James S. A. Corey

Nemesis Games

NOW A PRIME ORIGINAL SERIES Nemesis Games is the fifth book in the New York Times bestselling Expanse series. A thousand worlds have opened, and the greatest land-rush in human history has begun. As wave after wave of colonists leave, the power structures of the old solar system begin to buckle. Ships are disappearing without a trace. Private armies are being secretly formed. The sole remaining protomolecule sample is stolen. Terrorist attacks previously considered impossible bring the inner planets to their knees. The sins of the past are returning to exact a terrible price. And as a new human order is struggling to be born in blood and fire, James Holden and the crew of the Rocinante must struggle to survive and get back to the only home they have left. The Expanse series has sold over two million copies worldwide and is now a major television series. The Expanse series: Leviathan Wakes Caliban's War Abaddon's Gate Cibola Burn Nemesis Games Babylon's Ashes Persepolis Rising Praise for the Expanse: 'The science fictional equivalent of A Song of Ice and Fire' NPR Books 'As close as you'll get to a Hollywood blockbuster in book form' io9.com 'Great characters, excellent dialogue, memorable fights' wired.com 'High adventure equalling the best space opera has to offer, cutting-edge technology and a group of unforgettable characters . . . Perhaps one of the best tales the genre has yet to produce' Library Journal 'This is the future the way it's supposed to be' Wall Street Journal 'Tense and thrilling' SciFiNow

Book 5 of the Expanse (now a Prime Original series)

Marie

Wow, what a thrillride! This book is soo much better than the deeply flawed book 3 and the mediocre book 4 - though it's still not perfect. (view spoiler)[What I really don't understand are the motivations of some of the characters - why would Amos want to visit 'Peaches'?! It doesn't make sense at all, and also, that was one of the worst characters of the previous books and I was not happy for her to pop up again. Similarly, I cannot fathom Naomi's motivation to go back to an obviously dangerous, toxic, manipulative abuser. No woman in her right mind would ever do that. Pretty much all the reasons that these character had for leaving seemed like lame pretenses just to break up the crew and get everyone in position so we can experience all the stuff happening from their perspectives...  (hide spoiler)]

The fifth book in the NYT bestselling Expanse series, Nemesis Games drives the crew of the Rocinante apart, and as they struggle to survive, the inner planets fall victim to an enemy's catastrophic plan. HUGO AWARD WINNER FOR BEST SERIES A thousand worlds have opened, and the greatest land rush in human history has begun. As wave after wave of colonists leave, the power structures of the old solar system begin to buckle. Ships are disappearing without a trace. Private armies are being secretly formed. The sole remaining protomolecule sample is stolen. Terrorist attacks previously considered impossible bring the inner planets to their knees. The sins of the past are returning to exact a terrible price. And as a new human order is struggling to be born in blood and fire, James Holden and the crew of the Rocinante must struggle to survive and get back to the only home they have left. Nemesis Games is a breakneck science fiction adventure following the bestselling Cibola Burn. The Expanse Leviathan Wakes Caliban's War Abaddon's Gate Cibola Burn Nemesis Games Babylon's Ashes Persepolis Rising Tiamat's Wrath ​Leviathan Falls The Expanse Short Fiction The Butcher of Anderson Station Gods of Risk The Churn The Vital Abyss Strange Dogs Auberon

Matt Stein

My review: https://mattstein.com/books/nemesis-games

Nemesis games

Apiecalypse Jen

Anyaconda

Another fantastic installment that kept me on edge throughout the book. I loved that we got the whole Roci crew as POVs.

As the series progresses, it is worth mentioning how well the personality and dialogue of the perennial characters remains consistent. Character developement is spread out over books and sometimes it takes a long time for details to surface. Even in the light of newfound knowledge this consistency remains; each character seems true to themselves.

