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Nemesis Games by James SA Corey [SPOILERS]


Xray the Enforcer

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Also, I think Amos most certainly has one of the strongest moral compasses in the entire series, even while he has trouble processing his emotions due to intense past trauma (and thus looks for excuses to get into fights). It's just that, like HBH and Zabz note, his moral "north star" is very different than Holden's (or 2015 Western society's). I'm not sure I'd go so far as to label it Blue/Orange, but he's definitely on a different axis than most. He looks to Holden as an expedient way to make sure he's operating under more-typical societal standards (which he knows frequently has benefits), because he is aware that his own code is pretty far out there for most people. It's a short-cut to an actual cost-benefit analysis of living under one's own code vs. sticking more with contemporary society (i.e. Holden). I, too, look forward to seeing what happens when those two end up at cross-purposes.

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I thought this book was excellent. I enjoy the discussion here, as well; I fall into the camp of appreciating that earth's fall wasn't well-described.

When the rocks hit, the reader and the fictional both are just hoping it's over and not as serious as it seems. The early news feeds off Earth talk about supplies being sent from the unaffected areas, and government control is still more or less in place as Amos goes on (the only reason he doesn't see more people is that he is actively avoiding them, IIRC). It's only later in the book that the full reality that literally billions of people will die starts to sink in. If we had been hit over the head with how bad the disaster was, the whole effect of experiencing the same denial as Earth's population would be lost.

I'm not sure if that was intentional or not, or if my reading of it is normal, but it worked for me on that level. The only thing I thought was weird was that Holden seems pretty unconcerned about his family in Montana.
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The only thing I thought was weird was that Holden seems pretty unconcerned about his family in Montana.


I wouldn't say he was unconcerned. He definitely commented on not having talked to them for a while and then when he did hear from them it was definitely a "They're okay... for now" kind of feeling.
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I just read The Churn today. I really wish I would have read this before reading Nemesis Games as the reveal was completely spoiled. It was still a great read, and it was awesome character development for the rest of the series.

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Late to the party, but I have finally read this. Despite the bait and switch re: the crew's indestructibility, I very much enjoyed it. Return to form in my eyes. It was also nice to learn the crew's back-stories and see their PoVs. Naomi in particular always was a somewhat flat character, who greatly benefited from fleshing out and gaining an individual voice. And, of course, the game-changer opens so many new opportunities for the upcoming volumes.

I do have some quibbles,of course. The Teflon immortality of the crew continues being ridiculous. In fact, I darkly suspect that they are increasing the Roci contingent just to have some non-core crewperson to kill in the future. At least, this time their involvement in the crisis thankfully mostly makes sense, though.

OTOH, some details of the world-building don't make sense. Like, poor Belters having significant number of children to abuse and neglect, when we have been shown how difficult, dangerous and costly it is for the Belters to have children. Which also segues into one of significant problems of Inares's plan - from everything we have seen the Belters can't really produce their average 2.5 kids per couple in order to maintain their population. They are dependent on constant immigration for their continuing existence. Also, didn't the grand plan depend on appropriating the surplus from Earth and Mars that would have gone to the new colonies? But with Earth nuked, there isn't going to be any. They'll just have what they can seize from the currently en route ships and that isn't going to be enough to make the Belt bloom or even to maintain the status quo.
Another thing that doesn't make sense to me is the currently popular trope of Earth having an overwhelmingly large population of people living on the dole, but not limiting their reproduction. I mean, sure that is the beloved US-conservative bogeyman, but it doesn't make a lot of sense in such a technologically developed society. If they can colonize the Belt and create a genetic child of 8 parents, they also can reliably regulate reproduction. And if it is such a drain on society, they'd find a way to create the necessary legislative framework.
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@Maia

 

I think Earth does have limits on reproduction. I may be incorrect, but I'm fairly sure Holden references permits in one of the earlier books

 

Then where did the teenage gangsters that stalk Amos during his nostalgic ramble through Baltimore come from? IMHO, it is one of the things which were mindlessly copied from RL US inner cities and projects, but don't make  sense in this future world. They are overpopulated and have no use for large parts of the already existing populace. They have an advanced enough medical science to couple reception of basic allowance with reliable, but reversible sterilization. It is the only thing that makes sense, really.

 

Ditto poor and abused Belter kids, Lunars, Martians, etc. Yes, people will be people, but getting kids in these environments is difficult and expensive, so I really don't see how neglected and abandoned ones could exist in numbers, or why their societies, which do have need for additional citizens, would allow them to be wasted.

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Then where did the teenage gangsters that stalk Amos during his nostalgic ramble through Baltimore come from? IMHO, it is one of the things which were mindlessly copied from RL US inner cities and projects, but don't make  sense in this future world. They are overpopulated and have no use for large parts of the already existing populace. They have an advanced enough medical science to couple reception of basic allowance with reliable, but reversible sterilization. It is the only thing that makes sense, really.
 
