In the burning heat, hanging on the edge of destruction

A lightning review of Nemesis Games by James S. A. Corey (London: Orbit, 2015). Ebook.

---

Nemesis Games is the middle novel of the Expanse series, written by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck under the joint pen name James S. A. Corey. (If you haven't read the first four books in this series, read them first.)¹ While the Rocinante is being overhauled, its crew split up to take care of personal business: James Holden is overseeing the repairs while he assists an investigation into some missing colony ships; Amos Burton pays his respects on Earth to a recently departed friend; Alex Kemal triest to get some closure with his ex-wife on Mars; Naomi Nagata hears that her son, Filip, is in trouble. Colony ships are leaving the solar system through the interstellar gateway constructed by the alien protomolecule, and the Outer Planets Alliance faces an existential crisis. Radical OPA factions organize a Free Navy and bombard Earth with asteroids, causing planet-wide catastrophe.

I really enjoyed the plot surrounding the threat of the protomolecule in the first three Expanse novels, and so I was mildly disappointed when the story shifted in Cibola Burn to the colonists on the other side of the ring. (Not that the switch was bad, to be clear: just that I was really ejoying the previous plot.) So I was glad to see the action return to our solar system. The chapters focused on Amos as he tries to get off the devastated Earth, are the best part of this novel. The scenes of Earth's devastation are tense and Tom Clancy-esque. Corey have done a superb job with this volume. I will likeliy power my way through the rest of the Expanse early next year, and now I'm especially looking forward to seeing how the story pans out.

Footnote

¹ In order: Leviathan Wakes, Caliban's War, Abaddon's Gate, and Cibola Burn. Yeah, Corey love their mythology.