By ALEX PECHA
Contributing Writer
What defines a good science fiction? Is it the universe building that an author must do to immerse you in their world? Or is it the descriptions of the space ships that the protagonist travels on? It’s hard to say what exactly makes good science fiction, but I can say this, Abaddons Gate by James S.A. Corey (A pen name for Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck) is damn good science fiction.
Abaddons Gate is the third part in the ongoing science fiction series The Expanse. In the universe of the expanse humanity has gone to the stars, or at least one star, ours. The three major political factions, Earth, Mars and the OPA (Who represents the outer planets and the asteroid belts near them) constantly compete for power and dominance, or in the OPA’s case, simple legitimacy. Thrown into the middle of that struggle was an unlucky ex-Earther soldier named James Holden, who, after the events of the first two books, has become something of a celebrity and pariah all, rolled into one.
The book starts off with the protomolecule from the first two books leaving Venus (where it made a spectacular crash landing in the first book) and creating some sort of gate farther out in the solar system. Naturally all the big players want to know what’s going on so they send their own fleets and scientists to study/observe the newly formed gate.
The book is told from the perspective of four characters, series regular James Holden, the ex-military man with a rather interesting reputation and attitude. Bull, the Earther-turned-OPA security chief for the OPA’s brand new super ship. Anna, the small Russian priest who rapidly finds herself in a very non-religious and non-peaceful world. And finally “Melba” the reformed rich girl who takes on a secret identity to hunt down James Holden and ruin his life and career.
All four characters get good book time and they all have well fleshed out personalities; with their own motives and way of doing things. This is what the Expanse series is great at; almost all of the characters are well thought out and have real personalities. This concentration on personality is one of the things that really makes Abaddons Gate (And the Expanse series) stand out among the science fiction crowd.
Personality isn’t all this series has going for it. The other thing is the great world building, the universe Ty and Daniel have crafted feels plausible and understandable. This is partly because the more sciencey parts get glossed over, avoiding the trap that a lot of authors fall into where they try to explain something with actual science and wind up shooting themselves in the foot in the eyes of anyone who is willing to use the internet. The politics also helps with the universe immersion, often in science fiction humanity tends to be one huge clump of white Americans; in the Expanse universe however every group has its own culture, language and sometimes look. Belters, the term for people born on the solar systems asteroid belt, are born in zero gravity and as such look almost alien to someone from Earth; they also have their own hybrid language made up of several Earth languages. This attention to detail on both the macro and micro level makes the Expanse series stand out as something special.
The story itself in Abaddons Gate is a hair raiser. Feeling less like some of the older and slower science fiction many people are used to, Abaddons Gate almost has the feeling of a summer blockbuster movie. This isn’t to say that the book is dumb by any means, but it manages to propel itself along at a decent speed to keep you interested. It’s also interesting how the characters play off of each other; unlike certain books where all the main characters work together Abaddons Gate has several of the characters work directly against each other. Due to this difference of perspective you may see a well-known side character get killed from the perspective of someone who doesn’t even know them or hear about how one perspective character is directly messing up another’s day. This makes for a very interesting way to see the story and sometimes leads to what you could call “The slow motion trainwreck”, where you can see the antagonists lining up their plans perfectly but you also know that the protagonists have zero idea as to what is about to happen.
While the story is a solid one, certain Science Fiction tropes and patterns may emerge that can allow well versed scifi fans to quickly figure out where certain elements in the plot are going. You might not be able to guess what happens to everyone exactly but you will be able to figure out what happens to certain elements of the story in general.
If I can level a complaint at the book, it’s the reliance it has with the other books in the series. While nothing new in multi-novel works this can still be a turn off for a lot of people. The book expects you to know the basics of the universe, who’s who, why they’re important, who the big players are, etc; there’s the occasionally “In case you’ve forgotten” type of reminder but it’s not enough to verse someone in the universe as well as the first book did. Even if you are familiar with the series they occasionally bring out people who got a few paragraph mentions in the earlier books and expect you to remember them, though it never reaches A Song of Ice and Fire levels of obscure character importance. So if you want to get into the series it is a much safer bet to start with the first book, Leviathan Wakes.
All told, Abaddons Gate is a great book for the science fiction fan out there. Its masterful mixing of universe building and well-paced storytelling will make you want to read from cover to cover as fast as possible; and its complex and varied characters will almost definitely have you understanding where everyone is coming from, even the antagonists.
