Jump to content

Babylon's Ashes: The Expanse Book 6 (Spoilers)


Rhom

Recommended Posts

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

I don't even think Marco hated earthers. I think Marco loved Marco. If Earthers would have given him awesome things, he would have been against them in a heartbeat. They were a useful goad.

He hated Naomi far more than he hated Earth. 

Yup.  Marco was a charismatic narcissist of the highest order.  He cared about Marco and how everything else affected Marco.  He hated Naomi because she had gotten out from under his thumb and "shamed" him in ways that he couldn't ignore.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

Did anyone read the "Strange Dogs" novella that Abraham and Franck just released yesterday?

I stayed up late to finish (speed read) it last night and am planning a more leisurely reread this weekend.  I liked it.  I love the big Expanse novels the best (especially the first 2 and NG), but this was my 2nd favorite Expanse novella behind The Churn.

Without spoiling anything hopefully, my only wish is that the story spent a few more beats early on establishing the relationship between Cara her little brother.  There were a couple moments I remember, but more would have made the the plot even more powerful for the reader.

Even as it was though, in addition to the strangeness and alien mystery, the ending left an emotional lump in my throat (meaning it was good).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 4/28/2017 at 3:28 PM, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I have a stupid question.  When Inaros was lobbing rocks at Earth why didn't he take a swing at Luna too?  They wouldn't have been as effective, smaller gravity well to fall down and no atmosphere to depend upon and screw up, but it would have damaged the infrastructure of Earth's primary fall back point.  As he obviously had rocks in reserve why didn't he take a swing at Luna too while he was beating the shit out of Earth?

It would have damaged the infrastructure only if it actually hit said infrastructure. It it didn't, then the Moon would have had a few new craters, that's it. And it was a monumental task to target a whole planet with asteroids, hitting specific locations would have been extremely more difficult. The damage to Earth, as you said, is in affecting the atmosphere, completing screwing the climate and ecosystem, thus making the whole planet a lot less livable.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Wethers said:

Did anyone read the "Strange Dogs" novella that Abraham and Franck just released yesterday?

I stayed up late to finish (speed read) it last night and am planning a more leisurely reread this weekend.  I liked it.  I love the big Expanse novels the best (especially the first 2 and NG), but this was my 2nd favorite Expanse novella behind The Churn.

Without spoiling anything hopefully, my only wish is that the story spent a few more beats early on establishing the relationship between Cara her little brother.  There were a couple moments I remember, but more would have made the the plot even more powerful for the reader.

Even as it was though, in addition to the strangeness and alien mystery, the ending left an emotional lump in my throat (meaning it was good).

I will have to check that out, as I really enjoyed The Churn. My only complaint with that story was how short it was. Good stuff.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

I will have to check that out, as I really enjoyed The Churn. My only complaint with that story was how short it was. Good stuff.

Nice.  I'm curious to hear what you (and others) think.

Spoiler

It is set on a planet in the Laconia system, so it also provides a view, albeit tangential and incomplete, into what Winston Duarte and his faction are up to.

Duarte himself shows up in person briefly, which I think is the only time other than when he was introduced in an early Alex POV in Nemesis Games.  Interesting villain.  At least I think of someone that conspired to kill tens of billions and virtually wreck our solar system as a diversion for his own ends as a villain.

As he did during his encounter with Alex in NG, he comes off as quite nice on the surface but we (and Cara) get an inkling of his true self when he has his man who accidentally ran over Xan after drinking summarily executed - as if that makes things better.

Still noodling on what the stick moons are other than probably an interface to the left-over proto-alien technologies on the Laconia planet, which I'm assuming the dogs are an example of.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

I will have to check that out, as I really enjoyed The Churn. My only complaint with that story was how short it was. Good stuff.

I originally described it to Xray as being short because I read the entire thing on my commute home, but then I remembered that my train was delayed so the commute was longer than usual. Still, it seemed to me like the shortest of the novellas. Not a complaint at all, just an observation. I think the relative brevity served the story well -- I didn't want everything to be neatly explained and tied up at the end.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

28 minutes ago, Mr. X said:

I originally described it to Xray as being short because I read the entire thing on my commute home, but then I remembered that my train was delayed so the commute was longer than usual. Still, it seemed to me like the shortest of the novellas. Not a complaint at all, just an observation. I think the relative brevity served the story well -- I didn't want everything to be neatly explained and tied up at the end.

