Tiamat's Wrath (Expanse, #8)

by James S. A. Corey

NOW A PRIME ORIGINAL SERIES

Thirteen hundred gates have opened to solar systems around the galaxy. But as humanity builds its interstellar empire in the alien ruins, the mysteries and threats grow deeper.

In the dead systems where gates lead to stranger things than alien planets, Elvi Okoye begins a desperate search to discover the nature of a genocide that happened before the first human beings existed, and to find weapons to fight a war against forces at the edge of the imaginable. But the price of that knowledge may be higher than she can pay.

At the heart of the empire, Teresa Duarte prepares to take on the burden of her father's godlike ambition. The sociopathic scientist Paolo Cortazar and the Mephistophelian prisoner James Holden are only two of the dangers in a palace thick with intrigue, but Teresa has a mind of her own and secrets even her father the emperor doesn't guess.

And throughout the wide human empire, the scattered crew of the Rocinante fights a brave rear-guard action against Duarte's authoritarian regime. Memory of the old order falls away, and a future under Laconia's eternal rule - and with it, a battle that humanity can only lose - seems more and more certain. Because against the terrors that lie between worlds, courage and ambition will not be enough . . .

The Expanse series:
Leviathan Wakes
Caliban's War
Abaddon's Gate
Cibola Burn
Nemesis Games
Babylon's Ashes
Persepolis Rising
Tiamat's Wrath

Praise for the Expanse:

'The science fictional equivalent of A Song of Ice and Fire' NPR Books

'As close as you'll get to a Hollywood blockbuster in book form' io9.com

'Great characters, excellent dialogue, memorable fights' wired.com

'High adventure equalling the best space opera has to offer, cutting-edge technology and a group of unforgettable characters . . . Perhaps one of the best tales the genre has yet to produce' Library Journal

'This is the future the way it's supposed to be' Wall Street Journal

'Tense and thrilling' SciFiNow

• ISBN10: 0316332879
• ISBN13: 9780316332873
• Publish Date: 26 March 2019
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Orbit
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 544
• Language: English

Reviews

[ross91]

This was a little underwhelming.
Too little Holden and Amos, but I’m excited for the finale!

[adastra]

That took me a lot longer than I thought xD Allover, I think the book had its lengths. Like most books in the series, there's very little happening in the range of 10-40 and 60-90% of the book, and all the action happens in the middle and at the end. Could use more balance. But allover, I'm VERY interested in reading the final book now...

[empressbrooke]

2/3 of the way through, my review was:

FUCK...

FUUUCK....

FUUUUUUUUUCK...

It was devastating but it was uplifting at the same time. The authors did their usual thing where nothing stays the same for long. Unexpected events happen (Duerte's subplot had me taken by complete surprise) to keep the pace hurtling forward, with the status quo completely upended by the final page. I'm not emotionally ready for there to be only one book left in the series, but the authors have done such a great job making every book count. I can't wait to reread the entire thing.

[clq]

Wow.

So, I'm not writing anything at all about what happens in this book, because doing so would be impossible without possibly spoiling the previous books, but... wow. This book really packs all the right punches in all the right places.

This is the point at which I'd say "it's different from the other books", but at this point the books being different from each other has started being the rule rather than the exception. It does, however, at times feel a little like some of the novellas, but in the best possible way: the story feels fresh, but also very familiar in that the book follows what now seems to be a bit of a formula of a relatively short, single, setup, before letting go of the slingshot - at which point everything just happens. This one books combines some of the most brutal emotion, which some of the most dramatic action of the previous books, and it just works so very, very, well.

If you've made it this far in the series, there is no way you wouldn't read Tiamat's Wrath, so I'm not even going to recommend it. Suffice to say that it is up there, along with Nemesis Games, as one of my favourite books of the series so far.

When is the next book out?

[remo]

Se acaba la octava novela gorda de las nueve que prometían los autores para esta serie (aunque hay muchas otras novelitas y relatos asociados) . Pasan muchas cosas, algunas de las cuales a lo mejor no les perdono a los autores. El final es fantástico, y deja todo pavimentado para la última parte, que espero sea tan épica y colosal como merece la serie. Llegados al libro 8 solo puedo predicar a conversos. Es una novela fantástica que me ha dado más de una semana de lectura con fruición, a todas horas, en todos sitios. Me encanta.