic aboard a system ship, she spends her
savings putting in place a plan that will see the tough but fair
captain, dead. Bull de Baca is security officer aboard the Seung
Un, formerly known as the
Nauvoo.
Wary of Captain Ashford’s ability to command, de Baca nevertheless
goes about his business, removing the riff-raff from among the ship’s
population directly—sometimes through airlocks. And lastly is Anna
Volodov. A Methodist minister, she has been invited along with a
host of other religious representatives aboard the Seung
Un for a trip of a lifetime. It
isn’t long, however, before her skills as confidante and soother of
souls is needed in the face of disaster.
Binding all
these character arcs together are the happenings on Venus,
particularly the growth of the protomolecule. Forming a ring and
flying off to the outer reaches of the solar system at the end of
Caliban’s War,
it remains for Abaddon’s Gate
to delve deeper into what lies on the other side of the ring, how all
of the stories above intersect upon it, and what the protomolecule’s
interest in humanity is.
One of the
interesting aspects of Leviathan
Wakes was the ideological
dichotomy of Holden and Miller. One reserved, preferring to learn
about the entire situation before passing judgement, the other looked
to the facts at hand to deliver instant justice—a kind of
rationalism vs. intuition. In Abaddon’s
Gate, Franck and Abraham bring
to the table another interesting dichotomy. With many religious
leaders and representatives aboard the Seung
Un as it travels to the
protomolecule gate, there is plenty of room for disparities in
belief. But the authors do not get involved in a war of ethics and
mythologies. Instead, they boil the various representative
characters down to their human elements, allowing the façade of
religion to exude from the bones beneath through the dramas they
face. Thus, fear and faith come to the surface. And rightly so.
One may believe in god or gods, but when placed in life and death
situations peoples’ true characters shine through, their real
beliefs, regardless of name, revealing themselves. Thus while
religious belief plays a role in the novel, it’s quite fair to say
the back and forth relationship it has with reality plays a more
interesting, human role in the novel.
As hinted in
the intro, Abaddon’s Gate
is once again a novel whose story evolves quickly but organically.
Clarissa’s intentions, for example, resolve themselves in the first
third, letting the reader absorb their impact then evolve through the
changes they bring as a result. Another way of putting this is:
whatever assumptions the reader brings to the table after all the
story introductions are likely to pan out in different but satisfying
ways than expected. When looking at fiction as entertainment, I
can’t help but think of that as one of the key boxes for an author
to check off.
At this point
in time the series, all readers who are not captured by The Expanse
have jumped ship, leaving only readers who are wondering: is the next
book in the series as good as the previous? Answer: yes. The
qualities present in the first books are present in the third, but in
a way that progresses all the storylines, macro to micro, and in a
way that answers as many questions as it produces, meaning... the
need for another novel. On to Cibola
Burn…
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