Tiamat's Wrath - BookWyrm Underscore

Hardcover, 534 pages

Published April 3, 2019 by Orbit Hachette Book Group.

ISBN:: 978-0-316-33287-3

(1 review)

Thirteen hundred gates have opened to solar systems around the galaxy. But as humanity builds its interstellar empire in the alien ruins, the mysteries and threats grow deeper.

In the dead systems where gates lead to stranger things than alien planets, Elvi Okoye begins a desperate search to discover the nature of a genocide that happened before the first human beings existed, and to find weapons to fight a war against forces at the edge of the imaginable. But the price of that knowledge may be higher than she can pay.

At the heart of the empire, Teresa Duarte prepares to take on the burden of her father's godlike ambition. The sociopathic scientist Paolo Cortázar and the Mephistophelian prisoner James Holden are only two of the dangers in a palace thick with intrigue, but Teresa has a mind of her own and secrets even her father the emperor doesn't guess. …

Thirteen hundred gates have opened to solar systems around the galaxy. But as humanity builds its interstellar empire in the alien ruins, the mysteries and threats grow deeper.

In the dead systems where gates lead to stranger things than alien planets, Elvi Okoye begins a desperate search to discover the nature of a genocide that happened before the first human beings existed, and to find weapons to fight a war against forces at the edge of the imaginable. But the price of that knowledge may be higher than she can pay.

At the heart of the empire, Teresa Duarte prepares to take on the burden of her father's godlike ambition. The sociopathic scientist Paolo Cortázar and the Mephistophelian prisoner James Holden are only two of the dangers in a palace thick with intrigue, but Teresa has a mind of her own and secrets even her father the emperor doesn't guess.

And throughout the wide human empire, the scattered crew of the Rocinante fights a brave rear-guard action against Duarte's authoritarian regime. Memory of the old order falls away, and a future under Laconia's eternal rule -- and with it, a battle that humanity can only lose - seems more and more certain. Because against the terrors that lie between worlds, courage and ambition will not be enough...

8 editions

Jakers reviewed Tiamat's Wrath by James S.A. Corey (The Expanse, #8)

I was not emotionally prepared for this book.

5 stars

Content warning Vague plot spoilers

There's a lot to say about this book. It reminds me a lot of the first three books in the series, especially in terms of pacing. There's never a moment where the story stops happening, except maybe to build on some of the characters. The pacing is incredible, and sets up the final book in a way that had me both excited to finish the series and dreading the end - I genuinely don't want this to be over.

This book was incredibly well-paced. I won't spoil anything, but there's a major character death involved, but it happens during one of the massive battles in the book. But the others can't really stop, and instead, they carry that with them until the end of the book. When you finally get a chance to take a breath, you realize there's one more thing to do: you have to mourn with the remaining crew of the Roci. It's such a brilliant, well-written moment that truly reflects what it must be like to lose someone you love in battle, but having to continue fighting.

I'm taking a bit of a breather before Leviathan Falls, but good lord, I can't wait to see how all this ends up.