Read-Along: Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers, Part 3 [END]

I’ve been a little delayed, but today I have the final post for the Read-Along of Becky Chambers’s Record of a Spaceborn Few. The discussion here may include spoilers from the entire book, so be warned.  Sometime in the near future, I plan to post my usual review of the book. Overall, I felt like this was a very peaceful book, largely about good people figuring out their own lives.

Ghuh'loloan's offer of help to reach out to the galactic community in a different way speaks volumes about her thoughtfulness, and how well she's truly learned during her time on the Asteria. What do you think of her suggestions for how to help the Fleet thrive, going forward?

I’m glad that this part of the story, at least, has a relatively happy ending.  I hope that her efforts do help the fleet for the future, and that it remains viable and even grows to be able to contribute to the galactic community.  

Tessa makes her decision, after receiving an unexpected gift of her own ... What are your thoughts on her choice, and on her relationship with George now that we've seen more of him?

I think her choice makes sense, given how traumatized her daughter was by the fleet ship’s destruction.  She lives in a place where Aya can feel safe now. I was a little surprised that George decided to come with them on a permanent basis.  Before, their relationship really felt more like a friendship to me than a couple. That was both because of the distance between them, but also just because of how they interacted with one another.  It looks like that might be shifting towards a more traditional kind of couple relationship. And you never know, maybe George will be a great baker one day. In an odd coincidence, my husband is also baking a new type of bread while I’m typing this. Maybe he and George have some things in common.

Eyas and Sunny build a relationship of a different sort, first when she visits him at home and then when they come up with the outreach programme. How do you feel about this budding new relationship (yes this is a shipping question and no I'm not sorry), and would you visit somewhere like the Asteria if you knew that this help would be offered?

I think they make good friends, and they could certainly try out being something more!  I think their class will be very helpful, not just for potential immigrants but also for tourists and business travelers.  There are so many things about a community that you can’t know from the outside, and that no one would think to tell you. I think that having this kind of a program available, and advertising it, makes the Fleet look much more welcoming to everyone. I typically only travel to places where I think I will feel safe, and a program like this would certainly help to give that impression. 

Time moves on, and Kip grows up, and my heart swells. What are your final thoughts about the changes in him, both before and after returning home to the Fleet?

I knew he was a good kid!  It was nice to see how living outside the Fleet changed his perspective of it, and to see how it began to be a unique heritage that he actually wanted to share with his alien friends.  I was kind of skeptical when Isabelle said she thought Kip should be an archivist, but I think he did really grow into it.

Read-Along: Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers, Part 2

It’s time for the second post in the read-along of Becky Chambers’s Record of a Spaceborn Few.  This post will cover parts 2-4, so beware of spoilers up to there!  A lot happened this time, and I am now no longer expecting any kind of traditional overarching plot. This is entirely a slice-of-life story about living in the Exodan Fleet.  Now, on to the questions:

Sawyer's story comes to a rather abrupt end in these chapters... Were you surprised by his fate? And do you sympathise with his situation, or did he bring that on himself?

I did not see it coming in the slightest.  Even after the narrative said he had died, I thought maybe he was just unconscious, until Kip and his friend overheard about the disposal of his body.  He was a perspective character! They’re supposed to be safe! I feel bad for Sawyer, so yes I did sympathize with him. 

As for how he died, Oats should really have considered that Sawyer was from a planet.  He didn’t have the same kinds of instincts drilled into him as people who grew up in spaceships.  He was upset, and stressed, and I think it was reasonable that he didn’t consider the danger posed by a sealed door in vacuum.  His crew should have taken care of him, and they didn’t.

In general, though, I did see that he was headed for trouble.  The “salvage crew” he joined was really obviously shady, and he just blew past every warning.  “We like to keep our postings off the lists”, the pinhole drive, how the parameters of the job started changing once he could no longer back out.  I expected him to end up arrested, and Eyas would have to speak for him. At the very least, I’m glad she was there to identify him, and to grieve for him.    

It seems as though Tessa is considering leaving the Fleet with her family. Do you think she will? If so, do you think it's the right call for her to make?

Is she? I didn’t pick up that she was making concrete plans, but I could have missed it. I can see how the destruction of the other ship might make one reconsider life in the fleet. Other than that, the fleet seems like a good place, but I also get the sense that it won’t be around forever. 

