Well, if you are not a fan of gaming reviews from me (how dare you?) maybe you will be up for a book review next? Or you can just imagine I am not blogging daily for some reason and this is like a totally different website.
Nemesis Games is the fifth book of The Expanse series by James S.A. Corey, and it continues to be a pretty fantastic space opera, in my opinion. This review will inherently include some spoilers from the previous four books, but I hope not much.
Well, after all of what happened in the previous book, the Rocinante is in dire need of repairs, and the whole crew is pretty much stuck on Tycho Station, just living day after day.
Eventually, Naomi, Amos and Alex decide to leave and go to different places with different reasons. Naomi gets called by someone from her past as a Belter in the more extremist side, and she chooses to face it alone without the others. Amos goes back to Earth, since a significant family member passed away, and he also wants to visit some old friends. Alex goes to Mars, to try and make ammends with his ex-wife, and meet up with some acquaintances as well. Holden ends up alone in Tycho, but is soon approached by Monica Stuart, the famous journalist and reporter, as she investigates a strange phenomena happening on the ring gates.
Entire ships are dissapearing as soon as they enter the gates, losing contact, vanishing from thin air. What is causing this? Is it just data tampering? is it the protomolecule, or some other alien species? Who knows, but ships are still going, and some of them keep going missing.
With the rings and all of the planets at Humanity’s disposal, more and more people are venturing to the other side. This has lead to lots of different problems, as the balance of things is completely off. Mars, once the pride of human progress with its terraformation efforts, now seems like a complete waste of time with so many planets out there that could sustain life as is. Earth, the birthplace of Humanity, is sending lots of ships out there as well, as overpopulation is a problem, and new opportunities are out ther. The OPA and the Belters face different issues, as Fred Johnson wants to control the traffic around the rings with Medina Station as a way to balance power with Earth and Mars, meanwhile the Belter society, used to life in space, is struggling to find a purpose and support, as they can’t really go down a planet after living their whole lives in zero g, and who wants to do that anymore?
The problems, politics, and conflict that ensues from this is really interesting. Suddenly, our characters will end up entangled in a conspiracy with huge implications for all of humankind as we know it.
Amos stands out once again as a favorite of mine on his journey on Earth and the characters he meets, from family to old friends. He’ll end up facing huge threats, and will team up to save those he cares about, he’ll deal with whatever is on his way to get back to his family. No matter the odds, Amos is always the last one standing, what an absolute unit.
Alex remains as the best pilot of them all, and although his journey to Mars starts out a little bit boring to me, the way he collides with the main plot gave me some of the best space action I’ve read in a while, and the fact that (spoilers but kind of obvious) he’ll team up with Bobbie once again is just pretty epic overall, and her paper on the whole thing will be vital as well.
As for Naomi, her backstory is filled with incredible revelations that redefine her character, she faces the devils of her past and the results of the choices she made, or that she was forced to make. However, her evolution and all the challenges she’ll overcome, the sacrifices and plans she comes up with, and how everything will affect the relationship with the crew, and Jim, when they see each other again, kept me absolutely hooked on her side of the story.
As for Holden, as he is in Tycho station, away from everyone and faced with this problem after problem, he and Fred Johnson will end up trying to keep it together and uncover who is behind what, and try to maintain everything in control as the OPA starts to crack and he can’t do a thing to stop it. The way Holden deals with the feeling of loneliness, the longing for his family, the sense of helplessness as everything crumbles down around him while he can’t reach his friends. It’s stressful and really interesting stuff.
I absolutely loved this book, it gave me an outlook on all the characters that are part of the crew, getting to know a a lot more about each of them and their feelings and how they see each other. The way the act around themselves and with others is also really interesting to read.
I completely flew over the last few chapters. This book deals with the conflict between the different human factions even more than the previous ones, although the alien side of things is not as present, but no need to worry, humans will prove again how they are their own biggest threat on this one.
Yet again, a worthy sequel to the amazing universe that is The Expanse.
