Review: Nemesis Games

Nemesis Games by James S.A. Corey
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Every book in The Expanse series is the kind of book you just can't put down. I tried to - I wanted to save some of the story for later - but I was so hooked that I read the last 300 pages last night instead of getting to sleep at a reasonable time.

Previous books have usually introduced new characters to serve as viewpoint chapters, with the stable centerpiece being James Holden. This time, while Holden gets a POV as always, the viewpoint characters are his crewmembers, now spread around the solar system on leave as their ship, the Rocinante, is under repair. The world takes off where the previous ones left off (and spoiler for the other books here), with a thousand gates to other systems with habitable worlds suddenly available after an alien probe, left dormant for ages, finally activates. To the people of Mars, whose terraforming efforts have been gradually successful but face generations before the world is like the paradise of Earth, the worlds are a chance to get a new start now - but that leaves those left behind with a weakened workforce and even less hope of getting the world they've worked for. For the people of Earth, many of whom live a bleak life on basic income since jobs are scarce, with all essential needs provided for but no luxuries to make the life enjoyable, the new planets offer a challenge and economic freedom. For the Belters, though, who have grown up for generations in space and whose physiology means that they would need intense medical care to live in a gravity well (and for some, it would be impossible), and whose pride and culture come from eking out an existence in an environment totally inhospitable to humans while facing discrimination from the planet-dwellers, the new planets mean extinction. There's no reason to live in space, no use for the space-dwellers, now that anyone and everyone who wants a planet can live on one except the Belters.

For Holden's crew, this is almost a peaceful time. There are no alien viruses taking over moons, no aliens machinery shooting at them, no alien technology coming alive after centuries to destroy a planet. But they all come from very different places, and the new complicated politics of the system test their allegiances as they each visit their homes. Amos visits Baltimore (as he says, he's not from Earth: he's from Baltimore, because what he knows about the Earth outside of Baltimore could fit on a napkin), Alex visits Mars, and Naomi gets called home by hard-core OPA Belters she knew in a former life. Holden is left on Tycho Station with Fred, leader of the Outer Planets Alliance, just as the OPA starts to realize that some of its more radical factions are becoming a problem.

I think James Holden in general is a brilliant lead character. He's almost a satire of every dashing space captain with blue eyes and a strong jaw that has ever graced a pulp cover, movie poster, or comic book. He is those characters, but made real, honest to the point where his honesty has started several wars and a system-wide exodus and a little bit oblivious to the darker sides of people. But I'm glad that he gets less of a focus in this book, and that what chapters he does have deal with his loneliness and introspection.

Amos is a perfectly crafted sociopath who wants to be good (though being bad isn't really a problem for him), but the 'how' generally perplexes him, and as we see in this book, his answer is usually "What would Jim do? What would Naomi do?" It's an incredible credit to the writers that his character is both believably emotionless and also has a satisfying emotional arc. I wish they'd fleshed out his friend Erich more, but I get the feeling we'll see more of him in the future.

Alex was probably the least internally interesting character of the bunch, but experienced a lot of action (and a lot of interaction with Bobbie Draper, who is possibly my favorite character in the series), which made up for it. And he does get some interesting dilemmas and self-growth, it's just more subtle. He and Bobbie have a storyline straight out of an action/spy movie and grow close to each other. It was an unexpected combination, but makes sense, as both of them are from Mars. I could've used maybe a little bit more of Alex's southern drawl, but there were no major flaws here, and his storyline gets an even bigger payoff in the epilogue chapter. Also, he interacts with an admiral(? I think) who was almost definitely written with Edward James Olmos in mind, and I hope they can get him when/if the show gets to that point.

Naomi. Naomi Naomi Naomni. I absolutely loved everything about her here. She's always been a badass onboard the Roci, and now we get to see how she got that way and it is heartbreaking and emotional and also lets her be even more of a badass. (Spoilers follow.) She gets a call from her ex-lover, Marcos, telling her that the son she hasn't seen in over a decade is in trouble and needs her help. She is pretty sure it's a trap but goes to protect her son anyway. The relationships she has with Marcos and Filip are turbulent and nuanced. She once loved Marcos, but he abused her and took her son away to control her; she still loves Filip, but those feelings are for the abstract, the baby she left behind, and the boy he could have been if she had kept him. And teenaged Filip's feelings are complicated, too, because he's been told this woman was weak and crazy, but she's his mother and he wants her approval. Naomi also deals with the suicidal thoughts and helplessness that plague her while in Marco's control. This was one of the most well-drawn descriptions of a character with depression and trauma and realistic issues relating to motherhood I've ever read. A++



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