You guuuuuuuuys. This one was so good. I think they’re ALL good, but I know some people struggled more with book four. I hope nobody struggled with this one, because it got deeper into these characters that we already know and love, and I was legit worried about the heightened levels of peril. Which seems surprising, given how often the crew of the Rocinante finds themselves in the midst of universe-spanning drama.
In book five of the Expanse series, our intrepid crew finds themselves separated. During some forced downtime while their ship is repaired after the adventures of book four, Naomi takes off on her own secret mission, Amos visits Earth, and Alex takes a trip home to Mars. Holden stays with Fred on Tycho Station, working on a possible side mystery (which of course blows up to be a huge life-altering mystery, because Holden). Some of the separations seem a little forced (really, Alex?), but it works really well to torque up the tension, and it’s cool to see all the core characters get their own chapters.
The analytical side of my brain started off being a little annoyed by Naomi’s story – of COURSE that’s her backstory, what else would we do with a female character, argh – but by the end, I was totally and completely hooked and fretting about all my favorites. (Man, this is really hard to talk about without spoilers.) I liked that Holden kind of takes a back seat in this book, and Naomi and Amos really get to shine. And even though Big Huge Bad Things are happening, as per usual, it’s their smaller stories that made me not ever want to put the book down.
So. Loved it, can’t wait for the next one, but I’m a little worried about how they’re going to keep this up. How much longer can things keep getting Bigger and Huger and Badder? (Also, why does spellcheck think huger is okay but badder is not?)