3.5/5 starsA good sequel that feels like a long wrap-up to Nemesis Games.Babylon’s Ashes is the sixth book in The Expanse series. The story picked up immediately from where Nemesis Games ended, and that’s pretty much what this book is about. Babylon’s Ashes is a long-wrap up to Nemesis Games, and I did feel that almost half of the content in this book could’ve been cut out and put into Nemesis Games instead. I get it, it’s difficult to write a follow-up to Nemesis Games, that book was insane spa...

(view spoiler)[Oh, that poor bear! I know millions dead, the earth dead and millions more will die slowly. The image of that bear sticks. I'm not sure there would be wilderness and wildlife in the world that overpopulated. Hey, why the news shows pictures of people's pets during a disaster. A cocker spaniel stuck the porch of a flooded home. Donations go up.I'm enjoying this series, but I think they need to move forward. This is not the first round of the love triangle with Earth, Mars and the B...

Summary: On Earth, Nono collects food from a government food truck to take home to pastor Anna and their daughter Nami. Anna's leg has been badly wounded, but she wants to start having congregations at their house anyway. She tells Nono that she heard on the radio that the Free Navy tried to drop another rock on Earth, but the UN Navy caught it in time.Michio Pa (OPA, former XO of the Behemoth) is in control of seizing ships at Medina Station (formerly the Behemoth, formerly the Mormon ship). Th...

The largest fleet will win, quantity has a quality all its own, and who has the right to say who and what is evil and good?The series already played with many philosophical and moral issues by reflecting true historic events in new settings, but with this part, a new dimension of playing ethics seminar is coming.If the mightier ones in fiction (Mars, Earth, protomolecule, parts of the OPA, Lovecraftian godlike aliens) are already looking back at a history of exploiting weaker groups by indirectl...

“My life has become a single on-going revelation that I haven’t been cynical enough.”This is the kind of cheery thought one is apt to have when facing a narcissistic megalomaniac who has gained power by convincing some people that all their problems can be blamed on other groups while setting humanity on a self-destructive path it may not be able to recover from.Geez, I thought I read science-fiction to escape reality.The Expanse series took an epic dark turn in the last one, and this book is ma...

4 of 5 stars at The BiblioSanctum https://bibliosanctum.com/2016/12/13/...The Expanse has become one of my favorite series in recent years, and it is no exaggeration to say that it has only gotten better with every new book. Of course, the one problem with this pattern is that it works much like gravity—what goes up must come down, after all. And yet, I say this doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing. In fact, I’d argue that after a major plot event, it’s important to dial things back a bit

Babylon’s Ashes has an unusual structure for an Expanse novel, even if you factor in the unusual structure of the previous novel, Nemesis Games. While Nemesis Games is built around a single event that occurs about halfway through, much of the first half is tied to the intriguing mystery that leads to it. There is also the added novelty of the POV chapters including all the members of the Roci, and the opportunity to snatch a glimpse of their inner lives as individuals, rather than simply underst...

Two stars is not awful, but it's a definite step down from the ratings I gave to earlier books in the series like Cibola Burn and Nemesis Games. So was this book, sadly. It's not bad, but it's not nearly as good as I was hoping for.What went wrong?1. The villain is lameMarko is the bad guy. In the last book, he destroyed the Earth and killed 15,000,000,000 human beings. In this book, he is the world's least competent military commander and basically just an insecure, loser ex-boyfriend. He doesn...

Re-Read 11/14/18:I am still loving the series and I still love this book in particular.Civil War. Gotta love and hate it. Love it if we're not living IN IT. But overall... what a nightmare. Especially after what happened to the Earth. This is basically the end of the Solar System. Any kind of future we will have will be ELSEWHERE. :) As we soon see.Otherwise, I think I said everything else I wanted to say in my previous review. :)Original Review:Reading this series is always like coming home to

Babylon's Ashes is a galactic bore. There hasn't been a book this monotonous in the Expanse Series since Caliban's War.

Stuck in the slow zoneI really liked all the books in this series up until now. Unfortunately, it has come to a grinding halt with this one. The things that made the series great are missing. Previously we had fast paced, almost breathless action. Frightening alien technology, and spooky detective Miller. Morally questionable leaders and political machinations worthy of game of thrones. Ethical dilemmas, mixed in with dramatic set piece battles and Bobbie in power armour beating the hell out of

4.0 Stars - Video Review: https://youtu.be/IPqCis7dRh4Babylon's Ashes picks up where Nemesis Games ends, providing much needed follow up to the unresolved issues from the previous book. One of the best aspects of this sequel in the scope of the storylines within this expanding universe. Unlike previous books in the series, the authors do not restrict the chapters to four primary character perspectives. Instead, this new novel includes a rotating cast of characters to show the widening scope of t...

Executive Summary: This is the second book in a row I've given one of my rare 5-star ratings to, and the second year in a row that an Expanse book is my favorite read. If you haven't given this series a look yet, you really should!Audiobook: Jefferson Mays once again does a great job. He reads with good inflection, volume and pace. He does a few voices for the characters, including an excellent job with Avasarala. This is definitely a series I plan to continue in audio so long as he's the narrat...

The Sixth volume of the Expanse series really amps up the action.After the truly surprising and catastrophic events of Book 5, we see the so-called Free Navy, a loose confederation of pirates and terrorists with stolen Mars ships, revert to form and begin to terrorize not only Earth and Mars, but also the Belters they come into contact with. Their megalomaniacal leader, Marco Inaros, has a bold scheme that will leave him in charge of this part of space-as he plans on shutting down the passage th...