Kip takes a big step forward in his personal growth after the smash incident, by taking to heart the feelings and the dignity of others instead of only thinking of himself. How much of this change in him do you think will stick, and what are your feelings about Ras after their 'conversation' about what to do?

I don’t think Kip is a bad kid at all, just easily swayed by people who make poor decisions. Ras is not a good friend, but it’s going to be up to Kip to realize that.  It must be frustrating for his parents to be able to see that, and also know that they can’t make Kip realize he has a bad friend. It might help that Kip is going to get Ras into major trouble about this, if he comes fully clean about the smash.  Their friendship may not survive. Regardless, I think these two incidents together might be enough to help him learn how to stand firm against peer pressure.

Isabel and Eyas have also been presented with the possibility of significant change, in their respective stories within this story. Isabel has an opportunity to open doors for the Fleet within the larger galactic community, while Eyas finds herself opening up emotionally in ways she perhaps had never done before (with Sunny, and later when she grieves for Sawyer). What further changes do you see all of this bringing for their own community on the Asteria, and for the Fleet in general?

I feel like what Eyas needs is a private life.  Part of her loneliness, and her feeling of incompleteness in her career, is simply that there is a large part of herself that has no place in her life.  If she had people to go home to, who expected “Eyas the person” and not “Eyas the caretaker”, I think that would relieve some of her dissatisfaction. I feel like that’s what she’s doing, in her kind-of-relationship with Sunny.  He is helping her by creating a place in her life where she can be herself. Maybe she’ll find a way to build that outside of a tryst club.

Isabel’s story might involve a much more dramatic change for the fleet.  I think that the interest that Ghuh’loloan’s bringing to the fleet will ultimately be a good thing.  There are issues with the fleet that need to be addressed, and it’s good that the benefactors want to meet with fleet members to find out what and how.  I hope the end result is positive!

Read-Along: Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers, Part 1

It’s been a while since I’ve participated in a read-along, but now it’s time to get back into the habit!  I’ve joined a read-along of Becky Chambers’s Record of a Spaceborn Few for this November, together with Lisa of Dear Geek Place and a few others.  The schedule is as follows, in case you’d like to join in discussion in future weeks:

Week 1: Friday 8th November, discussing Prologue & Part 1

Week 2: Friday 15th November, discussing Parts 2, 3 & 4

Week 3: Friday 22nd November, discussing Parts 5, 6 & 7

I’ve read and reviewed both The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet and A Closed and Common Orbit, and have been looking forward to learning about the Exodus Fleet in Record of a Spaceborn Few. Today, I’m going to answer the Week 1 discussion questions, so beware of spoilers from here on out through Part 1!  To be honest, it took me longer to get into this one, because the point-of-view kept bouncing around between unrelated (or only slightly related) characters.  I’m still enjoying it, though!

1. As with the previous Wayfarer books, this one is driven more by characters and ideas than by high-energy/high-action plot, despite that prologue. If you're new to the series, is this approach one that surprised you, and what do you think of it so far? If you have read the books before, is it something you appreciate?

It didn’t surprise me, since I’m not new to the series.  It did seem a little more meandering than I remember from previous books, though.  In the first, we had the challenging wormhole-making job, and the second had a clear character arc driving the action.  So far, in this one, we’re just following the daily life of a handful of people in the Fleet, and any kind of overarching plot has yet to emerge.  Their daily lives are interesting, I am just hoping for a little bit more to the plot.

2. Sticking with first impressions a bit longer - what do you think of Exodan life (and all that history), and of the way Becky Chambers presents it to the reader, ie. specifically through the lenses of these characters?

I like the idea of the Fleet as a kind of human homeworld. I didn’t feel like I was being info-dumped on as we learned through the eyes of various characters.  It’s a little sad that the young people see it as a dead-end place, I think, because that implies that the Fleet is in decline from which it may not ultimately recover.

3. In addition to the personal perspective on Exodan life, we do get some perspective from 'outside' sources, namely Sawyer and, to a lesser extent, Ghuh'loloan. How do you feel about their particular perspectives on the Exodan Fleet, and do you think these views in particular are important ones to share? If so, why? (Or why not?)

I think it was important to show at least one outsider view, simply so that we as the readers could get a better description of the society through their experiences. Ghuh’loloan shows that some people do care about learning about humanity, which is nice.  Sawyer… I felt kind of bad for him about that fishy pickle sandwich. He has this idealized picture of what the Fleet is, and maybe he needs to calm down for a while. I think it was nice to show the true outsider view (the alien) and the outsider-with-a-connection view (a human who has never been there before).  It’s kind of like showing, for instance, the culture of a Chinese town simultaneously through the eyes of a white American vs. an American of Chinese descent.

4. Politics, technology, gender identity... As before, this is a book that's all about relationships. How they begin, how they stand now, and how they might progress. There's a lot of today's unfurling potential in how Chambers writes her stories and builds her world(s), but notably without a lot of our conflict. Do you think this is a world we can build, or does it feel too good to be true?  

I don’t know if “too good to be true” is exactly how I’d put it.  I mean, the Earth was destroyed and our species is a minor addition to the wider galactic society.  However, I like that the people in her books, generally, are kind. I sometimes feel like there is a lack of kindness in the world today, but I don’t need that lack to be reflected in the stories I read. I hope we can build a world someday where people care about others, where “no one goes hungry, and everyone has a home”.

Read-Along: Persepolis Rising by James S.A. Corey, Part 4[END]

Welcome to the final post in the read-along of James S.A. Corey’s Persepolis Rising! Beware below of spoilers of the series to date.  This week’s questions are provided by Lisa of Over the Effing Rainbow.  I’d also like to report that I’m back to my usual schedule, and once again working happily on upcoming reviews and short fiction spotlights.  This read-along has been a lot of fun, and I certainly hope we can all team up again to community-read the final two novels of the series when they’re out!

1. There's no hope for some people... What was your response to Singh's ultimate failure, and his fate? Does anyone feel sympathy for him at this point?

I don’t feel sympathy for him, but I do feel bad for his wife and daughter.  It looks like he was set up for a fall, though I think he was given room to either rise to the challenge of leadership or crash.  He was doing a spectacularly terrible job of bringing Medina together as a community, but I am glad he was stopped before he started just indiscriminately killing people en masse.  I’m wondering if his wife will be a main character in the coming book, as she tries to make sense of her government uncaringly sacrificing someone she loved.  It’s possible this could be the crack through which she really starts to understand the horror of her society.

2. Naomi has The Hardest Decision to make - to save Jim, or to save the rest of her family and the resistance. How do you feel about her actions, and her perspective, in the final chapters?

I think she did what she had to do.  I admit I was wondering if she would take the Rocinante to Laconia, and try to do some kind of a stealth rescue.  I don’t think it would have been possible to pull something like that off, though, so I’m glad she went with the others to Freehold.  Also, it was ultimately very important that she was there to back up Clarissa.  Without both of them working together, those sensors would not have been deactivated.

3. So. Not everyone on Team Rocinante made it to safety... What did you make of Clarissa's sacrifice?

I am sad that she’s gone, but it was a meaningful sacrifice.  She and Naomi both had to be there to make the plan work, and there’s no way they could have beaten the guards without Clarissa using her implants one last time.  I feel like there’s kind of a contrast and a parallel between how her and Singh’s lives ended.  She chose to sacrifice herself, she saved many people, and in the end she was not afraid.  Singh chose to sacrifice other people, his life was discarded by his government, and in the end he was terrified.  I think both of their deaths will leave a lasting mark on history, though Clarissa’s will be more positive and less well-known.  

 

4. Holden meets Duarte, and we finally learn his ultimate goal, if not precisely his plans for achieving it. How blown was your mind? And is Duarte a madman, or could he just maybe be onto something...?

Oh, I still think he’s meddling with things far beyond his ability to control.  I also think there’s bound to be some terrible eventual side effects of having incorporated protomolecule into his own body.  I don’t think provoking a confrontation with the civilization-killers is a good idea at all, and I think we could have just avoided the situation indefinitely. Humanity does need to learn to make smarter collective decisions about their future, but a dictator is not going to be able to help with that.

Other Thoughts:

--It was pretty amazing that Bobbie and Amos were able to take Singh’s ship.  With that, I feel like they do have a chance for the future.  The technology gap was just too much otherwise, and Drummer’s army didn’t have enough information to win.

--Speaking of Drummer, the battle and surrender was pretty painful to read.  It was also sad to see Avasarala saying that all of her life’s work was irrelevant (for the record, I don’t think that’s true). I’m hoping we’ll at least get to see Holden and Drummer working against Laconia from the inside in the next novel.

