Persepolis Rising

I mentioned on my last Weeknotes that I wouldn finish this next week, but against all odds, I ended up finishing the book on the very same day!

Persepolis Rising is the seventh book of The Expanse series by James S.A. Corey. And it continues the journey in a rather unexpected way—which got spoiled to me many months ago anyway and it’s not that big of a deal according to Amin so whatever.

We are getting closer to the end of the series, only two more main books to go—and maybe a lot of side stories I’ll check out at some point— so spoilers about previous books will be present. You should just give the series a go, I can say it has been absolutely worth it.

Thirty years after the events of the previous books, new colony worlds have flourished, and even if there is struggle here and there, things are looking well. The inner planets and the Belt have become somewhat stable allies, and have managed to get the Transport Union up and running, even if some prejudice persists. Meanwhile, the crew of the Rocinante continues to help out where they can to keep the galaxy at peace.

However, Laconia—the colony world that was claimed by a third of the Martian military—has been working in the background and forming their own nation under Duarte’s rule. Now, they threaten to take over everything Humanity has built thus far. Using ancient alien technology and weaponry developed to be above and beyond everything else, ready to take over and rebuild the colonies under their vision and rule.

This book starts out rather slow I think, although it has some big revelations, about how much happened in the last thirty years as Humanity has expanded to the stars during a period of relative peace, with no big threats and a sense of unity among humans, despite the scale of the space they inhabit by now. We also get a glimpse of what the Laconian Empire looks like from the inside, a regime that has been built with the utmost efficiency, and we even get the perspective of some characters from that side, that give us interesting look to how things are going during the novel.

The Rocinante crew, with Bobbie, Clarissa, Amos, Alex, Naomi and Holden, have grown old, but they are still kicking around, doing side quests and helping out whoever needs it. The Rocinante itself is also old, but it has been kept in check and updated as technology has advanced, an old dog with some nice tricks.

Of course, the sci-fi setting allows for de-aging and similar treatments, a nice way to have a big timeskip while keeping our characters able to flip around and kick the bad guys while looking as cool as ever. They are a family now, but there are some big changes that happen pretty early on, which makes for some interesting conflict between the characters throughout the book.

I especially like the development of Bobbie on this one, but Amos continues to be a favourite, and the struggles he faces during this arc were intense. I was about to cry in one of those chapters, really good stuff.

The stakes on an interplanetary level are huge, and once again, victory is not certain, with things getting worse at every moment. Laconia’s might will prove to be a huge challenge to overcome for our heroes.

The book is written in the same style as ever, keeping me on my toes chapter after chapter, at least during the second half of it, as it takes a bit to pick up.

I must say I found some of the dialogue to feel a little bit repetitive this time around. For example, I think there’s like five or six variations of “this map of space is not true to scalejust to showcase how vast something is, or how small we really are, or something akin. There’s also like three or four “this object is going away but it’s actually us moving”, because of the perspective at zero gravity and the darkness of space (especially in the slow zone). It is nothing bad at all, I think I just noticed it and couldn’t stop doing so later on.

The point of character of the villain is probably the weakest bit. Don’t get me wrong, it is well written, but every single time I just could not help but chuckle and think “how is this guy believing half the things he says?”, which I guess is the point. They are space fascists after all, and even if the ideas are ridiculous, they are also terrifying.

Also, maybe the book is not that slow and it was just me who didn’t commit to it until very late. Here’s a little summary of how my reading progress went:

So, as you can see, I had a lot of hiccups during the whole thing, and maybe if I was better at sticking to it like I did during the last few days, I would have finished this in less than a week.

In any case, this was a very great way to start the last trilogy of this book series, and I am extremely hyped to pick up the next book, once everyone in my Book Club catches up. I won’t say the last person missing, out of respect, but I hope they get it over soon. You know who you are, evil.