This
is book one in the third and final trilogy of trilogies that compose this series.Nearly three decades have passed since Marcos Inaros was defeated. The Belters run the Transport Union, which oversees the traffic between the thirteen hundred worlds of the ring gates. Terraformers from Mars are applying their knowledge to Earth to speed its recovery from environmental damage inflicted by Marcos and his henchmen during the war. So while the worlds of the Sol System are pretty much status quo, technologically speaking, the Martian traitors who sold Marcos the ships and weapons he needed to go to war against the Inners have been busy. Led by Duarte, the Laconians (as that's what they refer to themselves now) have been playing around with the protomolecule, plugging into an abandoned shipyard and seeing what else it can do.
Apparently, a lot.
Duarte decides that now is the time to unite humanity under his rule. By force, if necessary. And of course it's necessary. Humans just don't abdicate to someone claiming to be superior; they need proof. And the Laconians do just that.
It's much like 18th century warships going up against an Iowa class battleship.
Holden and Naomi were going to retire, but that's been put on hold. They and the rest of the Rocinante crew join some OPA vets and form an underground resistance on Medina Station. Meanwhile the navies of Earth, Mars, and the Transport Union prepare to defend Sol System from the Laconian warship. And how these two fronts play out make up the rest of the novel.
We see how Drummer, who's running the Transport Union, deals with the Laconian incursion. While interstellar travel through the ring gates takes place in the blink of an eye, in-system travel is still painfully slow, like watching an army march across Europe. She's constantly looking for weak points in this vessel. Things can't be this bad, right? Right?
And on Medina Station, it's life during the occupation with echoes from WWII, complete with puppet rulers, propaganda, infiltrators and traitors, and military checkpoints. To top it off, there's a military governor who's in over his head but doesn't want anyone else to know, so he errs on the draconian side.
It's bleak. All of our protagonists feel powerless, trying to do their part to confound the enemy and find their weak points so that they can exploit them. Everyone deals with the situation in their own way. Amos even gets a chapter, so that we can see how he deals with this in his emotionally damaged way.
In terms of the protomolecule, the first trilogy dealt with its discovery and seeing the power that it could unleash. The second trilogy was a power struggle over who would possess it while the realization came that someone exterminated its creators. In this last trilogy, with the protomolecule's powers unleashed, it is certain that whoever killed its creators will awaken and punish those who use its power now. Definitely curious to see how that plays out.
4 stars
\_/
DED
