Persepolis Rising (The Expanse 7)
up:: The Expanse
- Type:fiction
- Universe/Series: The Expanse
- Author:: James S.A. Corey
- Year published: 2017
- Year read:
- Month read: May 2021
Reflection / Review (SPOILERS ⚠️)
==Level of Effort: Stream of consciousness.==
I really enjoyed this book. Since it was due back at the library I was forced to read it just in a couple of days. The book picks up some decades after Babylon’s Ashes (The Expanse 6), the characters have aged significantly. I enjoyed that insight into the characters and reading the book from their perspective that was now a bit older.
Age, in fact, seemed to be one of the themes of this book. The antagonist Singh was young and ambitious and faced the older protagonists. Winston Duarte, infused with the protomolecule stops aging. We witness the loss of Clarissa. Especially Singh’s viewpoints were really interesting. In one of the conflicts he literally went face to face with an older subordinate. Also we as readers have more in the experience than he has. Seven books in we’ve spent a lot of time in the universe. When we plans to suppress the Belters, not having a lot of experience to draw on we go ‘Well, good luck with that’ having experienced through reading the freedom-seeking nature of the Belters. Our experience surpasses his.
The book also threw challenging questions of morality at the reader. Most of the things our protagonists do we have seen antagonists do in the past books. The line begins to get blurry. An Echo of Things to Come (The Licanius Trilogy, 2) reckons ‘greater good’ and ‘lesser evil’ are the beginning of tyranny. Do the ends ever justify the means? Where’s the line where they do or don’t? We are forced to evaluate the morality even of the protagonists we have grown to love.
In contrast, I’ve enjoyed this read and storyline more than Babylon’s Ashes (The Expanse 6). Duarte and Singh are much more compelling antagonists than Marcos Inaros was and make you genuinely worried. Singh’s death was also a tough pill to swallow.
I especially love the way James S.A. Corey write dialogue. The lines are amazing but it is also so much in the non-verbal and indirect. They describe human conversation in such a nuanced view.
I really enjoyed and can recommend this read. It is an action-packed massive adventure that throws deep questions at you.