Nemesis Games by James SA Corey [SPOILERS]

[Kalbear]

The Vital Abyss was absolutely awesome as hell, and I really hope that we get to see the main character again. The sociopath meeting flowers for algernon was incredibly compelling stuff, as was the details on the protomolecule. This was the hardest of the hard sci-fi so far in the series and tweaked all of my Brin/Bear/Benford receptors. 

[End of Disc One]

I recently finished Nemesis Games, and I actually thought it was the weakest of the series so far.  Aside from the big event, most of the other things that happened were pretty minor.  I liked the idea of having the Roci crew be the 4 POVs, but I feel like if their stories in this novel were about new characters instead, we would be pissed that we're spending so much time with this inconsequential shit.  There were so many pages spent with Naomi's escape and rescue, and that ended up being the actual climax of the book.  Just small time stuff.  And while I love some of the action of the series, my mind tends to wander during the gunfights.  And Amos is a cool POV character, but we didn't really learn anything about him that we didn't already learn from The Churn.  I started to get disappointed when I realize that the remainder of his story in this book would just be him trying to escape from Earth.  And I'm an Alex fan, but he felt like a supporting character despite being a POV.  When I heard about the POVs in this book, I was hoping that there would be some tension developing between them.  But now they're all back to the status quo character-wise.  None of them had an evolving character arc, except maybe Naomi.

Still an enjoyable book, but once again I disagree with the majority.  Now Cibola Burn; that was a great, fascinating book.  I always enjoy getting to know new POV characters, so I hope we get some good ones in Babylon's Ashes.

 

[Werthead]

The Expanse #5: Nemesis Games

Several years of constant duty has left the independent frigate Rocinante damaged and in severe need of a refit. With the ship in a repair dock for several months of work, the crew scatters back to their homes to catch up with old friends and family. With humanity moving out to explore the new worlds beyond the alien wormhole gateway, it feels like a time of peace and opportunity. This abruptly changes when the largest terrorist attack in human history kills millions and suddenly the Solar system is plunged into chaos. The crew of the Rocinante have to regroup and stop the crisis from getting even worse.

Nemesis Games is the fifth of nine planned books in The Expanse series, carrying us firmly into the second half of the story. Co-authors Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck (writing as James S.A. Corey) have structured this series in a very interesting way, using only Jim Holden as their ongoing POV character and swapping other characters in and out with every passing volume. The story has also evolved in an organic way, moving from a near-future thriller rooted in realism in Leviathan Wakes to much grander stories involving aliens and gateways, as well as frontier colonialism. This approach helps keep things fresh, especially when compared to the numerous military SF series out which go on year after year, getting more stale with each passing volume.

Nemesis Games is different to the preceding books in several ways. First off, it splits the POVs between the four crewmembers of the Rocinante. Holden still present, but Alex, Amos and Naomi now all get their own storylines and perspectives. This is a very welcome and overdue move, especially for Naomi who always clearly had more background and complexity going on than Holden (who is often somewhat dense, it has to be said) was able to discern from her. Focusing on Amos, a deeply violent man who requires external stabilising forces to keep himself from snapping altogether, is also a rewarding move which furthers his character more. Alex is the most straightforward crewmember on the Rocinante and this makes him arguably the least interesting, but Abraham and Franck throw in a crowd-pleasing move by teaming him up with Bobbie Draper, the fan-favourite Martian marine from Caliban's War, for most of his mission.

The rotating chapter structure keeps things ticking along quite nicely and at first it appears that our characters are all involved in completely different events. Links soon appear between them and suddenly everything comes crashing together when the terror attacks take place. This is a game-changing moment in the series when the powers and factions we have gotten used to through four previous volumes are challenged by the arrival of a new, more dangerous force and all the existing rules are thrown out. The abruptness of the catastrophic attack is brutally effective, even if the scale of the conspiracy required to bring it about is at times unconvincing: Abraham and Franck evoke a similar feeling of shock to the events of 9/11 but on a far vaster scale involving thousands of conspirators, but that makes the likelihood of the plan succeeding without being found out rather less likely.