--Did I hear a hint that Elvi might be back in the next book?  Her adolescent-romance angst annoyed me in Cibola Burn, but I’d be really interested to see how she’s doing after 30 years. I bet she’s a pretty established and respected scientific expert at this point.

--I’m also wondering if we might see some new viewpoint characters in the next books.  Our only viewpoint character from the new generation (Singh) is, well, no more.  I’m hoping either for Singh’s wife or Duarte’s daughter to become a viewpoint character for the next one.

Read-Along: Persepolis Rising by James S.A. Corey, Part 3

Welcome to the my third post in the read-along of Persepolis Rising by James S.A. Corey.  It’s the seventh book in the Expanse series, so beware of tons of spoilers in these posts.  This week’s questions cover chapters 27-41, and questions are provided by Imyril of X+1.  My extremely busy work period ends with this week, so I’m hoping I can finish the book somewhere close to the conclusion of the read-along!

We Need To Talk About Amos

Well that was explosive. Thoughts?

I did not expect that at all, though good on Bobbie for beating him.  I think Amos would probably have killed her if the fight had gone the other way. Not because he actually wanted to, but he was out of control and I don’t know if he would have been able to stop.  It was interesting to see a bit inside his thoughts, and why he behaves the way he does.  Also, a bit heartbreaking that the only thing he’s ever truly wanted in his life is for Clarissa to get to die at home on the Rocinante, surrounded by her family.  I hope she survives for quite some time yet, and I hope that they do make it back home.

Under Pressure

Singh grapples with his authoritarian impulses as his anxieties increase. Which instincts do you think will win out?

I have been a little easier on Singh than the rest of you in previous weeks, but I think that has to end now.  I feel like I’ve gotten a clearer look at what kind of person he is this week, and it is an ugly, amoral, authoritarian mess.  His biggest concern with committing genocide (his words) is that his wife would be upset to realize he’s the kind of person who’s okay with committing genocide.  Like, his big reaction to realizing he’s a potential genocidal murderer was self-pity. Before, I had seen him as acting violently out of shock from being a victim of an assassination attempt, but now I accept that he is just truly a horrible shell of a person.  I no longer believe he has any moral compass whatsoever, and am not convinced he is capable of empathy.

So in short, I don’t think it’s a matter of instincts.  I think he’ll do whatever Duarte or his other superiors tell him to do, and the only qualm he’ll have is whether or not Nat will find out about it later.  In the absence of orders, I expect he’ll eventually try to vent all of the inhabitants of Medina Station to space.

Inside Man

So we have a traitor in the heart of the underground. What do you think will happen?

He’s not exactly at the heart of the underground, so that might save them.  The compartmentalism of their tasks is designed to help with just this situation.  Unfortunately, it sounds like Naomi’s plan really needs a lot of things to go perfectly to work, and I don’t think that’s going to happen with a traitor in their midst.  I also don’t know how well Singh is going to keep his traitor.  I think if Jordau (sorry if I misspelled, audiobook) finds out what the Underground is up to, he’ll probably make sure to get his sister out and betray Singh.  He has to know that Singh will use the threat of killing his sister to control him indefinitely, otherwise.

At Last (The Shadow of the Past)

The mysterious antagonists are back! ...or their (automated?) tech is. Where do you think Trejo picked up his passenger? What do you think is going on?

I was wondering when this was going to come up again!  The past few book have been very firmly focusing on human conflicts. I had also wondered if dealing with the protomolecule might come back to bite the Laconians.  They’ve studied it, sure, but they definitely don’t understand it fully.  And this new thing? Not even the aliens that made the protomolecule were able to stop it, so I don’t think the Laconians have a chance.

I don’t have any really great theories about where it came from, but it seems to be triggered in some way by protomolecule-based technology.  Maybe it’s a strange new alien species, but maybe it’s also just a side effect of the technology (like the ships being eaten by the gates).  Maybe something about the protomolecule technology is violent to space-time itself, and this is a manifestation of that damage.  Whatever it is, I am really worried that it’s going to destroy Sol system.

Any other thoughts?

Naomi is going to be so sad when she learns where Holden’s gone.

Filip has to come up again at some point, right?  I kind of expected him to pop up before now, but maybe he’ll be in one of the next two books.

