Nemesis Games

I've been keeping up pretty regularly with the works of James A. Corey and The Expanse, both in show format and in dead tree form. Now though I've finally come to one of the most game changing books in the series. The verse as you know it is about to be upended. Here, we get a look inside the head's of each member of the crew of the plucky ship Rocinante. In this installment, James Holden and his crew will face their greatest challenges yet as they sit down for Nemesis Games.

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Taking place roughly a year after the events of Cibola Burn, Holden and the crew are back on Tycho Station, their ostensible home base. However, one by one they are drawn off by personal needs. With their ship in dock for extensive repairs after the events of the last novel, they have some unexpected down time. They find themselves with personal matters cropping up.

For Amos, there is a funeral on Earth. For Alex, his wanderlust for his Martian heritage and old life creeps up on him. For Naomi, a message from her past she never expected comes over the horizon at her, giving her no choice but to go it alone to try and confront her demons.

Nemesis Games is notable for being the first book in the series where we get a look at the personalities of the whole crew of the Rocinante and not just it's erstwhile captain James Holden. Though Naomi, Amos and Alex have been along for the ride all along, we haven't gotten much beyond smaller looks at their pasts, their secrets, and the issues which brought them out to the ice hauler Canterbury so long ago. In this story, told entirely from the POV of the crew as they diverge across the solar system, we share their own secrets, their fears, and anxiety at losing touch - even briefly - with their surrogate family as they endure the greatest terrorist attack in human history.

Events in the Sol system and the myriad of worlds beyond have been largely focused around the thousand new worlds opened up to humanity by the Gate. That presents a singular problem for Mars whose centuries old terraforming project now stands in peril as there are easily accessible worlds to stand on only a year or two's travel away. Why waste your time in domes when you can hop on a spaceship and see the open sky? For the people of the Belt too, who have spent their lives downtrodden by the power of Earth and Mars, they fear they will be overlooked in this land rush. There are many competing ideas about this, and how this gets resolved, and some are much more violent than others.

In the wake of a stunning declaration of war on, effectively, humanity, the crew of the Rocinante are left struggling to find their way home to their ship. Whether trying to maintain calm on Tycho Station, racing around Mars on a potentially deadly investigation or trapped on Earth, things get grim for not only them, but humanity as a whole.

Since we're getting such a more intimate look at the crew and their own personal dynamics, I felt this was one of the most surprising yet desirable turns the story of The Expanse could take. It made for enlightening reading. Characters who had thus far only played supporting roles were given the center stage at last while their own interactions and feelings towards one another were more deeply explored. Set against a suitably dramatic backdrop, it felt like the collapse of the status quo was much more intimate, something a broader lens might have achieved, but not with the same effect of interconnected fear and familial love.

Explorations on what it means to be human, the interconnectivity of society and the very real concerns people have over their own potential irrelevance are well explored. The social issues, while not heavily hammered on, take a forefront in this story. You get a real feeling that, even in the 24th century society can't quite pull itself together properly. There is though, still hope.

Nemesis Games is the first book in the series to end on a very definitive cliffhanger. You're left with the situation overall still in turmoil, threats unresolved, and terrible problems yet to be revealed. This is my second time reading the book, but it did make me want to immediately leap onto the sequel, Babylon's Ashes. A great novel and an excellent hook for continuing the series!