nother installment of the Expanse series (is that what it’s really called, or is that just the amazing scifi show it spawned?). Fake writer James S.A. Corey (he’s actually two guys) keeps this chapter in the big sprawling series back in our own solar system. The whole thousands-of-colonies-await-you bit is kept to a minimum – this books is about the four principles – Jim, Naomi, Alex and Amos, as they part ways for “small errands” that should have been corner-store-walks but don’t end that way, given the fact that the OPA (Outer Planets Alliance, i.e. the skinny low-grav belters) are launching a multi-front Pearl Harbor attack all across the system. It seems that, with the settled systems in flux (with the flow of people for the new worlds) the more radical elements of the OPA sees their opportunity. Their shadowy leaders find a suitable figurehead (a postulating puppet who happens to be Naomi’s ex) and launch their plans (the extent of which amazed me as a reader).

So one thing about the Expanse that still holds true – the authors don’t worry about preserving the status quo of their imaginary worlds. Things change (on a really big asteroid-killing-the-dinosaurs way). This was the fifth of the series and I’m all ready to read the sixth, just to see what will happen next (on a personal level and at the macro-political/planetary scale).

A real page-turner – 530 pages and I blew through it in two days (of course I was at a mountain cabin and had all sorts of time on my hands). Again, this series continues to get a strong recommendation from me.

>>>AND THEN THERE ARE MY BOOKS, IF YOU AREN’T INTO SPACE SHIPS<<<