I feel like we’ve gotten all the setup right now, and this section stopped right before all the execution.  The underground’s plan is ready to go, the new ship is arriving, Drummer’s war is commencing, and the civilization-killer is on the move. I’m planning to start reading the final section immediately after reading this week’s responses, because I can’t handle this suspense!

Read-Along: Persepolis Rising by James S.A. Corey, Part 2

It’s well past time for part two of the read-along of James S.A. Corey’s Persepolis Rising! This section is on chapters 13-27, and the questions are provided by Lisa of Over the Effing Rainbow.  On a side note, please forgive that my mind is a little more scattered than usual.  I’ll be back to a usual posting schedule after this coming week. And a final note, beware of spoilers in the questions and answers below!

1. We see more of Governor Singh in these chapters, and ... Well. He certainly takes 'doing it by the book' rather more literally than most. How do you feel about the man after this closer character exploration, and his response(s) to attempts at resistance on Medina?

I’m kind of conflicted about him.  He is trying to do his job well, and his inexperience with this kind of situation in reality is causing a lot of problems.  His firing of Tanaka was a huge misstep.  I kept wanting to yell at him that just because he was aware he was in shock from the attack, it did not mean that it wasn’t affecting his judgment. I was rather impressed when he genuinely apologized to Tanaka.

Of course, he’s not doing a very good job of creating a sense of common community at Medina.  As Tanaka predicted, his harsh actions after the assassination attempt made him look frantic, and prompted the development of an actual organized underground resistance.  His response to the bombers is in the same vein.  He does not seem to have absorbed the lessons his superiors were trying to teach him.  At this point, I’m not sure if the Laconian leaders are hoping he’ll rise to the occasion, or they’re planning to use him as a scapegoat later.  Maybe they have plans for both, depending on how things shake out.

2. Captain Draper's having a difficult time of it, elsewhere - though at least she's not lashing out in her efforts to deal with that. What did you make of her conversation with Holden regarding the underground movement?

That must be frustrating.  I can see her problem, and see that she recognizes that it’s her issue to deal with.  Holden can’t not help, when his help is valuable. At least she seems to turning into a major force in the underground.  I’m hoping she gets a hero scenario, where she gets to be famous.  I also really hope she survives it, and goes on to captain the Roci as planned.

3. SHE'S ALIVE! Avasarala comes to Drummer's (political) aid, though it seems Madam President is less than thrilled with the idea. What's your take on their interaction, and in particular that last conversation between them?

I was so happy to see her!  Like other commenters, I had assumed a thirty year time jump meant our favorite elderly stateswoman had passed away in the interim.  I love that she’s profiling dangerous opposition leaders as a retirement hobby, and I love how people still defer to her.

I think Drummer is going to appreciate her more as time goes on, because Avasarala really may be the best advisor she could possibly have in this situation.  It was clearly the right decision not to assault Medina.  They would have just been roasted by gamma rays on approach. If Drummer thinks about what Avasarala says in that last conversation, it may help her accept that the woman does have humanity’s best interests at heart (and not just Earth’s).  As for the rest, I think that’s really the only silver lining they had in that battle, more information.

4. Any other thoughts/feelings/speculations etc. on this week's chapters? Let's have 'em!

I’m worried about Amos and Clarissa.  There’s clearly something going wrong with Amos, and he doesn’t seem to have any desire to deal with it.  Clarissa, I assume, is having a hard time without access to the medbay.  Her health was already deteriorating seriously, before all this stuff started happening.    

I was shocked when the Laconians took out the void city.  It did end the battle, but they just slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people.  That action seems to put the lie to their desire for non-violence.  They could absolutely have limited the human cost of that battle, and they chose not to.

Read-Along: Persepolis Rising by James S.A. Corey, Part 1

It’s time for a read-along of the latest novel in The Expanse series by James S.A. Corey.  Persepolis Rising came out last month, and this January’s read-along is organized in our Goodreads group.  Our discussions will be full of spoilers, so please only read these posts if you don’t mind. The schedule is:

Week 1: Prologue - Ch. 12, Sunday 14th Jan, hosted by @imyril at x+1

Week 2: Ch. 13 - Ch. 27, 28th Jan, hosted by Lisa at Over the Effing Rainbow

Week 3: Ch. 28 - Ch. 41, 4th Feb, hosted by Sarah at The Illustrated Page

Week 4: Ch. 42 - End, 11th Feb, hosted by Lisa at Over the Effing Rainbow

I won’t be hosting this month, but I am hoping I’ll be able to make enough time to keep up and participate in discussions.  It’s going to be hard to wait for the next in the series, after we’ve finished this one.  Now, to this week’s questions...

1. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

How do you feel about jumping forward 30 years? ...and about where/how we find the Solar system and the Rocinante's crew?

Part of me wants the crew of the Rocinante to stay young and idealistic forever.  I really like this crew, and it’s hard to see them suddenly 30 years older and ready to retire.  I can see it was necessary to jump forward to see the Laconia story, because their technological development would certainly not happen overnight.

2. ...and what are your first impressions of Laconia?

My first impression was that they were megalomaniacal monsters.  I didn’t actually hate Singh, though.  I think he’s too young to have been involved at all in the attack on Earth, and I’m not sure how much he really knows about what his government does.  I might grow to dislike him more as time goes on.  We’ll see.

I appreciate that they appear to be relatively non-violent conquerors.  They do seem to want to bring peace to humanity, and even want to keep the current governments in place.  At the same time, though, the act of conquering requires both violence and an overdeveloped ego, and the foundation of their society is non-consensual experimentation on human subjects.  I don’t think their society is going to be as utopian as they imagine it will.

3. Did you see Holden's actions coming? Do you think he'll stick with his decision now the circumstances have changed?

Are we talking about the retirement, or about arresting Houston instead of blocking off the colony?  I’m assuming retirement, since I guess the scandal about arresting Houston is kind of irrelevant in the face of the invading army.  I didn’t see it coming, but I think it’s a good idea.  Jim and Naomi have fought the good fight for years, and it’s time for them to pass the torch.  They deserve to have some peaceful years together.  I really hope they’re still able to do that, after this has been settled one way or another.

4. How do you think Drummer will react to the Laconian ultimatum? What about the Earth/Martian Alliance and the colony planets?

Well, they can’t really fight them, can they?  Laconia has ships and weapons that can’t be stopped.  They’re way beyond the rest of human society, technologically.  I am thinking that the way to fight back might have to be within the system.  Duarte is making this all about himself as an immortal “philosopher king”, so maybe if he is removed the system will shake apart to chaos.  Or maybe they haven’t quite tamed the protomolecule as well as they believe.  I just can’t see Drummer and the others launching a military campaign against Laconia right now, not with their current level of weaponry.

Read-Along: Babylon's Ashes by James S.A. Corey, Part 4 [END]

Welcome to the final post in the read-along of James S.A. Corey’s Babylon’s Ashes, book six of The Expanse!  We’re planning to tackle the new book, Persepolis Rising, in January.  If you’d like to join, speak up at our Goodreads group page! This week’s questions were provided by There’s Always Room for One More, and they cover through the end of the book.  Please beware of spoilers from here on out!

1. So - we get up close and personal with Marco Inaros. Reactions?

He is just as awful of a person as I had surmised by seeing him from the perspective of others? I didn’t really enjoy seeing his thoughts about characters I liked, and it seems he’s one of those gross (and dangerous) people who refuse to let exes go.  Further, his sections thoroughly convinced me that he did not have the strategy or vision to really lead the Belt into a stable future.  It was pretty satisfying when his section ended with him and all his followers getting vaporized!    

2. Filip completes his arc - were you surprised? How do you feel about him as a character now? Would you be happy to see his POV in the future?

I was surprised that his character arc didn’t have anything to do with killing all those people or his feelings about it. I feel like him being a mass murderer was really just kind of side-stepped, and he hasn’t even seemed particularly concerned about it (he’s still proud, I guess).  Instead, his arc was about him moving from hero-worshipping his dad to realizing that he’s an abusive manipulator.  I guess the more that see that side of Marco the merrier, but I don’t see any reason to modify my previous opinion of Filip.  I don’t really feel any desire to see more of his perspective, but I hope Naomi finds out he’s not dead.  That will help a bit with her grief and guilt.

3. What do you make of Holden’s choice at the end?

I think it made a lot of sense.  I was facepalming as well, when I heard Avasarala wanted Holden to be the head of the new Belter union.  They’ve tried that.  Fred’s OPA was not exactly a resounding success, though he did his best.  The OPA needs a leader that is a Belter, not an Inner who really wants to help them.