Once chaos has been unleashed the authors slam down the accelerator. Nemesis Games moves rapidly between Alex and Bobbie on a desperate rescue mission to Holden's politicking on Tycho Station to Amos and Clarissa Mao trying to escape from a scene of utter devastation to Naomi reluctantly trapped on the inside of the criminal conspiracy. There's a feeling of doom-laden relentlessness to the book which keeps things moving along quickly. This is also the first time in the series where the authors haven't felt the need to tie up the primary storyline before the end of the novel, as they seem to consider Nemesis Games and the forthcoming sixth volume, Babylon's Ashes, as a duology within the framework of the larger series. The novel ends with the bad guys still at large, the catastrophic aftermath of the attack still unfolding and new threats emerging beyond the wormhole gateways.

There are flaws in all of this: Naomi is captured and spends the bulk of the novel imprisoned and trying to talk her captors down from their villainy. Although the authors change things up by having Naomi's captors being her friends from childhood, it still feels a little too much like a retread of Naomi's story in the previous novel in the series, Cibola Burn. The actual moment of the terror attack also feels a little undercooked, as we move from the villain declaiming that something huge is about to happen to seeing a news report on the aftermath. But the impact on the characters is immense and the way it restructures the story going forwards is quite well-handled. In addition, some readers may be disappointed that there is little to no expansion given for the protomolecule storyline and the mystery of what happened to its creators, but arguably after three books focusing on that to the possible detriment of the human story, that's not too much of a problem.

Nemesis Games (****½) finally fulfils the promise laid down by Leviathan Wakes five years ago and is the best volume in The Expanse to date. The novel is available now in the UK and USA. The next book in the series, Babylon's Ashes, will be published on 2 November 2016.

[TheRevanchist]

On 7/14/2016 at 11:42 PM, End of Disc One said:

I recently finished Nemesis Games, and I actually thought it was the weakest of the series so far.  Aside from the big event, most of the other things that happened were pretty minor.  I liked the idea of having the Roci crew be the 4 POVs, but I feel like if their stories in this novel were about new characters instead, we would be pissed that we're spending so much time with this inconsequential shit.  There were so many pages spent with Naomi's escape and rescue, and that ended up being the actual climax of the book.  Just small time stuff.  And while I love some of the action of the series, my mind tends to wander during the gunfights.  And Amos is a cool POV character, but we didn't really learn anything about him that we didn't already learn from The Churn.  I started to get disappointed when I realize that the remainder of his story in this book would just be him trying to escape from Earth.  And I'm an Alex fan, but he felt like a supporting character despite being a POV.  When I heard about the POVs in this book, I was hoping that there would be some tension developing between them.  But now they're all back to the status quo character-wise.  None of them had an evolving character arc, except maybe Naomi.

Still an enjoyable book, but once again I disagree with the majority.  Now Cibola Burn; that was a great, fascinating book.  I always enjoy getting to know new POV characters, so I hope we get some good ones in Babylon's Ashes.

 

I completely disagree. I found Nemesis game fantastic, with Cibola Burn being the weakest in the series. Maybe it is cause I really like to know the characters more in novels, and Nemesis was entirely focused on it.

[karaddin]

@sologdin I can't recall if you've read these books or not, but your post in The Great Ordeal v2 thread on Poseidon/Troy/Horses was great and I was wondering if you'd had any thoughts on the mythological references in The Expanse? Since I'm tagging someone that may not have read them, I'll at least throw stuff in a spoiler box, but things that have occurred to me as matching up:

Spoiler

Some might be wondering where these references even are, but a lot of them are in the names of the places where things are happening.  I think there was more, I puzzled these out talking through things with Brook one afternoon.

• Phoebe - One of the original titans, grandmother of Apollo and Artemis and associated with prophecy and oracular intellect.  Phoebe is the asteroid which turns out to be the protomolecule, and much like prophecy is very much a harbinger of things to come.
• Eros - In one of the tales Eros falls in love with a human woman, who after a series of trials is raised to immortality by Aphrodite. This one is a bit of a stretch, but from a certain point of view you could see the outcome of Eros as being raised up (in a rather horrific fashion).  I thought I had something better than that for Eros, but not thinking of what it is now.
• Ganymede - Was a Trojan who was abducted by Zeus while farming to be his cupbearer and made immortal.  Ganymede is the bread basket of The Belt, such as there is one, and kids are abducted from there and changed via the protoculture.
• Not exactly the same, but the names have done a good job of giving a vague sense of where the books are going. Babylon's Ashes being the next title is part of why I'm so convinced Earth is toast going forward.

