Book Review: The Mercy of Gods, by James. S.A. Corey
The newest space opera from the writers of The Expanse.
Orbit, 2024, 422 pages
From the Hugo Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of the Expanse, James S. A. Corey, comes the start of a monumental new space opera series.
HOW HUMANITY CAME TO THE PLANET CALLED ANJIIN IS LOST IN THE FOG OF HISTORY, BUT THAT HISTORY IS ABOUT TO END.
The Carryx-part empire, part hive-has waged wars of conquest for centuries, destroying or enslaving species across the galaxy in its conflict with an ancient and deathless enemy.
When they descend on the isolated world of Anjiin, the human population is abased, slaughtered, and put in chains. The best and brightest are abducted, taken to the Carryx world-palace to join prisoners from a thousand other species.
Dafyd Alkhor, assistant to a prestigious scientist, is captured along with his team.
Even he doesn’t suspect that his peculiar insight and skills will be the key to seeing past their captors’ terrifying agenda.
Swept up in a conflict beyond his control and vaster than his imagination, Dafyd is poised to become humanity’s champion-and its betrayer.
This is where his story begins.
Like most SF fans, I was a big fan of The Expanse, so I was looking forward to writing team James S.A. Corey's newest, which they claim will only be a trilogy because they "don't feel like writing another nine book series."
The Mercy of Gods is structured unusually. While the first book just gets the story going, we already know from the page 1 prologue that the main character, Dafyd Alkhor, is going to lead an insurrection against the alien Carryx that will destroy their empire and burn a thousand worlds. The authors admit that this is a kind of trick to pull the reader along with promises of things to come, plus reassurance that the entire series will not be humans having a boot stomping on their faces forever, because that's all that happens in book one.
The story starts on the planet Anjiin, which is another unusual choice: humans know they aren't native to the planet, but their arrival is lost in the mists of prehistory, and while they now have an advanced technological civilization, they are not yet spacefaring and have had no contact outside their solar system. (Will the big twist be that this is the same universe as The Expanse, thousands of years in the future? That would seem like a cheap gimmick, but it's not impossible.) The first few chapters are about a bunch of scientists playing academic status games, which we know don't matter because an alien empire is about to arrive and crush them.
The Carryx invasion is brutal and short, and it's quickly established that these are give-no-fucks aliens who commit genocide before breakfast. They have been spreading across the galaxy conquering and exterminating everything in their path for thousands of years, and humanity is just another acquisition. They wipe out an eighth of the population of Anjiin just to make a point, and then the main characters are among a select group of humans abducted to be taken to a Carryx homeworld, where they are put in a vast multi-species arcology, given obscure instructions and a scientific task by their alien overlords, and then more or less left alone in what becomes evident is some sort of survival contest, not just for themselves but for their species.
The Mercy of Gods has very familiar beats. The writing shows the same stylistic ticks as The Expanse, with dialog like:
"You said there was another way."
"I did."
And lines like:
"It was. And then it wasn't."
As with the Expanse, the focus, despite the high stakes and the foreshadowing of a grand, epic scale, is on a small group of flawed human characters, especially Dafyd Alkhor, who was just a minor research assistant with some connections back on Anjiin, but starts putting pieces of the Carryx puzzle together faster than his companions and (per the prologue and multiple chapter preludes) is eventually going to put his boot on the Carryx. The humans have quarrels and rivalries and love affairs because they can't quite stop being petty backbiting academics even while enslaved by genocidal aliens, and while we're probably supposed to become attached to some of them, it's hard because only Dafyd is really interesting (and he isn't very), and all the rest are clearly in danger of dying at any time, George R.R. Martin style.
Mercy of Gods was like sliding into an almost-familiar series with a new storyline. I wish the authors had stretched themselves a little more, but I am looking forward to the next book.
Also by James. S.A. Corey: My reviews of Leviathan Wakes, Caliban's War, Abaddon's Gate, Cibola Burn, Nemesis Games, Babylon's Ashes, Persepolis Rising, Tiamat's Wrath, and Leviathan Falls.
