The Mercy of Gods (James S. A. Corey)

The Mercy of Gods
The Captive's War series, Book 1
James S. A. Corey
Orbit
Fiction, Sci-Fi
***+ (Okay/Good)

DESCRIPTION: It was a night of triumph, at least for one small group of elite researchers and students at Dyan Academy on the planet Anjiin... and it was also the beginning of the end of their world. While Tonner and his group celebrate their groundbreaking discovery, reconciling the DNA of native Anjiin life forms with those descended from the long-lost homeworld of the humans, academic politics and rivalries threaten to split the team and the fruits of their labors. But even those matters seem trivial when a peculiar spacial anomaly, only recently detected with another breakthrough project, turns out to be something far less benign than a simple natural phenomenon.
The empire of the Carryx spans countless star systems and encompasses innumerable subjugated species... and those are just the ones that the vaguely insectlike titans find "useful" in their inscrutable minds. Those who are not useful are eliminated with no more thought or remorse than swatting a gnat, and little more effort.
When the Carryx ships descend upon Anjiin, they conquer the planet in under a week. As for the humans, their fate will be decided soon enough. The Carryx take the top talents from around the globe - not just scientists, but politicians, soldiers, artists, and more - back to their home planet, setting each a task at which they must succeed to prove their worth, and the worth of the whole of Anjiin.
As Tonner and the Dyan scholars struggle with the seemingly-impossible job they've been given, Dafyd - always something of an outsider, more a political animal than an academic one - begins to look at his new surroundings in a different way. There must be some uniting philosophy and purpose behind the seemingly random mishmash of alien species he sees around him, something that could unlock the psyche of their Carryx overlords. And if he can figure out what makes their civilization work, he's halfway to figuring out how to tear it all down.

REVIEW: I enjoyed Corey's Expanse series (the books, the TV series, and what little of the extended graphic novel universe I've read), so I was eager to get my hands on their newest sci-fi adventure. While it did deliver a similar grand idea and epic scope, ultimately I didn't connect with the story or the characters in the way I'd hoped to.
The opening sets the stage for the whole book, taking place at a high-end university where top-flight researchers and science students are both celebrating a breakthrough in a complex and esoteric field of study and watching their backs for the knives of rivals. Only Dafyd is an outsider among them, though he's a researcher in his own way, mind geared more toward politics and what drives the people around him (and how they might be manipulated if need be). It's the sort of world I've never had a mind for and never been a part of, and to be honest I wasn't that thrilled about my choice of characters to experience it with. I expect I'd have related a lot more had I been more familiar wit academia, with the sort of obsessive brilliance (and possible mild-to-moderate dysfunction) that drives certain people to extreme bleeding edges of their field and the environment that creates. Around this cast, I could see an intriguing world built by descendants of colonists, one that has adapted in some unusual ways and yet still is alien to this planet that they've called home for generations, long enough that any trace of their extraterrestrial origins (save the knowledge that they were, indeed, from another world) has been lost. It's for this that I kept reading.
Eventually, the invaders make landfall and the story begins to properly take off... after another slow stint during transportation, a stretch where minds are bent to the point of breaking in some cases and where the true nature of their predicament, how utterly helpless and outmatched the humans are against their captors, is driven home. Once on the Carryx homeworld (or a world that's far more home to the aliens than the humans), the tale takes more turns, though it still ultimately centers around science and labwork in a way that kept me at arm's length. Still, there were more "shiny objects" to keep me interested. The many aliens and peculiar, inhuman nature of the world have an old-school sense of wonder (a bit of a throwback vibe, not unlike sci-fi centered on scientists doing science) alongside a certain omnipresent dread. The Carryx and other aliens never feel too human, with their own agendas and psychologies that aren't as one-dimensional as they might seem from the outside, which means that they can never truly be trusted.
Alone of the Dyad scientists, Dafyd works to unravel the secrets of their captors and the other species around him. He hopes that doing so will show him a way out, but it's only when he encounters another enemy of his new keepers - a swarmlike entity sent by another interplanetary species that's fighting the Carryx - that he might finally make some progress... but at a cost he doesn't fully grasp until it's too late to turn back. Meanwhile, the rest of the team slowly become more distinct and interesting, even if they weren't always likable. As they try to complete the task the Carryx set for them, they find themselves beset by innumerable obstacles, from inadequate equipment to meddling outsiders to internal schisms exacerbated by captivity and worsening mental health on all their parts.
The finale wraps up some of the storylines while setting up the greater arc and the next book in the series... a book I'm on the fence about continuing, even knowing that one half of James S. A. Corey (the Daniel Abraham half) tends to write to series arcs and can't therefore necessarily be judged adequately on a single book in a given series. Part of me can't help but be intrigued, though.
There are many things to enjoy and admire in this book. As mentioned, it feels a little like an updated throwback, ideas and science painted on a galactic scale. I did also ultimately appreciate the complicated psyches and drives behind the different characters, human and otherwise. There are also several things that just didn't resonate with me, and even when I appreciated their drives I generally never felt invested in the characters. I think if I were more immersed in academia and the world of university researchers I'd have clicked better with it. As it is, I confess I'm probably just not the real target audience here.

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