Leviathan Falls
The Expanse series, Book 9
James S. A. Corey
Orbit
Fiction, Sci-Fi
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: The many star systems of humanity linger in disarray after the rebellion, spearheaded by Naomi Nagata, effectively crippled the Laconian forces... but the empire is far from fallen. Even as forces trade blows, the extradimensional entities that once wiped out the original architects of the ring gates continue their incursions, testing the limits and weaknesses of the upstart primates. Now, Laconia's ruler Duarte, transformed by the protomolecule into something other than fully human, wakes from his long stupor, determined to end the threats to his eternal rule - within this universe and without - once and for all. To do it, he will need to pick up the weapons left behind by the fallen builders... and reforge humanity into a new shape to wield it. Once more, James Holden and the crew of the old gunship Rocinante will be all that stands between humanity's freedom and annihilation - assuming there will be anything left to save.
REVIEW: This has been a truly epic ride, on so many levels: not just through the books, but through the television series and (tangentially, admittedly) fandom. Even as I type this, the first episode of the (presumably) final sixth season of the TV adaptation has premiered on Amazon Prime. So I'm carrying many emotions into this book, and carrying many out, and it's impossible to fully untangle the various threads from each other at this point.
The book starts about a year after the last one left off, with Holden's jailbreak from Laconia (with Duarte's daughter Teresa and her dog Muskrat), and things are going about as well as one might expect for them. The decades the characters have lived (excepting the newcomers, of course) and the eight previous volumes of adventures written (plus numerous implied but unwritten) have all taken their toll, but inside they are still the same fighters they have always been, stronger for their experience, transformed in various ways (literally, in the case of Amos Burton). There is, however, an overall sense of ending hanging over everything: the enemy incursions - both Laconinan and extradimensional - are increasing, the resistance is being chipped away (or wholesale slaughtered), and it's all coming down to a breaking point that will literally determine the future of the species, and possibly the universe as a whole. As the scientist Okoye and the transformed children Xan and Cara explore the encoded racial memories in a planet-sized diamond for the origins of the builders (and any clues as to what killed them and is currently trying to kill everyone), Holden and crew find themselves pursued by Tanaka, a Laconian soldier tasked with recovering the missing Duarte by any means necessary... and she has determined the recovery of Duarte's daughter Teresa, the only one known to have reached him in his catatonic state, as the necessary means. Meanwhile, Duarte pursues his own agenda, so secure in his belief that he alone is in the right, is to be trusted with the salvation of humanity, that he is willing to destroy the species to do it. Sacrifices are made, assumptions turned on their heads, and tension is raised to a fever pitch by the truly epic climax, which pits our heroes against the extradimensional invaders, Duarte's Laconia, and basic human nature itself.
I had to think a while about how I felt when I closed the book. Some threads and plot points still felt loose or forgotten, though the overall storytelling runs smoother than it may have at the start (where it could clunk notably now and again). A couple resolutions, I had mixed feelings about, for all that they worked okay in the telling. There is bleakness and despair, and much is lost (or so permanently transformed as to amount to the same thing as loss), but underneath it runs a thread of hope, that humanity - despite its perpetual tendency to grasp at things it cannot understand and toys best left untouched, despite its short-sighted nature and retreats to rationalization and violence as problem-solvers - can possibly carve itself a future with brighter and wider horizons, if in spite of itself. For that hope, and for the overall way the whole series - novels and novellas and even televised adaptations - successfully cohered to become so much more than the sum of its already-solid parts, it earns a near-top rating.
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