Yeah, I think I knocked it out in an afternoon. Amos might just be my favorite character. That short story bookended his POV chapters in Nemesis Games kind of perfectly.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Is there a compilation of novellas and short stories? If no, is it planned?

I just finished Babylon's Ashes and I liked it... But the first impression wasn't good. Not good at all.

My main problem being that I have a hard time believing that people who are okay with destroying Earth and killing billions (Michio, etc) are actually good men and women that I should like. Which actually almost killed the whole book for me. I don't know how I managed to still get through it, but I suppose everything else was really really well done.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 7/30/2017 at 4:27 AM, Pliskin said:

Is there a compilation of novellas and short stories? If no, is it planned?

Not yet, but from what I've read, a collection is planned once they're done writing the novellas. Or the series. Or both.

Pretty sure I've seen either Ty or Daniel refer to the compilation as being book #10, as the series itself is planned to be 9 novels.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Naomi's analysis and her ability to predict and recreate the conditions under which disappear makes it sound like a natural phenomenon. Like if the gate system has some a certain capacity and that under certain conditions it can be overwhelmed. Maybe the effect of limiting speed in the slow zone is not a defense system but a security one, intended to prevent the system from overloading.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, The Sleeper said:

Naomi's analysis and her ability to predict and recreate the conditions under which disappear makes it sound like a natural phenomenon. Like if the gate system has some a certain capacity and that under certain conditions it can be overwhelmed. Maybe the effect of limiting speed in the slow zone is not a defense system but a security one, intended to prevent the system from overloading.

Agreed. Or that the natural phenomenon opens some side gate where the Big Bad can reach in and grab ships. 

As an aside, Naomi seems to be an uber genius that solves complicated problems like this in nearly every book, even faster than the rest of the brightest minds solar system, many of whom were studying the ship disappearances. It doesn't bother me too much, but seems a bit of a stretch. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, unJon said:

Agreed. Or that the natural phenomenon opens some side gate where the Big Bad can reach in and grab ships. 

As an aside, Naomi seems to be an uber genius that solves complicated problems like this in nearly every book, even faster than the rest of the brightest minds solar system, many of whom were studying the ship disappearances. It doesn't bother me too much, but seems a bit of a stretch. 

It could be this technology that caused the destroyers of the protomolecule civilization to attack. Perhaps they saw it as an invasion of their space.

As for Nagata, the series from the start was geared more towards highjinx than realism, so this doesn't apply to her only. In this instance it was a bit more justified as she was the first one who had the full data at her disposal.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 11/09/2017 at 8:16 PM, unJon said:

As an aside, Naomi seems to be an uber genius that solves complicated problems like this in nearly every book, even faster than the rest of the brightest minds solar system, many of whom were studying the ship disappearances. It doesn't bother me too much, but seems a bit of a stretch. 

It is definitely one of those series where all the people of significance in the world all seem to know each other. See also Prax being the one to come up with a partial solution to Earth's famine, I liked it (particularly the way he survives the interrogation by giving such a scientifically detailed confession that he confuses the interrogators), but it's perhaps not entirely plausible that a character from an earlier book is the only one who can solve this problem.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 9/11/2017 at 2:12 PM, The Sleeper said:

Naomi's analysis and her ability to predict and recreate the conditions under which disappear makes it sound like a natural phenomenon. Like if the gate system has some a certain capacity and that under certain conditions it can be overwhelmed. Maybe the effect of limiting speed in the slow zone is not a defense system but a security one, intended to prevent the system from overloading.

I don't think it is a natural phenomenon. Remember, we have a description of it from the perspective of somebody who "disappeared" in one of the prior books. It looks more like a transcendent watchdog entity that sits there and grabs the next thing to come through after a sufficiently massive passage -- predictable, yes, but not natural.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Altherion said:

I don't think it is a natural phenomenon. Remember, we have a description of it from the perspective of somebody who "disappeared" in one of the prior books. It looks more like a transcendent watchdog entity that sits there and grabs the next thing to come through after a sufficiently massive passage -- predictable, yes, but not natural.

Maybe the gates are also a prison, and when the power surge from moving mass gets too big, the lock on the prison door short circuits briefly. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...