#james sa corey
Finished up this watercolor commission of the main cast of The Expanse!
Books I Read in 2022
#23 – Leviathan Falls, by James S.A. Corey
- Rating: 4/5 stars
It’s over, and it’s not perfect, but I’m happy with it.
Yes, there was some bloat and repetition in this story. It probably could have been fifty pages shorter easily, or perhaps eighty with a more ruthless hand. But I never felt any one section was a slog more so than the others, and there was no plot point or POV character I feel needed to be cut in entirely.
I usually don’t care about spoilers in reviews, but this one I’m going to go entirely spoiler-free. I do think the setup surrounding the Final Boss of the series was good, even if the secondary antagonist below it was a little simplistic. I enjoyed the presence of the new major POV character added, and don’t agree with some other reviews I’ve read that found her pointless–I thought her character arc was solid and her role in the larger story worthwhile.
I’m mostly pleased with the way our favorite long-running characters are treated and how their dynamic has changed (or not) over the years and changes in circumstance. The major change that happened to a core character in book eight was addressed and expanded upon to my satisfaction, though again, I see other people don’t agree with me on that.
What kept this from being five stars for me was the combination of slightly more text to read than the story needed, a sort of excessive maudlin tone to one character’s POV in particular that I did not enjoy, and the wish that the proximate goal of the story (stop the secondary antagonist to hopefully thwart the primary one) had been either a little more complex, or a little better executed in its simplicity. However, overall I think this stuck the landing. Am I too used to being disappointed by the endings of major media properties? Because this isn’t the end of Mass Effect 3, here, it’s far more narratively and thematically cohesive than that pile of turds.
Who gets it when I say Show Naomi and Book Holden are my dream power couple? Show Holden isn’t bad. He’s just….You know Show Avasarala’s line last season about Don’t stick your dick in this, Holden? That great line just didn’t really make sense in context of Show Holden who is noble and caring and kind of humorless; not the stubborn, fallible, goofball he is in the books. Book Holden is the guy that line was aimed at, with Show Holden it seemed kind of unfair? How are you going to throw so much spicey wit at someone who can’t fight back?
And I do love Book Naomi but, my god, Dominique Tipper grew Naomi miles beyond the page. She gorgeously fleshed out and enlivened a character whose motivations and emotions never quite lined up in print. Dominique Tipper can convey years of triumphs and tragedies in a few lines and expressions. Her Naomi makes you feel proud and breathless.
