Review (Novel): Babylon's Ashes by James S.A. Corey

Introduction & Synopsis

Babylon's Ashes is the sixth instalment in the Expanse series of novels, which have been adapted by SyFy into a television series about to enter its third season. Ashes veers away from the main plot-line of the series, the plot-line regarding humanity's colonisation of the hundreds of worlds that lie behind a mysterious alien network of wormhole generators, and focuses primarily on wrapping up the plot-thread of political unrest within the asteroid belt with the Eather-Belter war that began at the end of Nemesis Games. 

Due to this distraction, Ashes feels like it was written by a writer simply going through the motions.

Themes

The themes concurrent throughout Ashes are simply amplified themes from previous instalments. Tribalism, political unrest, slave-master dichotomies, nationalism, etc. However, Ashes only seems to touch upon these ideas very lightly. Thus, there is very little to say in the way of this book's thematic content.

Characters

The main cast of characters are, generally, subjected to very little development. The only member of the Rocinate's crew who displays any form of emotional attachment to the situation is Naomi, yet the other main characters seem completely disinterested in the events unfolding. Bear in mind that, at this time period, humanity is in the midst of the worst war in human history. Tens of billions of people have been killed, Earth has been transformed into a desolate wasteland, a majority of the Martian population have headed for (literally) greener pastures through the wormhole generator network, putting the future of the Martian terraforming project into very serious question, yet most of the supporting characters don't seem to care about this monumental upheaval of human society.

The antagonist of Ashes, Marco Inaros, also lacks anything that makes him compelling. He's delusion and narcissistic, even going to far as to name his flagship after the birthplace of one particular legendary Macedonian king. He is emblematic of blue sky thinking taken to pathological extents, being too concerned with conceptualising his post-war Belter civilisation to focus on actually winning the war. Whenever he makes critical mistakes, his only response is "that was deliberate." Afterwards, he retreats to his private quarter to mope. Hardly the demeanor of the instigator of the biggest mass genocide in human history. 

Marco has a son son, Filip, as those who read Games would know, who also happens to be Naomi's son. Throughout the first and second act of Ashes, he displays some level of displeasure with his father's, and I was anticipating a betrayal. Yet, once the third act begins, this plot point is forgotten completely.

Plot

The plot has a tendency of negating any sense of tension it may have. Some of what should have been the most important plot points are glossed over very quickly. As aforementioned, the antagonist this time around is not even slightly intimidating, thus rendering the entire 'struggle' against his machinations feel like a boring chore.

There is, however, one development that I did really enjoy, has it has the potential to massively shake up the socio-political paradigm that one of the most complex and interesting characters in the series began to envision, thus thrusting the series into a territory in which I cannot predict, with any level of confidence, the events of following novels in this series.

Spoilers ahead. So, the final confrontation transpires as follows. Marco's motley fleet of Belter warships attempts to pursue the combined Earth-Mars fleet through the Sol gate. Now, as established in Nemesis Games, the gates need to continuously replenish the materials they need to sustain their function. Ergo, every now and again, the gates simply consume any ship that passes through them, and the ships never appear on the other end. In Ashes, our cast of protagonists find the pattern in which this phenomenon occurs, and learn how to predict it. They deliberately trick the Belter fleet into pursuing them through the Sol gate, and the entirety of Maro's fleet, including Marco himself, are enveloped by the gate, and they cease to exist. A creative idea, though not exactly the grand final act readers would expect form an action-adventure space opera.

Ashes ends with a shrug, a great big 'what now?' Earth is a wasteland, Mars has been largely abandoned, the Belt has been totalled, and the fledgling colonies through the gateways have been left without any governance. This can pave the way for a thoroughly enjoyable final act of the series as a whole. Subsequently, even though I found the plot of Ashes to be a bit dull and lacking in any narrative thrust, it definitely did place everyone and everything into the positions they need to be for what I imagine is Corey's long-term plot map.

It was chess piece moving: the book.

Prose

As per usual with James S.A. Corey's writing, the prose is very strong. That's all I have to say.

Conclusion

Overall, Ashes was not exactly disappointing, though it was not what I expected it to be at all. While I would recommend this to Expanse readers, be warned that it lacks the same cohesiveness that the previous novels did.

3/5