Reviews
One of the best in the series, but damn. That was a lot. I don't know if just the closure but this one felt really heavy.
My review: https://mattstein.com/books/leviathan-falls
Very much disappointed with this. Our favorite characters are old, frightened and depressed shadows of themselves. A certain character should have just stayed dead. It was painfully slow, recycled and repetitive in my opinion. I'll keep the first few books in fond memory but I'll probably never re-read the series.
A solid conclusion to the series. Plenty of action and thrills to go with the previous books, but there was also an appropriate amount of time spent on the human and emotional side of these characters you've come to love over the series.
Damn you James S.A. Corey! You stuck the landing. I'm happy to say Leviathan Falls is a satisfying, action packed, emotional way to end The Expanse series. The Expanse chronicles humanity’s expansion through the solar system and out into the stars–thanks to the discovery of frighteningly powerful alien technology–primarily through the eyes of a small gunship’s four-person crew lead by Jim Holden. Many decades in after the discovery of the alien protomolecule in Leviathan Wakes, we find our heroes on the brink of total annihilation. In Leviathan Falls, the ninth and final book in the series, humanity’s made too much progress using the alien protomolecule, and it’s angered a race of demigods from another universe that are testing ways to exterminate our entire species by randomly adjusting the laws of physics. A galactic empire (The Laconian Empire) is struggling to restore its former dominance while also searching for the crazed emperor that just might have an answer that can save humanity. And the crew of the Rocinante is searching for answers of its own. And when the Rocinate discovers that the crazed Emperor, Winston Duarte, reappears he promises to fight off humanity’s interdimensional attackers by co-opting the weapons left behind by the protomolecule’s creators. To do so, he has to turn our entire species into an interconnected hive mind. But, will Jim Holden allow a crazed Emperor to possess God-like power? And can Jim and the rest of our favorites: Naomi, Amos, and Alex save the day? The answer is, of course, yes. But, as in all the stories in The Expanse, this book is both hope filled and bleak for there is always the Churn. It's the idea that nothing ever stays the same. Dark times come and go, and so do good, good people die and empires fall and worlds and nations are born and fade away, and history finds a way to leave everyone behind in the end. The Churn means change. And the sacrifice that our crew aboard the Roci exhibits, is just part of the never ending Churn. Yes, there are heroic deeds within Leviathan Falls, and yes, humanity might be saved in the end but Leviathan Falls reminds us that there is a cost to survival and a cost to doing the right thing. And it's one last emotional ride. Having watched these characters grow and change over the course of so many books, and what they go through within the ninth, makes Leviathan Falls a tear-jerker. The heroes of the Rocinante aren't archetypes - this ain't Star Wars. We have watched these characters become more fragile, more caring, more human. And in the end, it is hard to part with them. I couldn't have asked for a better ending. An ending with our flawed heroes doing the best they can in dire circumstances, giving humanity a chance to perhaps learn from its mistakes. And in doing so securing an unknown but promising future for the human race. The question at the end is can we learn from our ambition to be Gods? Can we learn to cooperate? Jim Holden seemed slightly optimistic - he says at one point (to paraphrase): sure, there will always be war - but the human race is a race that hinges on kindness. James S.A. Corey seems to think the same.
This book was beautiful and shattered my heart. I found it to be a satisfying, fitting conclusion that pulled all of the threads together and stayed true to the characters, and I would take that any day over a ‘shocking twist ending’ that undermines all that came before. (view spoiler)[As much as I wanted Holden to survive and have a chance to heal, in the end he went out as the purest distillation of himself: a reckless, brilliant idiot who saved the whole damn human race. I think I felt sadder for Naomi than anyone else; her wanting the chance to fall asleep next to the man she loved just one last time, and then having to pick up the pieces after his self-sacrifice, just like always. Also, it was so perfectly fitting to have Amos as the last man standing a thousand years later. If anyone could roll with the punches and stand steady through the churn of millennia, it would be him. (hide spoiler)] My one small complaint was that I wanted to know what happened to Drummer and never understood why she just disappeared from the narrative after book seven, but maybe she will turn up in a novella sometime. I also would love to see more of Teresa; I was so invested in her by the end, and wanted her to have a good life with a found family of her own. God, what an incredible series. I hope the rest of it somehow, someday makes its way onscreen.
Wow. You nailed it. You really really nailed it.
Considering the ending it needed to nail this was going to have to really nail, for it to get more than three stars from me. It works and maintains the ethos of the characters and world, but also definitely felt overly plotty and as though it were wrapping things up in an inorganic, insert plot beat kind-of-way sometimes. I think most other books, because they have a lot more space, end up going in surprising and subversive directions, and without that it does feel like a predictable set of circumstances unfolding, including the ending. It also leans more into the world building aspects I’m less interested in, and the epilogue is more playful than I’d have liked. I guess I felt like the stakes were played out and I wanted that to surprise me with a change up, as it sometimes does in this series, but instead I would consider this book to be very “safe”.
This was a great send-off to all these beloved characters. I’m going to be sad for a bit, and then start planning my next opportunity to visit these old friends (I.e. a re-read from the first book). Well worth the investment.
Is it really over? This series I have adored for a decade has concluded, yet there are still unanswered questions. But that’s consistent with the many mysteries of the universe and our species: We may never know some fundamental things, yet will continue to blunder about like clueless idiots. (How else to explain the ongoing destruction of our planet?) Back to the book itself: High Counsel Duarte was left a drooling shell of a man at the end of the previous novel. But now he is “appearing” to people in far-flung corners of his empire and demanding action. Tanaka is given unlimited authority to find him. She quickly decides to set a trap for him by holding his daughter, Teresa, hostage. But first she has to capture Teresa from the crew of the Roci. Meanwhile Teresa has become Amos’ latest pet project after the loss of Peaches. We’re in familiar territory with harrowing transits through the Ring Gate, now seemingly unregulated in terms of traffic. But something has changed. Everyone who has been through the Ring lately can sense it: People are feeling the thoughts and having the memories of other people. For Tanaka, who has kept her private life under lock and key, the idea of others knowing her secrets is terrifying, making her even more determined to find Duarte at any cost. Some interesting questions are raised about personality and the hive mind, including how it might feel for a baby to experience others’ thought before forming a sense of self. Overall the book was generally satisfying in that we understood the ending event and what it meant, and where the survivors were heading. This book seemed slower than the previous ones and I listened to the ending chapters a couple of times to see if I missed anything. For this reason I gave it 4 rather than 5 stars. Still, an incredible series with memorable characters that is well worth reading.
