Unfortunately I liked this book less than its predecessor and also definitely less than what will end up being my favorite book of the series Nemesis Games.

Don’t get me wrong, especially plotwise it felt like a very good conclusion to the series, tying up a lot of loose ends while having many callbacks to earlier books most of all the first book with a very similar title. A lot of it felt like it kind of went full circle and that just felt right and satisfying. Plus, I even audibly cheered during the epilogue! So I definitely can't say that I wasn’t emotionally involved. 

Although the big character moments were a bit missing in this book. Felt like Tiamat’s Wrath delivered more on that front. But I think everyone ended up where they’re supposed to be so can’t really complain about that either.

Also I feel like I have to reiterate the point that this is a very good series conclusion. There is just something upon ending stuff right that gives bonus points and this finale kind of checked every box!

So what was it that made me not love this book as much as it probably should have and I think that can be boiled down to one character and that is one of our new POVs Tanaka. 

I just found her character to be pretty unenjoyable to read. In the beginning she felt a little similar to Bobbie which just asked the question, do we need another badass female marine character? But then it quickly became pretty obvious that she is just a psychopathic bitch with no empathy.

So we have this very one dimensional character who is just a terrible, terrible person and spend a lot of time in her head and I just didn’t like it and it also felt not very fitting to this series.

I guess she accomplished her goal in stirring up a lot of conflict and moving the plot along but it also made some scenes feel a little repetitive and as a result I didn’t think the pacing of this book was quite as good as the last one. 

Now I only have one final short story left and my journey with The Expanse comes to an end. Overall this was a highly enjoyable experience and only book 6 was one that I actually disliked. There was a lot of fun stuff in most of them and I will miss the crew of the Roci a lot! However I am already thinking about rewatching the TV show in the near future! :D 

Final book ranking I think will be as following: