Across four years, and two continents, I've been enthralled by the world(s) of The Expanse series and all the amazing imagery it has thrown at me. From re-reading the series last year, to prepare for the final installment, I've been eagerly waiting for the events of Leviathan Falls to sweep me off my feet. Here now, we come at last to the end of the saga which began with the phenomenal Leviathan Wakes as we set our sights on the end of this series.
SPOILERS FOR ALL BOOKS OF THE EXPANSE FOLLOW.
Picking up roughly a year after the events of Tiamat's Wrath, we find the crew of the Rocinante in something of a stalemate with the now fading Laconian Empire. The Underground is still fighting back, but with the Laconians still being the most powerful military force, they can exert a lot of pressure, though it's unclear how long that will last. However, the events of the time of Laconian dominance have effected them all. The status quo is very much in flux, with a waning empire and dark gods scratching at the walls of reality.
James Holden is partially traumatized from his time at the hands of his Laconian captors, while his crew now deals with the stresses of a life constantly on the run. Even with 1300 worlds to run to, it is still very difficult to flee a former hegemon. Helping them slightly is their crewmate/hostage Teresa Duarte, the now adrift daughter of the former emperor of humanity. Sent to track her down is Aliana Tanaka of the Laconian Marine Corps, so she can bring back her emperor at all costs.
As the penultimate story in this series, it is very much more of what fun we expected with daring escapades and rigorously plotted space action. There are almost no new locations, with the familiar settings of the slow zone, Laconia, and Sol being the most well charted and important overall. The mysteries of the protomolecule are explored and, in many ways, resolved as the series wraps up and we learn of the aliens who built the ring, and not a little bit about how they died. Turns out it can be a really bad idea to park your empire in an alternate reality.
Once again our shared humanity is one of the main ideas being explored, and on showcase in this work is the power of individuality and the privacy of our own minds. That too does a very fascinating exploration of the concept of a hive mind. It speaks to how the human mind, a singular and individual piece of equipment is something that is not used to being shared with others. We like the privacy of our own heads, and the idea of people being able to ferret out our deepest thoughts and secrets is both terrifying and violating. Humanity did not evolve for those structures! Tanaka's story does an amazing job exploring this, and she might be the best character to explore it through.
As the story continues it wraps up the stories of the crew of the Rocinante mostly to our immediate satisfaction. Holden and Naomi have reunited after a painful separation, but are still deeply in love. Alex is still flying, but realizing that all this rebelling, fighting and running is making him miss out on seeing his family grow up and his ability to connect with them. Amos is, well he's still Amos no matter what.
Outside of that crew we have Elvi and Fayez, last seen in Tiamat's Wrath doing research on the entities that killed the gate builders. They and their very cool ship the Falcon are still trying to understand the creatures that came before them and use that understanding to keep the creatures wanting to wipe humans out away from us, or at the very least find a way to negotiate with them. Their story is very much one of discovery and ethics and I felt it was handled in a very tasteful manner, especially in the time it was written!
Between them all is Teresa Duarte, now effectively an orphaned child. She has been, somewhat, adopted by Amos and is used to being obeyed without question, and so has difficulty fully fitting in with the various crews. She is still a child, a very powerful and well educated child, but a teenager all the same when it comes down to it. Her desires and interactions were rather well explored, but I felt that for all her introduction, she was almost criminally underutilized, and unlike many of the cast, did not receive a proper ending to her story overall.
Our main protagonists do all get very satisfactory wraps on their major arcs otherwise, with some mysteries solved, character traits being brought to their logical ends, and successful evasions of some (but not all) disasters reached. For Holden, I was a little surprised that he did not manage to find a way, with all the research available and the eventual power, to negotiate with the dark gods. However, it is to the credit of the series that the aliens are, well, alien and it keeps them enigmatic and mysterious beyond the broad strokes to the very end. Something that I still very much appreciate. Maybe some won't, but I do think that it is clever how we never get the whole picture.
The ending though, is gut wrenching. I was on the verge of tears as I read some of the final lines, but the epilogue had me laughing out loud for how well some things read. It leaves many questions unanswered, but satisfactorily wraps up the series in a way that will leave readers both intrigued and heart broken.
For all galaxy hopping saga, that might be all we can ask for.
