Review: Strange Dogs

Strange Dogs by James S.A. Corey
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This Expanse novella did a good job of keeping my attention as it's well-paced and written, but I can't rate this book above a simple 'it's okay'. This is simply a random horror-themed story set in the Expanse universe. That's fine in and of itself, but I couldn't help but feel the story was just spinning wheels until everything comes to a stop. If you're decently familiar with what's going on with the series by this point, it's a fine story. But that's also its problem. It doesn't do better than okayness.

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Review: Babylon's Ashes

Babylon's Ashes by James S.A. Corey
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It's honestly not what I expected. With this novel basically being "Nemesis Games Part 2", I had high hopes this novel would bring its A game. Instead, it brings its OK game. Not bad in any real way but fails only slightly fewer ways than it succeeds.

I think its biggest problem is that the narrative is all over the place. The previous novels did an excellent job keeping a tight control on their structure, but Ashes tends to reach for things to talk about. We end up getting scenes and long stretches of reflective perspective that have little to no impact on the overall story. For example, Prax gets the fifth degree over some leaked information. While the scene itself is well written, there is little progress in what is happening with the rather high-stakes war that is currently evolving. To be fair, a lot is going on across the solar system, but we get entire scenes of characters thinking to themselves when any information their scenes have could have been relayed through a footnote. We have meetings when it could have just been an email.

Also, Marco isn't a strong villain. He's shallow, not overly bright, and honestly easily undermined by even the slightest hiccup in his plans. This seems to be done mostly on purpose, but I still would have preferred someone who felt like a worthy opponent. Though, as much as Holden relied on coincidence and plot armor, a smarter villain might have won.

Prose and characters are still a strong aspect of the series. Nothing to lose your shit over, but there's a fair amount of polish on everything. Pa is an interesting character but is defined by their relation to the plot more than anything else. While there are a lot of natural elements between Pa and Holden that practically write themselves, the focus should have been to make Pa more of a counterweight to Holden. It further highlights how the issues with the Expanse on more with the marco rather than the micro. It's probably why I liked Nemesis Games so much as both sides of those elements came together.

With six books down and three to go, I don't see any reason to stop reading. I'm not as involved with the story as I probably should be by this point, but I'm still mostly enjoying myself. There just seems to be some familiar patterns in how the novels develop that fail to provide the originality a long-form story needs. We'll see how this changes, if at all, as this series enters its endgame arc.

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Review: Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery

Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery by Scott Kelly
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I'm honestly fairly conflicted about this book. I was equally intrigued and bored by this book. Simultaneously interested and disinterested.  One of the great real-life heroic stories of scientific strife in our lifetime times written by the world's most average dad. I wanted to like this book but walked away with very middling feelings about it. I don't regret reading it, but still wished it was better.

The book is written with a very dry, matter-of-fact writing style. There are vague outbursts of emotion, the rant on CO2 scrubbers sticks out in my mind, but most of the volume is just recalling examples of the trials of being a navy pilot, test subject, and space dad. There's nothing particularly wrong with the writing. But not bad doesn't mean it's good.

Side note: The by-line has the name Margaret Lazarus Dean added to it. My guess is this is the person who physically wrote the book. Or, at least, was assigned by the publisher to refine the text. Either way, the prose needed work.

I will praise the book in that it does successfully create a strong sense of what it's like to be an astronaut. I learned a good deal and realized it's far more physically demanding than most might suspect. Most of the novel isn't written in a well-constructed exciting way, but it is at least interesting from a pure experience sort of way.

There's not much else to say about this book. Looking back on it, I'll probably only remember the more interesting facts of the novel and disregard most of the text. It's a great story but would have preferred it was written in a different style. Or any style really.

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