Babylon's Ashes

by James S. A. Corey

Published May 28, 2016 by Orbit.

ISBN:: 978-0-356-50426-1

(55 reviews)

A revolution brewing for generations has begun in fire. It will end in blood.

The Free Navy - a violent group of Belters in black-market military ships - has crippled the Earth and begun a campaign of piracy and violence among the outer planets. The colony ships heading for the thousand new worlds on the far side of the alien ring gates are easy prey, and no single navy remains strong enough to protect them.

James Holden and his crew know the strengths and weaknesses of this new force better than anyone. Outnumbered and outgunned, the embattled remnants of the old political powers call on the Rocinante for a desperate mission to reach Medina Station at the heart of the gate network.

But the new alliances are as flawed as the old, and the struggle for power has only just begun. As the chaos grows, an alien mystery deepens. Pirate …

A revolution brewing for generations has begun in fire. It will end in blood.

But the new alliances are as flawed as the old, and the struggle for power has only just begun. As the chaos grows, an alien mystery deepens. Pirate fleets, mutiny and betrayal may be the least of the Rocinante's problems. And in the uncanny spaces past the ring gates, the choices of a few damaged and desperate people may determine the fate of more than just humanity.

1 edition

Jakers reviewed Babylon's Ashes by James S. A. Corey (The Expanse, #6)

Maybe one of the weaker books

4 stars

Content warning Discussion of plot and ending

I loved the setup and ride for this book. It was great. It's a lot like book 2, in that a massive system-wide war has broken out as a result of the previous book.

That said, some of the POV chapters felt a bit scattered. Don't know if some of the Medina Station Belters are included because they'll be characters in later books, or if there was just a need to show what was happening there. But those chapters felt out of place. But then you have the return of my boy Prax, who basically goes soft revolutionary from behind enemy lines. Not necessarily a guerrilla, but acting true to who we know him to be, showing that being human during a war isn't all about shooting the other side.

I did appreciate that aspect of the story, in that this is also a civil war amongst the different factions of the Belt at the same time it's a war of the Belt versus the inner planets. There's discussion of what a civil war is actually like, how sometimes you're shooting at friends or relatives. How there's that added level of guilt.

But the end sort of kicks the feet out from under the rest of the book. Usually I like it when the crew "sciences the shit" out of things, to borrow a term from Andy Weir. In this case, it felt like a deus ex machina, and a very literal one at that. If you watch the show, the ending is not substantially different from how the show ended (this is the final book used for the show, with the exception of some of the Laconia stuff that is still to come, I'm assuming), with one exception for a specific character (who I won't name). It almost felt like they'd written themselves into a corner and then didn't know how to get out. I was expecting something a little different....but then again, there's 3 more books, and while they've had their weaker narratives, the series as a whole seems to recover. So looking forward to what's next.

Sean Gursky reviewed Babylon's Ashes by James S. A. Corey (The Expanse, #6)

Review of "Babylon's Ashes" on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

If wars began with rage, they ended with exhaustion.

For the first half of the book I struggled with the purpose of Babylon's Ashes. The frenetic pace of Nemesis Games or crushing perils of Ilus in Cibola Burn were obvious. The story was present and the dangers were known.

When you play at our level, grudges cost lives.

Babylon's Ashes felt like a chess match with slow methodological moves but no flourish or excitement. And yet, this deliberately slow pace was a conscience and welcomed change.

If every book in The Expanse was go-go-go and full of action it would be exhausting and have no opportunity to develop the story in a meaningful way. I am grateful that the authors felt confident in their plan to adjust the pace and build to a single climax instead of having many peaks throughout.

I mean, weird, dead alien technology with effects we don't understand sweeping whole ships away without leaving a trace or explanation. That's probably safe to play with, right?

I trusted that the purpose of the story would be revealed and as I got closer to the finish the plan (or what James Holden was cobbling together) would be worthwhile payoff. Without requiring spoilers I appreciated how the climax came and went. Like the rest of the book before it the final chapters didn't deviate from the pace and stuck to the formula.

"Here we are still doing all the same things we did before. We've got a bigger battleground. Some of the sides have shifted around. But it's all the crap we've been doing since that first guy sharpened a rock."

Babylon's Ashes addresses the questions I have raised in past reviews: how can humanity keep repeating the same mistakes and if so, is humanity fundamentally flawed and destined for doom regardless of the stage. Both sides of conflict believe that their answer is best to resolve conflict now and for future generations. Uniting the sides forever instead of being in repetitive battles...and enforcing peace with violence seems ironic but at least both sides agree on this being the next step to take.

He had been her sworn enemy. He had been the symbol of her failure. He'd even become a symbol, somehow, of the life she could have had if she'd made difference choices.

The multitude of POV characters was fantastic but this impacted the rhythm. I couldn't expect where the story would go next as the cadence would be thrown off by a one off character from the ring or someone else that I didn't identify as having relevance to the story.

And that character I brushed off before would have relevance and be mentioned in later chapters and because I didn't absorb their details I felt lost in what I was reading and missed some payoff of item that was advancing the plot.

This has been compounded a bit as the next book in the series features names of characters I may have overlooked initially.

I have killed, but I am not a killer because a killer is a monster, and monsters aren't afraid.

I may have been reluctant at first but this was an excellent story and it did as much to propel the plot forward as it did to explore the psyche of those locked in racist and geopolitical struggles. Be prepared for the pace to be slightly different but it still delivers a knockout punch and is the peaceful exhale after the chaotic book (Nemesis Games) before it.