My complete list of book reviews.
Orbit, 2024, 422 pages
From the Hugo Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of the Expanse, James S. A. Corey, comes the start of a monumental new space opera series.
HOW HUMANITY CAME TO THE PLANET CALLED ANJIIN IS LOST IN THE FOG OF HISTORY, BUT THAT HISTORY IS ABOUT TO END.
The Carryx-part empire, part hive-has waged wars of conquest for centuries, destroying or enslaving species across the galaxy in its conflict with an ancient and deathless enemy.
When they descend on the isolated world of Anjiin, the human population is abased, slaughtered, and put in chains. The best and brightest are abducted, taken to the Carryx world-palace to join prisoners from a thousand other species.
Dafyd Alkhor, assistant to a prestigious scientist, is captured along with his team.
Even he doesn’t suspect that his peculiar insight and skills will be the key to seeing past their captors’ terrifying agenda.
Swept up in a conflict beyond his control and vaster than his imagination, Dafyd is poised to become humanity’s champion-and its betrayer.
This is where his story begins.
Like most SF fans, I was a big fan of The Expanse, so I was looking forward to writing team James S.A. Corey's newest, which they claim will only be a trilogy because they "don't feel like writing another nine book series."
The Mercy of Gods is structured unusually. While the first book just gets the story going, we already know from the page 1 prologue that the main character, Dafyd Alkhor, is going to lead an insurrection against the alien Carryx that will destroy their empire and burn a thousand worlds. The authors admit that this is a kind of trick to pull the reader along with promises of things to come, plus reassurance that the entire series will not be humans having a boot stomping on their faces forever, because that's all that happens in book one.
The story starts on the planet Anjiin, which is another unusual choice: humans know they aren't native to the planet, but their arrival is lost in the mists of prehistory, and while they now have an advanced technological civilization, they are not yet spacefaring and have had no contact outside their solar system. (Will the big twist be that this is the same universe as The Expanse, thousands of years in the future? That would seem like a cheap gimmick, but it's not impossible.) The first few chapters are about a bunch of scientists playing academic status games, which we know don't matter because an alien empire is about to arrive and crush them.
The Carryx invasion is brutal and short, and it's quickly established that these are give-no-fucks aliens who commit genocide before breakfast. They have been spreading across the galaxy conquering and exterminating everything in their path for thousands of years, and humanity is just another acquisition. They wipe out an eighth of the population of Anjiin just to make a point, and then the main characters are among a select group of humans abducted to be taken to a Carryx homeworld, where they are put in a vast multi-species arcology, given obscure instructions and a scientific task by their alien overlords, and then more or less left alone in what becomes evident is some sort of survival contest, not just for themselves but for their species.
The Mercy of Gods has very familiar beats. The writing shows the same stylistic ticks as The Expanse, with dialog like:
"You said there was another way."
"I did."
And lines like:
"It was. And then it wasn't."
As with the Expanse, the focus, despite the high stakes and the foreshadowing of a grand, epic scale, is on a small group of flawed human characters, especially Dafyd Alkhor, who was just a minor research assistant with some connections back on Anjiin, but starts putting pieces of the Carryx puzzle together faster than his companions and (per the prologue and multiple chapter preludes) is eventually going to put his boot on the Carryx. The humans have quarrels and rivalries and love affairs because they can't quite stop being petty backbiting academics even while enslaved by genocidal aliens, and while we're probably supposed to become attached to some of them, it's hard because only Dafyd is really interesting (and he isn't very), and all the rest are clearly in danger of dying at any time, George R.R. Martin style.
Mercy of Gods was like sliding into an almost-familiar series with a new storyline. I wish the authors had stretched themselves a little more, but I am looking forward to the next book.
Also by James. S.A. Corey: My reviews of Leviathan Wakes, Caliban's War, Abaddon's Gate, Cibola Burn, Nemesis Games, Babylon's Ashes, Persepolis Rising, Tiamat's Wrath, and Leviathan Falls.
My complete list of book reviews.