Babylon’s Ashes (The Expanse  #6) by James S.A. Corey

Format: Kindle
Read: May 2025 (re-read)

Part of the reason it took me so long to get to this one in my reread is that I remembered it was a bit of a letdown after the insane high of Nemesis Games. It’s fine, I always enjoy being in this world and with these characters … It’s just not got much going on and doesn’t get going until the last quarter.

Babylon’s Ashes is the conclusion to Nemesis Games, and I’ve seen some reviewers say that it could have been folded into that book. I agree to some extent because the start of this is very slow. But on the other hand I did like seeing Marco’s Free Navy start to crumble and his followers start to realise he isn’t quite the man they thought he was.

Much of the slow pace is felt because of the seemingly endless introduction of apparently inconsequential new POV characters. The ones that really stuck out were random characters on Medina who get just 2 or 3 chapters, and two chapters for Prax that didn’t seem to have anything to do with anything (I assume the point of those was to show there is some hope they can solve the food crisis).

I did enjoy the POV of Michio Pa, one of Marco’s inner circle, who soon realises he’s a clueless madman. The return of Anderson Dawes was fun, brief though it is (I think I like him so much because Jared Harris played him in the TV show!). I also guess I liked Filip’s POV as much as I equally hate being in his POV because he’s so frustrating! There is a brief POV for Marco that will leave no doubt (if there is any after the previous book!) that he’s just a petty, jealous, controlling ex and not a brilliant tactician or the saviour of the Belt.

With all the random new characters it felt like the crew of the Roci were missing from a lot of the book. I think they all get at least one POV at some point, but it’s mostly Holden. Holden is nobody’s favourite right? Clarissa is now on board of course, and everyone adjusting to that is interesting.

This book does end up feeling like filler. There isn’t much character growth here, nor does the overarching plot more forever a whole lot. In fact, on my reread, I realised there is a chunk of stuff that happens in the next book that I was convinced was in this book! I was convinced I’d never read the next book, but I have! I even wrote a Goodreads review, it’s just my memory kind of blurred that book into this one.

The weakest of the books so far in my reread.. but it’s still The Expanse!