And because I ended up highlighting too many passages in the book here is everything else I found noteworthy:

A decent idea now is way better than a brilliant plan when it's too late.

He put blood on my hands too. He thought it would make me easier to control.

Fought the oppressor before. Still fighting the oppressor now. Followed your heart then. Still following your heart now. The situation changes; that doesn't mean you do.

Under the best conditions, disasters and plagues did that. It wasn't universally true. There would always be hoarders and price gouging, people who closed their doors to refugees and left them freezing and starving. But the impulse to help was there too. To carry a burden together, even if it meant having less for yourself. Humanity had come as far as it had in a haze of war, sickness, violence, and genocide. History was drenched in blood. But it also had cooperation and kindness, generosity, intermarriage. The one didn't come without the other, and Holden had to take comfort in that. The sense that however terrible humanity's failings were, there was still a little more in them worth admiring.

He'd made the classic mistake - he wasn't too proud to admit it - of trying to fight the last war on the next battleground

Maybe, if they could find a way to be gentle, the stars would be better off with them.

Laura Lemay reviewed Babylon's Ashes by James S. A. Corey (The Expanse, #6)

Review of "Babylon's Ashes" on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

I started #7 this month and apparently completely forgot that I read this book or what happened in it? I love this series but this is not the best book in it. There are many important events that happen very fast, but it's a transitional book without a lot of depth, especially character-wise.

adastra reviewed Babylon's Ashes by James S. A. Corey (The Expanse, #6)

Review of "Babylon's Ashes" on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

What is this book, even? It's hard to tell. So little happens. Similar to book 3, the entire story could have been told in about a third of the book. There are just too many characters here, many of which don't add any significant insight to the story (Clarissa... 🙄) and just drag out the end forever. Everything important literally happens in the last 3 chapters of the book. Way too many things remain unexplained, like the whole thing with the disappearing ships and why that's even happening. I still don't know the reasons for the great mystery behind the alien races and planets. And I miss Miller (seriously). Is that stuff ever gonna be explained? sigh. I hope eventually it will have been worth it reading these books, but I have the suspicion that I won't find out until 2019.

Lord of Candy reviewed Babylon's Ashes by James S. A. Corey (The Expanse, #6)

Review of "Babylon's Ashes" on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

What an amazing book. Maybe absence from the series makes the heart grow fonder. Maybe it's a timliness of reading it with our nation the way it seemingly is. Maybe it's just a good damn book. Any of the ways, I enjoyed it a lot.
We are the stories that people tell each other

We’re not people,” he said. “We’re the stories that people tell each other about us. Belters are crazy terrorists. Earthers are lazy gluttons. Martians are cogs in a great big machine.”
“Men are fighters,” Naomi said, and then, her voice growing bleak. “Women are nurturing and sweet and they stay home with the kids. It’s always been like that. We always react to the stories about people, not who they really are.”
“And look where it got us,” Holden said.

The book has some beautiful thought processes throughout. This was far more an interplanetary drama and …

We’re not people,” he said. “We’re the stories that people tell each other about us. Belters are crazy terrorists. Earthers are lazy gluttons. Martians are cogs in a great big machine.”
“Men are fighters,” Naomi said, and then, her voice growing bleak. “Women are nurturing and sweet and they stay home with the kids. It’s always been like that. We always react to the stories about people, not who they really are.”
“And look where it got us,” Holden said.

The book has some beautiful thought processes throughout. This was far more an interplanetary drama and interpersonal relationships. Three sides of a conflict, multiple sides within each. A tangled web of emotions and logic. A dying planet and subsequently a dying humanity in the balance. Yes, a couple great and fleeting torpedo and PDC charges but the real grit here was humanity.

"[The] Mind is made from analogies,” Josep said, not needing her to contribute to the conversation. “Change in ages, change in the frame. Was in against out before. Turning into connected against unconnected now. Free Navy. Consolidated fleet. The ones who shrug off the chains against the ones who tie themselves together.”

When facts don't matter

I thought if you told people facts, they’d draw their conclusions, and because the facts were true, the conclusions mostly would be too. But we don’t run on facts. We run on stories about things. About people.

I resonate with this. Facts should matter but sadly spin and misdirection have been winning in our world for far too long and with social controls--er--media it's currently at a peak of counterinteligence vs critical thinking. I see Holden and I understand him. He holds things sometimes a bit too close, let's it infect him or weigh him a bit too far--which if you look at his character it's been building further and further into a more pragmatic view which is good for him.
The testing of history

Kings were always the last to feel the famine.

Again, timely? Reonate much? Kleptocrats, oligarchs, the 1%. With a chain of humanity that runs the gammut how do we weigh the many with a view of the few?

History itself was a massive n=1 study, irreproducible. It was what made it so difficult to learn from.

Loved this quote. No matter what we do we only really have 1 chance. It's hard to learn from the state you're living in. We can only try and do what we can with what we know and hope it's good enough.

If wars began with rage, they ended with exhaustion.

Wars are waged by a passionate few pushing others to the front lines. When it's over and the dust settles what is left? Are we better for it? How are we changed? What will reconcile?
So much great food for thought
Sixth in it's series and striking a chord with me on so many levels. It was an entertaining read, it was telling, and it makes you wonder what is next for this universe. If you enjoyed the series in any way up to now, I'd definitely recommend putting #6 on your shelf.