The Mercy of Gods

Hmmm, the next project from the golden boys who wrote the Expanse, of which, though I enjoyed it, I only consumed it on Netflix. Things that work in one medium don’t always work in other media, but let’s give it a shot. Right out the gate I will say that the prose is serviceable but not even a little bit spectacular, nevertheless, here’s a pull quote:

“Tonner wanted a book. Or music. An entertainment feed showing bad comedies. He wanted a piece of art to look at and a glass of wine to sip. He wanted a café with a live band and a little bamboo dance floor. He wanted food so spicy it burned the next day when he took a shit. He wanted to meet a stranger in a library and to spend an hour flirting with them. He wanted a life. He wanted a possibility.”

The book begins with characters in some sort of research facility on a planet named Anjinn. This is never explained: an advanced human civilization not unlike our own but not on Earth!!! Does mankind have an empire in beyond the Solar System? Did they abandon Earth??? Oh well, this is supposed to be a space opera so just go with it.

The book started out slow with some sort of academic competition, intrigue and I had to reread to get a fix on many of the characters (scientists, assistants and other support staff). But then Bam!; the much more advanced aliens show up, kill one person in eight (to show they are serious) and it turned out that there are really only four or five important characters. Never mind then. Then things are sad and tedious but finally, if memory serves, maybe 150 pages in, we get to the real meat of the plot: the researchers are imprisoned by the aliens and are figuring out how to survive in captivity with no idea whether the rest of Anjiin’s population even still exists.

This is the first book of, what I imagine will be, a several volume space opera of conflicting space empires, of which, at least this introductory volume, this amuse bouche, if you will, did amuse as well as intrigue me enough that I am waiting for volume two.