James S.A. Corey - The Expanse

yerm

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Any idea where they would’ve left off if it was just a trilogy? It’s not obvious to me where a non cliffhanger ending would’ve been. Maybe they weren’t gonna do the ring gates?

I suppose you could have eros hit earth?
 

Ukerric

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Any idea where they would’ve left off if it was just a trilogy? It’s not obvious to me where a non cliffhanger ending would’ve been. Maybe they weren’t gonna do the ring gates?
The end of Abaddon's Gate isn't really a cliffhanger, though. You've opened the Gatespace, it's there for the taking, and it's a new era for mankind. The End.

That works. Sure, there's lots of stories remaining, and that's what they wrote afterward, but the first trilogy is self-contained, it wraps the story of "what is the protomolecule for" cleanly. From there, you could actually write a lot of different stories in a different way. The way I feel, the fourth book was mostly a filler story that they picked because it was relatively easy once they got a contract for 6 more books, then they settled on a larger frame for the last five.
 
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Cybsled

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Finally got around to reading the final Expanse short story, Sins of the Father. Recap of the story in spoilers

As expected, it focuses Filip and it takes place post-Gate closure. He was working in the transport union and was on a contracted project when the gates shut down, so now he is stranded. The system he is in doesnt have much, it was mostly a mining and science concern. They have no ship or shuttles, or even any powered transport. The only other city on the planet is over 7KM away and they lost communication. The town he is at only had 400 people or so and the migration of some sauropod sized aliens threatens their settlement - they aren't aggressive, but they dont give a fuck and basically have been trashing the town because it happens to be in the way - which is a big deal because there is no resupply and they aren't really self-sufficient yet and on borrowed time.

By cosmic coincidence, Anna's daughter happens to lead the settlement. The settlement has a vote: move the town so the aliens arent an issue, or make defenses. Some tough dude in the town wants to make defenses and Filip sees shades of his father in the guy. When the guy basically overrides the vote, Filip decides to take matters into his own hands and kills the dude, because if this settlement potentially is the start of a new civilization on this planet, he doesn't want another Marco Inaros figure. He gets exiled from the town for no shorter than 5 years (he estimates the town can maybe survive 6-7 years unless they figure out solutions for power generation after they run out of fuel) and they basically give him some minimal stuff to ensure he at least has a chance of survival. Filip decides that he will at least try to make his way to the other settlement to figure out what happened and it ends there.

Doesn't really resolve anything and paints a pretty bleak picture of the long term survival chances of the settlement
 

Deathwing

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Got around to finishing book 9. Some thoughts:

Tanaka's chapters were unenjoyable. The character herself felt rushed, because, well, introducing a brand new PoV in the last book, not much you can do. But kinda hard to endear the reader to character who's primary trait is "asshole". The stuff that gets developed during sessions with the psychologist should have come sooner. Even then, she just goes back to being an asshole.

Why didn't the Gathering Storm carpet bomb Draper Station as they left? Seems like a pretty obvious revenge move that Jillian was more than itching to do anyway since she bullied the Sparrowhawk in the same chapter.

Needed more epilogue. At the very least, I wanted the Linguist to react to Amos' name. Seems like he would not have been lost to history.

I wanted a PoV from Amos. What's it like being resurrected and some of your closest friends are apprehensive? Maybe it's just me, the authors used his empty "smile" a lot more than I remember.

LIke that they brought back Miller. Didn't like that it reminded me of Thomas Jane's awesome-yet-too-short performance of the character. These last three books need to be done as a show just for that. Fuck whoever ruined the TV show.
 
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Deathwing

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Re: the plan

I think the hivemind plan would have failed. Dont forget that the aliens had figured out a way to kill humans, but they may not have realized it worked because other humans werent aware that the people had been killed. Dont forget the Builders immediately knew the system was dead and then cleansed it, and the Goths keyed in on this and knew their attacks were effective.

Had they gone with the hivemind plan, then the hivemind would have acted the same as the Builders in theory, which would let the Goths know their plan is working. The hivemind wouldnt have saved them from the sodium trick they used which dropped everyone dead. Duarte's hivemind plan hinged on being able to resiste the anti-hivemind attack, but the hivemind would have done nothing to guard against the other attack. I think it ultimately would have failed. Plus, it is questionable if it was Duarte's plan in the end, since it was heavily implied that the Builder tech was heavily influencing him like they did Julie Mao after she was turned
They explicitly mention no more incursions, void bullets, or constants of physics changing after the Preiss incident. Based on the information given, Duarte's hivemind would have succeeded. I think this was the correct thing for the authors to establish because Holden's decision becomes purely moral.

Why didn't Duarte slow zone the slow zone after Amos' dive into the station? For what the station seemed capable of, a plain space battle seemed like he was pulling his punches.
 

Kovaks

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I am almost done with this and realized today that there doesn't appear to be a single tyranny in this book, I guess in this future we finally moved past all that shit. I don't know how it ends yet but I kinda hope this is our future
 

Hateyou

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I am almost done with this and realized today that there doesn't appear to be a single tyranny in this book, I guess in this future we finally moved past all that shit. I don't know how it ends yet but I kinda hope this is our future
Huh? You mean like the inners shitting on belters in the entire series? It was a solar system based tyranny instead of country but it was still the same result. Leaders of a couple factions of humans shitting on another. When belters tried to escape it by going to other solar systems they got blown up. Imagine having thousands of solar systems open up, completely open and unestablished, basically unlimited space and resources and greedy tyrannical leaders decide no one can go, they have to remain in their shitty life.
 

Kovaks

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Huh? You mean like the inners shitting on belters in the entire series? It was a solar system based tyranny instead of country but it was still the same result. Leaders of a couple factions of humans shitting on another. When belters tried to escape it by going to other solar systems they got blown up. Imagine having thousands of solar systems open up, completely open and unestablished, basically unlimited space and resources and greedy tyrannical leaders decide no one can go, they have to remain in their shitty life.
Fucking auto correct... not tyranny TRANNY
 
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Hateyou

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Fucking auto correct... not tyranny TRANNY
I like that you’re ok with tyranny existing and look forward to that future as long as trannies don’t exist. Very homophobic and problematic.
 
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