Simon Crocker

Ryan LaFerney

Part of James S.A. Corey’s Expanse series, Nemesis Games is a wonderful, character centric space opera. Effectively avoiding a stale fifth chapter, Corey shifts the balance of power in the solar system and EVERYTHING is turned upside down. This is Corey's Empire Strikes Back. This is Corey's Last Jedi. Nemesis Games is full of human tragedy and a very interesting power grab in the local system, not to mention mysteries closer to home for our main characters which feel more important, somehow, than the mind-blowing macro ones. Nemesis Games turns into a complicated solar-political story (with our favorite crew members dealing with the repercussions): radicalized Belters declare war on the rest of the system, attempting to kill the political leaders of Earth and Mars, and worse. The undercurrents of racism and economic inequality that have shaped Corey’s world come up front and center, and this is what Nemesis Games is about: radical actions are born out of these undercurrents. It's also about the thirst for power. Nemesis Games is a devastating ride, one that "expands" the story even further into to new territories.

Janice Hopper

** spoiler alert **
           Spoilery spoilers are all through this comment/review, so be warned. Also, any name-spelling infelicities result from guesses based on how the names were pronounced in the audiobook.

I just got through listening to this book. Like most of the other books in this series, it's very exciting and fun to get through. The crew of the Rocinante gets split up temporarily here, and each has their individual adventures. Holden is on stage less than usual. Naomi gets a big dramtic storyline, as does Amos. Alex has less drama, but plays a crucial role. I'm happy to see Bobbie Draper, the Martian Marine, back again. (I love Bobbie, she's badass.) Chrisjen Avasarala is back, as is Clarissa Mao. So far so good.

The plot involves what appears to be an EXTREMELY well-organized group of Belters staging a coup of, well, the solar system pretty much. There may or may not be some complicity with the Martian navy. The leader of the Belters is Naomi's ex-lover. And the architect of the plan to drop stealthed rocks onto the Earth is her 15 year old son.

INORITE?????!?! That shit is crazy, because after fleeing her ex-lover 15 years ago, when her son Filipe is a tiny baby, Naomi gets one call from him that Felipe is in trouble (spoiler: he wasn't, it was a ploy), she drops everything and heads over To See What Mommy Can Do, apparently. O.o 

That was my first problem with the plot. Granted that even though Naomi left her son involuntarily, she left for a good reason. Marco, the ex-lover, had conned her into writing software that could exploit a vulnerability and cause a spaceship to explode. Naomi was naive enough not to understand the implications of that until Marco used her tool to destroy a ship and kill a bunch of people. She fled him after that, and Felipe was brought up by his dad and dad's cohort of anti-Earth, anti-Mars Belters. So after one call from Marco, she comes back, understands what's happening, attempts to leave, and gets kidnapped by Marco's group and carried off while they do more dastardly deeds.

This is my second problem with the book. The only reason I can see for Naomi's kidnapping is to put her in peril and drive the arc of her plot. It does make for exciting reading in the book, but it's pretty manipulative. And it kinda annoys me to see naked plot-wrangling laid out like that, especially when it involves a woman in peril. Ok, Naomi's a badass engineer and NOT a damsel-in-distress per se. At ever step, she acts positively to help get herself out of the mess she's in. 

And when she found her son was the person who helped create the 3 kinetic bombs that were dropped onto earth, did she recoil in horror that her son had just killed millions (possibly billions over time) of people and effectively wrecked the ecosystem of Earth for the foreseeable future and put the future of humanity in peril? NO!!!!! She shook her head more in sorrow than in anger and told him to come see her when he felt like killing himself. He responds by calling her names and accusing her of sleeping her way into the spotlight. Even Naomi isn't upset by those comments, because they're so obviously ludicrous. Again, she kinda shakes her head and walks away. Sheesh.

I'm not a mom, so I have no real idea if running back to a child you haven't seen in 15 years would happen in real life, especially when all you have is a nebulous "Felipe is in trouble" comment. I don't think it would happen to me unless I had more information before heading out. Kid needs a kidney or something? Ok, maybe. Kid's having trouble in school? Uh, no. So that bit strained my credulity as well. The whole "motherhood trumps EVERYTHING, ALWAYS" trope just annoys me. There are plenty of mothers who are perfectly content to walk away from kids and be done with them. So yeah, GAH.

