The Expanse series helped relaunch my reading habit, and was my first sci-fi for quite some time - I loved it. I had stopped the series and taken up other classics and big hits of the genre, Hyperion, the Culture series, the Forever War, Children of Time, the Three Body Problem. I loved then too and worried my initial enthusiasm was a little overblown, happy to report that i need not have been concerned.
A section of our core cast is back in action, with a few good new additions. They really serve to show the human side of love, loss, pain, absolution, and the emptiness of revenge. That said the 'bad guy' is one dimensional and comically evil, barely believable. And many of the big hitters are reduced to cameo performances as the political story arc is paused for this adventure.
As with the previous books we have a scientific theme that permeates the action, here it's evolution, it is both explained and used in an examplary way.
More so than all of the other books we are situated in one place for the duration, this both stalls the grander narrative, we don't get much movement there until the final chapters, but allows for a fuller exploration of another theme, life in a lawless frontier. "Civilization is built on corpses, people like you come later" said to Holden.
It's the wild west in space, with added mutant slugs! I found it entertaining and typically thought provoking, but it is easy to see how you could be frustrated with the general lack of progression - a little like a 'bottle episode' of a TV series.
I'll be back for the next installment!