Nemesis Games

"What did you do?" Fred asked.
"There was a button," Holden said. "I pushed it."
"Jesus Christ. That really is how you go through life, isn't it?"

The Rocinante got pretty banged up in the previous novel, having been hit by the pieces of a blown up shuttle among other things, and now needs extensive repair. The ship gets docked on the Tycho station for few months and the crew members decide to take extended shore leaves in the meanwhile.

Nemesis Games, book five of The Expanse, follows Naomi, Alex, and Amos as they travel to meet up with their personal pasts on Ceres, Mars, and Earth respectively. We finally get to hear their untold backstories only hinted in the previous novels. Holden is a viewpoint character too as is tradition but he stays on Tycho to oversee Roci's repairs.

For a while it seems like there's going to be four unrelated stories. But soon enough shit hits the fan big time and the crew gets involved in the same events though still mostly separately I suppose. Throughout the series different characters have mentioned dropping rocks to an asteroid/moon/planet i.e. kinetic bombardment as a way to end a conflict. In Nemesis Games they finally start dropping them . . . to Earth.

I never considered that could happen. Sure someone could wipe out a station or colony on some moon. But Earth? And the degree they do it is not a mere tactical strike but near to an extinction level event. Again the authors introduce more completely insane people. And this is not just shooting a person or two, or even letting an alien protomolecule loose on a space station. This is the deaths of billions of people we're talking about and the cradle of humanity no less -- and the only place that supports life in the solar system.

The book tries to justify the happenings by Belters feeling they've become worthless and obsolete. Who would need ice hauled or minerals mined from asteroids when there are thousands of Earth-like self sufficient planets accessible through the Ring? Even with medical aid and physical therapy, a good portion of Belters can never live in a gravity well due to their bodies having been accustomed to zero g. And so the not sensible thing to do is naturally to take it on the inner planets and make sure everything is terrible for everyone. I guess they'll try to destroy the Ring in the next book.

There's no way to sympathize with the Belters after this and I have again hard time with the plausibility of the whole thing. The outer planets folk are so diverse, being descended from all the nationalities of Earth, that their hate for the inner planets is hard to believe, especially to this extent.

While in Cibola Burn one of the themes was civilization not simply being wherever people go -- it needs to be built at the place -- in Nemesis Games the theme is about the tribalistic nature of humans. People in your tribe can be trusted and considered to be on the same side. Everyone else is the enemy or at least not friendly.

Amos argues that when things are going well you consider your tribe to be larger, even up to a planetful of people. And in reverse; when things are going bad the tribe shrinks -- down to few people when an apocalypse hits.

Amos's adventures was probably the most entertaining viewpoint for me. He's the most interesting character after Holden. I also liked how he went to meet Clarissa. I had a feeling she'd be joining the Rocinante's crew in the future after the third book and now it seems that might actually be happening. And I guess Bobbie will be doing so too. It will be interesting to see how events unfold now with things having gone down the shitter.