Ditto poor and abused Belter kids, Lunars, Martians, etc. Yes, people will be people, but getting kids in these environments is difficult and expensive, so I really don't see how neglected and abandoned ones could exist in numbers, or why their societies, which do have need for additional citizens, would allow them to be wasted.


I think this was partly answered in The Churn [spoiler] there are people that have kids illegally and.aren't registered or on the govt's radar [/spoiler]
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As usual, Maia makes very good points.

 

The whole thing could be extrapolated further: why have [i]people[/i] out there in the Belt anyway? It makes no sense to have a crew of humans on a spaceship whose purpose is to haul ice from A to B. This task can be automated, and to much better effect because machines can survive 10G.

 

I think it wouldn’t be a very good story otherwise. And the fictional universe’s conflicts along simultaneous class [i]and[/i] phenotype fault lines works brilliantly. 

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Then where did the teenage gangsters that stalk Amos during his nostalgic ramble through Baltimore come from? IMHO, it is one of the things which were mindlessly copied from RL US inner cities and projects, but don't make  sense in this future world. They are overpopulated and have no use for large parts of the already existing populace. They have an advanced enough medical science to couple reception of basic allowance with reliable, but reversible sterilization. It is the only thing that makes sense, really.

 

Ditto poor and abused Belter kids, Lunars, Martians, etc. Yes, people will be people, but getting kids in these environments is difficult and expensive, so I really don't see how neglected and abandoned ones could exist in numbers, or why their societies, which do have need for additional citizens, would allow them to be wasted.

 

Amos mentioned it in the main books (when talking about his childhood) but it's very prominent in the Churn that Baltimore (and presumably Earth in general, to a lesser degree) has a huge segment of society that has very little to do with the UN. They don't collect basic, they survive via gang-related and other assorted crime, they churn out illegal kids who continue the cycle of deprivation. Same as any real world slum/ghetto, really.

 

The Belter child abuse thing is a bigger puzzler, but I guess you'll always get abusive arseholes no matter what society you're in.

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As usual, Maia makes very good points.

 

The whole thing could be extrapolated further: why have people out there in the Belt anyway? It makes no sense to have a crew of humans on a spaceship whose purpose is to haul ice from A to B. This task can be automated, and to much better effect because machines can survive 10G.

 

I think it wouldn’t be a very good story otherwise. And the fictional universe’s conflicts along simultaneous class and phenotype fault lines works brilliantly. 

Actually, you can't use automated control because of real time lag in communication. When you are sending in spacecraft in to asteroid fields, you would need people to make instant decisions in navigation that computers aren't equipped to handle.

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Actually, you can't use automated control because of real time lag in communication. When you are sending in spacecraft in to asteroid fields, you would need people to make instant decisions in navigation that computers aren't equipped to handle.

 

It’s probably not constructive to discuss what kind of computing power is available to the denizens of the solar system at that time. But celestial high-speed navigation is something I’d happily hand over to a computer, even with today’s technology. (Google solves a harder problem with self-driving cars.)

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It’s probably not constructive to discuss what kind of computing power is available to the denizens of the solar system at that time. But celestial high-speed navigation is something I’d happily hand over to a computer, even with today’s technology. (Google solves a harder problem with self-driving cars.)

I'm not thinking the issues would come up in the trip itself, Getting there and back wouldn't be an issue at all, I am thinking of all of the different variables of navigating in the asteroid field itself. Are you sure there wouldn't be other craft in the area working that would change trajectories of objects? Even if there was perfect computing able to do this, Would you really want to risk an entire ship to a computer glitch? 

 

Agreed.  You can't get a decent lube-job anti-sunward of Mars. 

You should receive a standing ovation for sentence composition. I would never have imagined those words could be strung together.

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 Even if there was perfect computing able to do this, Would you really want to risk an entire ship to a computer glitch? 

 

The “glitch” problem applies to humans in greater measure. But the big difference is that you can subject the mechanical crew to 10 G. So it’s incredibly much faster. (No time to do the math right now, but I’m sure I can lose a lot of spacecraft before your human-crewed ice hauler becomes competitive. More details later.)

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The “glitch” problem applies to humans in greater measure. But the big difference is that you can subject the mechanical crew to 10 G. So it’s incredibly much faster. (No time to do the math right now, but I’m sure I can lose a lot of spacecraft before your human-crewed ice hauler becomes competitive. More details later.)


So would it not be simpler to have a "station" on the edge of the belt and have the automated haul just for the long flight out?
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Just finished the book. Was quite surprised by how of a game changer it was.

Not even talking about the near apocalypse thing, but rather the form the story took. The first four books were always self contained, almost standalones. Now, I suppose we'll go through a long arc, maybe til the end of the series? The ending felt a little flat, but I guess it will be worth it in the future.

And having this mini-revolution for the PoV system... well, pleasantly surprised. I wonder which direction they'll go wrt that in the future.

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