And the book ends with Something Mysterious Happening out in the ring that leads to other worlds. That's the hook for the next book. And apparently there are more hijinks with the protomolecule. Oh joy.

I do enjoy this series quite a lot. The fact that you can sometimes see the scaffolding that the plot is hung on doesn't usually bother me very much, though I wish it didn't happen. James S.A. Corey writes exciting space opera, and I'll happily continue reading it. I do wish there were more woman/woman interactions. There are lots of women out there in the Belt, in the military, in science. They just don't really interact with each other, nor are they very important in the plot. They're scenery, mostly. ::sadface::

But you gotta hand it to an author that realizes the utility of bicycles in a post-apocalyptic situation. Most authors don't see that.

John Harkabus

** spoiler alert **
           I was hesitant when starting this book. The beginning didn’t catch me at all. But once the pace picked up, and the anxiety started to build, I just couldn’t stop reading. This might be my favorite in the series. Separating the crew was a phenomenal idea and allowed all the characters to be explored in new manners.

A thousand worlds have opened, and the greatest land-rush in human history has begun. As wave after wave of colonists leave, the power structures of the old solar system begin to buckle. Ships are disappearing without a trace. Private armies are being secretly formed. The sole remaining protomolecule sample is stolen. Terrorist attacks previously considered impossible bring the inner planets to their knees. The sins of the past are returning to exact a terrible price. And as a new human order is struggling to be born in blood and fire, James Holden and the crew of the Rocinante must struggle to survive and get back to the only home they have left.

Fraser Simons

My favourite book so far. Great pacing, shakes setting up a heck of a lot while doing world building. The chapters are from the Roci crew members, all of which added a lot to the characters. Avasarala and Bobby were around more. Action packed. Tighter writing in general with each book, I find. Nuanced psychological and political positioning for each character, including the “bad” guys. Nice little cliff hanger at the end, too.

Couldn’t ask for more, really.

Sheila

aaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH this book makes up for the previous 2 lackluster volumes so much! The shit has finally hit the intergalactic fan & oh mY GOD 

This book is more focused on the Roci crew than the past few books, which is interesting as the crew are split up for 90% of this book! They all finally get so so so so soooooooooo much character development instead of being the weird colourful background to the Secondary Character of the Day. There's so much of Bobbie! Amos & Alex get fleshed-out backstories!! But the reigning character of this book is NAOMI OH MY GOD NAOMI TOO MANY FEELS MY HEART HURTS SO MUCH 

*sobs forever*
*sobs until the heat death of the universe*

Manuel Grabowski

Wow, this one was intense almost from start to finish. It makes sense, as in the grad scheme of things it's the beginning of the third act. As such, it doesn't work quite as well as a singular episode as the ones before, but I'm already in it for the long haul, so that's fine. It's probably most noticeable in how the ending feels, which is very similar to "Empire Strikes Back". My big nerd secret is that Empire is my least favorite movie of the OT (Jedi all the way, you Ewok-hating lunatics!) for precisely that reason – it's not a concluded story. The ending is not really an ending, but so obviously just a chapter ending, and that is just not very satisfying. None of the earlier books felt as much like that as this one – I'm glad I usually wait for things to be finished before getting into them, because I sure wouldn't want to wait for the next book right now. As I don't have to, I also don't mind the non-ending a lot. But I sure enjoyed the ride.

Xavier Roy

I started this after watching a few episodes of The Expanse Season 5. 

Compared to the previous stories, this is more of an exploration of the crew's individual forays in to a world they've left behind when they wound up together on the Rocinante.

Stephen Gill 

Just when you think it can't get any better. The roller-coaster continues.

Ryan Lane

A story about the dangers of going on vacation

Ben Nathan

I think I'm thing to title this review "Amos is awesome and this book highlights that". I loved how the story stayed small and then worked that into big ideas. Made it wonderful.

Heather Killeen

This series just keeps getting better 😍

Liz Griffin

Might be my favorite in the series so far. I loved reading the POVs of the rest of the Roci crew!

Nemesis Games

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