Abaddon's Gate (Expanse, #3)

by James S. A. Corey

For generations, the solar system - Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt - was humanity's great frontier. Until now. The alien artefact working through its program under the clouds of Venus has emerged to build a massive structure outside the orbit of Uranus: a gate that leads into a starless dark. Jim Holden and the crew of the Rocinante are part of a vast flotilla of scientific and military ships going out to examine the artefact. But behind the scenes, a complex plot is unfolding, with the destruction of Holden at its core. As the emissaries of the human race try to find whether the gate is an opportunity or a threat, the greatest danger is the one they brought with them.

• ISBN10: 0316129070
• ISBN13: 9780316129077
• Publish Date: 4 June 2013 (first published 1 January 2013)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Orbit
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 576
• Language: English

Reviews

This is more like a 3.5? Definitely closer to a 4 than a 3 though.

Last book's strength was characters, but unfortunately it wasn't the same here. I wasn't particularly thrilled by any of the POVs. But the adventure inside the ring? Hell yes!

Now to my usual comparison to the TV series: I found Clarissa a bit more convincing as a character here. Ashford isn't as much of an asshole in the TV series. Also, so far this one had the most differences between the mediums!

[ross91]

I'm conflicted:
on one hand I absolutely loved the plot of this installment, but on the other one I really didn't care for Clarissa and Anna. Like, at all.
Bull tho was my favorite, so I think this book still deserves 4*

[clq]

After the first two books of The Expanse, I expected a lot of Abaddon's Gate. How could this series go on making itself better? How could the third book surpass the first two?

It didn't.

That's not to say this book wasn't really good, because it was. But so are a lot of other books, and the first two books in the series were so good that I was expecting more of the same. In Abaddon's Gate the story went from being something that felt fresh and special to something that felt more like an ordinary good book.

Whereas the other books had plots that were complex, and (satisfyingly) felt even more complex than they actually were, this one keeps it relatively simple. It builds upon the underlying politics and tensions from the previous books, but the narrative isn't driven by them at all. The previous books spent time carefully constructing the culture, the history, and various subtleties of the different fractions that feature in these stories. In this book the fractions might as well have been named Team Red, Team Blue, and Team Green, and it would hardly have made a difference to the story.

The story also felt like it was there to get the plot of the series from a given point to another point. Rather than feeling like the characters controlled what was happening, which I got plenty of from the two previous books, this one made it feel like the characters were doing what they had to do for a given outcome to occur. For the first time I didn't find myself empathising with them.

Now, while it might sound like I disliked this book, I really didn't. Abaddon's Gate was still a page-turner, still has a good story, and is still a book I'd heartily recommend. It also has some scenes and moments that are really brilliant. It's just a little bit of a let-down to have to say that about a book which I expected to be really brilliant throughout. I'm holding onto the hope that the next one will step the series back up to where it was after Book 2 - and beyond.

[adastra]

{mild spoilers ahead}
After the great first two novels, this was a pretty big disappointment to me. While the overall story arch (Holden) is interesting, the other three narratives ranged from boring to aggravating, at least in my opinion. The whole revenge plot seemed at times really ridiculous, like a desperately bad plot device turned deus ex machina. The whole priest plot aggravated me because it is so utterly Christian, which I am just not a fan of - at least not in my sci-fi novels. Even the Bull plot was full of mentions of God, giving me the feeling that this whole series might turn into a ridiculous search for God or something. It's the future and we've colonized space, do we really need religion?! And WHY does it have to be Christianity, when it's foreseeably not even the biggest religion on the planet in 200 year's time? Why not Hinduism or Buddhism, if the authors so desperately want religion? Well, they're American, of course, what else do they know. That's pretty apparent in Anna's plot as well. First of all why is she a Methodist from Russia, when the largest religious group in Russia is orthodox and protestants make up 1% in Russia? Second of all, why does she have a "college fund" for her daughter, which is like the most American thing ever? Feels a bit poorly researched this book, on top of all the annoying "God" content.

Other than that, I think the whole plot was dragged out way too much. I think it could have been told much better in just half the time. Anyway, I'll start book 4 soon, but if it's full of God again, I might just throw these out the window.

[remo]

Tercera parte de la serie The Expanse, que continúa tras Caliban's War. No hay manera de comentar sin spoilear salvajemente, así que lo meto en corchetes. En esta tercera parte la historia continúa y nuestros héroes viajan al anillo que hay más allá de la órbita de Neptuno para investigar qué ha fabricado la protomolécula. Por supuesto, algo pasa y se meten dentro. En este libro el autor tiene que describir cosas muy difíciles como el encuentro directo con una raza de otro planeta (o sus construcciones, al menos) y hay largas partes de descripción que a veces llegan a cansar. La psicología interna de Melba Koh, además, me pareció frágil y cambiante según las necesidades del guión. Ahora mala, ahora buena, mala one more time y buena para salvar el final del libro.
De los tres es el que menos me ha llamado la atención pero sigue siendo un pedazo de novela.