As for which Belter, as much as I have criticized her, I think Michio will do well.  She’ll deal fairly with Belters, and she has already been organizing distribution of goods throughout the Belt.  I got the impression she’s highly visible in Belter society, and people will likely respect that she cared so much about the people of the Belt that she turned against the Free Navy to help them.  I might have chosen Anderson Dawes, just because he’s used to complicated administration work, but I think Michio will be a good choice.

I’ll just say, though, Naomi would have been an awful choice.  Not because I think she couldn’t do it, but because I think she’d be miserable in the job.  She does not strike me as someone who would be happy spending her days administering a complicated trade union.

4. Can Holden's vision succeed? Is it going to be happily ever after?

I think so.  Weirdly enough, this is one of the ideas I was thinking of when Belters started talking about their vanishing niche.  It makes a lot of sense for them to be in charge of trade.  I can see a few potential pitfalls, though.  The Belters have never done anything this large and organized, so there’s bound to be mistakes and growing pains.  Second, a good number of them hate people who live on planets.  Ships with these kinds of folks are likely to price gouge or otherwise abuse colonists.  This could be managed by ensuring frequent trade stops per planet and a rotation of different ships, I think, so that no community is dependent upon any one shipment.  So not exactly happily ever after--they’ve got a lot of work ahead of them.  I think the future is brighter for them than it’s looked for a while though!

For a final thought, I loved that Naomi was the one who saved the day, and that she did it through data analysis! I'm looking forward to seeing what's in store in Persepolis Rising!

Read-Along: Babylon's Ashes by James S.A. Corey, Part 3

Welcome to week three of the read-along of James S.A. Corey’s Babylon’s Ashes, book six of The Expanse! This week we’re covering chapters 28-41, and discussion questions were provided by Lisa of Over the Effing Rainbow.  Feel free to check out our Goodreads page if you’d like to join this or future read-alongs!  And now, beware of the really serious spoilers below.

1. The side of good takes a hit with the sudden death of Fred Johnson, but it doesn't take long for some to start using it toward their own ends. Dawes, in particular, seems to have kingmaker aspirations that won't wait, despite his grief. What did you make of his actions in these chapters?

I think maybe I read him as much more sympathetic than this question implies.  He realized he made a mistake backing Marco, both because Marco was incompetent and because it was the wrong decision.  He understood Marco was a terrible at everything besides charisma, but he thought he could use him to unify the Belt.  

I think his guilt over betraying Fred, and his grief for his death, have pushed him to side with Holden.  It was interesting seeing him make a case for following Holden, even when he didn’t even like the guy himself.  I think he could be a really useful ally, since he is better at manipulating people than Holden will likely ever be.

2. Filip appears to be sliding further toward realising just where, precisely, he really stands with Marco. Do you think he'll slide the rest of the way there before it's too late to do anything? For that matter, given our general attitudes toward him so far, do you feel more sympathy for him now?

Whenever he feels sad about his father treating him poorly, at least he can warm his heart with the pride of knowing he killed over 15 billion people (note my sarcasm).  I don’t think it really matters at this point whether he turns on his father or not, because I don’t see how he has the ability or opportunity to do anything useful for the opposition. Seeing as he hasn’t really changed at all, my attitude towards him is similarly unchanged.  

3. With Avasarala's massive (and massively ambitious) attack upon the Free Navy underway, plans are already having to be altered - though Captain Pa is altering them because of her conscience, rather than (arguably) out of necessity. Did she do the right thing with the Solano, or do you think it will only come back to bite her?

I guess time will tell, but I think she probably did the right thing.  It’s nice that she considers other Belters human, though she isn’t really willing to extend that courtesy to Inners.  That puts her a notch above Marco.  So yeah, I appreciate that she is trying to do the right thing by the Belters. It will probably come back to bite her, but I hope she can handle it when it does.  

4. It's all on the line now, so I have to ask: Do you have any predictions? Desired outcomes? Possibly any POVs remaining you'd like to see before it's all over?

I hope that the Belters aren’t eradicated, and that Earth reaches some kind of stable equilibrium.  I hope that the “Free Navy” problem is more or less handled in this book, so Marco and company won’t be sticking around. I think we’ve been all over with POVs, so I can’t think of anyone in particular that I still want to see.