 

[red snow]

14 hours ago, TheRevanchist said:

I completely disagree. I found Nemesis game fantastic, with Cibola Burn being the weakest in the series. Maybe it is cause I really like to know the characters more in novels, and Nemesis was entirely focused on it.

I think Cibola and Nemesis Games are the books that polarise fans the most in terms of what they like in the series. Cibola is all about the alien SF while Nemesis is much more about the politics and effects on human populations. I think the characterisation is usually pretty uniform.

[sperry]

I thought Cibola burn was easily the weakest entry in the series, and the only one thus far that I haven't enjoyed.

[sologdin]

kara, i haven't read these, but you're piquing my interest.

[karaddin]

Please do expand my mind again if you go ahead and read them

[Xray the Enforcer]

Also going to clock in to say that Cibola Burn was my least-favorite book of the series thus far, almost entirely due to the shift in focus. I can see why others would set it as their favorite, though.

[red snow]

1 hour ago, Xray the Enforcer said:

Also going to clock in to say that Cibola Burn was my least-favorite book of the series thus far, almost entirely due to the shift in focus. I can see why others would set it as their favorite, though.

If the TV show gets that far (fingers crossed) I'd be very curious as to how they handle it. I think it would be dangerous to have that the only story in town for the season. Maybe invent some Bobby, Butcher or Ava storylines to run parallel?

[Werthead]

I can see them make the gate easier (but not too much easier) to get to and maybe combine elements of Cibola Burn and Nemesis Games. In fact, aren't they laying track for Nemesis Games in Season 1 already with some of the stealth tech stuff and Ava's investigations on Earth?

But if Bobbie is going to be joining the Roci crew full-time (which seems likely from where Nemesis Games left off), then the TV show will have to introduce some stuff for her and Ava to do during the events of Books 3 and 4. So that makes some sense.

[Kalbear]

I'd be happy if they left Burn out. The villain was annoyingly cardboard, the situation not that special to me, and the shitty mud world of slugs sucked but not in a particularly neat way. Absolutely my least favorite of the series. Nemesis Games might be my overall favorite.

[Corvinus85]

I don't think Cibola Burn should be left out. Changed in some ways, yes, but completely left out. The mystery of what destroyed the aliens is still important. Plus, Havelock can be brought back in the story. He can be at the center of the human conflict, while the crew of the Roci deals with the mystery.

[Consigliere]

Cibola Burn was my least favourite as well. I think that it could easily be cut out of the tv series as, apart from learning a bit more about the protomolecule masters, nothing of crucial importance to an adaptation happened there. I'm sure the show can find another way to shed more light on the protomolecule masters and some exposition can provide context for the problems Mars and The Belt face due to the mass migrations. The conflict in Nemesis Games was far more interesting anyway and, I think, would play much better on screen than the events of Cibola Burn.

[karaddin]

I find it an interesting juggling act that they're doing with the books, because I feel the scope of the threat jumps around a lot.

• In LW the scope is solar system wide warfare, followed by the thread of Earth being wiped out by the protomolecule.  This is pretty big time, "save the world" kind of scope.
• In CW the scope narrows, there is still the threat of war but the threat of the protomolecule is much more confined in the body of the warrior/monsters rather than the all consuming ooze of Eros, and with much of the details out in the open the overall threat of war has changed in nature - its not that 'everything is spinning out of control, no one knows what is going on' style of book 1 even if its just as imminent.
• In AG it narrows a ton more again, the direct threat of the slow zone is mostly just threatening all the ships trapped there, Clarice is trying to get revenge on the Roci crew and so on. Much more personal. The big consequences are the human politics stuff of control of the gates and so on.
• In CB it's the tightest that we've had yet, yes the destruction is on a planetary scale, but its a tiny population on the planet. There is some risk of wider threat posed by the alien stuff, but the focus is on the fate of the crew, the people on the ground and the ships in the decaying orbit. The true repercussions of the events are on a much more meta level and we don't see them till the end - Mars is functionally dead.
• In NG the book starts out like its narrowed even more than in CB, we are getting the personal stories of the crew chasing down what they need to get done. Then the scope explodes back to comparable to the first book, Earth is mortally wounded, millions dead with billions to follow, Avasarala leading the remnants of the government from the moon and then finally the protomolecule killing alien influence stirring in the gates and taking ships.

I feel like this has a lot to do with why NG felt like a real peak after CB for a lot of people, including me. I enjoyed CB but think NG is the best so far.