Tiamat's Wrath

[graveexcitement]

lately, it feels like i have two modes with books: 1) buy a book, read a little bit, maybe a few chapters, and then put it down and leave it unread for weeks/months/forever, or 2) read the book all at once.

Tiamat's Wrath, the latest book in the Expanse series, was definitely an "all at once" book. i had to wait for my dad to read it first -- he's the one who got into the series first, and then introduced it to me -- but thankfully he only took a day or two to read it, and so i was able to read it all tonight.

spoilers for the entirety of Tiamat's Wrath under the cut. this is probably going to be a little rambly/unfocused, but whatever.

i had a fun Aha! moment when i realized that the mysterious "Timothy" that Teresa kept alluding to had to be Amos, a few pages before she actually met up with him. of course, this made it all the worse when he died. i was just like -- really? they really did that? it didn't have the gravity of Bobbie's final chapter. it seemed unbelievable, but of course sometimes that's the point... but it clicked again as soon as i read "he didn't know not to leave the body." i knew then that we were def getting Amos back in some form. i just wasn't sure whether it would be this book or in the next one; luckily, we didn't have to wait that long.

(damn, if the show keeps going and gets to this point, i'd love to see its take on repaired-corpse!Amos :0)

one of the themes of this book (well, not just this one, but it was v apparent in this one) was that the oppressors are human, too. i mean, this is basically said straight-out in the prologue, with Holden musing on Avasarala's idea that your enemies are human, with human flaws and fears and embarrassments. of course, this isn't to say that they can't also be monstrous. of course they can.

probably the most striking example of this is when Duarte, or the remnant of Duarte, kills Cortázar with a wave of his hand, and the other members of the Conspiracy just leave the room and go: "Okay. That happened. That just happened." it's funny, and it also shows how in over their heads the very people who are at the top are in this circumstance.

(and damn, like, Duarte was a monster, but that one moment of clarity in the midst of incoherence, of recognizing that this is the man his daughter said wanted to kill her... and then doing something about it... that was a good moment. also, what a fitting way for Cortázar to die, too. if only it could have been slower, so he'd have time to realize his creation (well, not quite, but close enough) was responsible for his demise.)

also like... the whole plan with Duarte's authoritarian regime was that all the usual drawbacks from an authoritarian government wouldn't happen, because Duarte would live forever, so he wouldn't need to worry that whoever ruled after him would be incompetent or wouldn't share his goals/values. even setting aside the sheer egotism of that, it was still a bad plan -- the core concept, putting all of your authority eggs in one supposedly immortal basket, is bad enough (because what's the fallback plan?), but it's worse considering that the mechanism for that immortality was the protomolecule. the protomolecule whose makers all died. i mean, i know Duarte and Cortázar were egotistical as all get out, but did it really never occur to them that making yourself more like the protomolecule might wind up making you more vulnerable to certain attacks -- attacks from whatever killed the protmolecule-makers -- instead of less?

well, everything that happens after the consciousness attack certainly proves why it was a bad plan. (and also why having your top science man be completely amoral is also a bad idea, even when you don't actually care about the morality involved and are just considering the "running an empire" issue.) once your immortal leader of your authoritarian empire isn't immortal, those drawbacks of "your chosen successor might not share your goals for the empire" hit right away, as shown when Teresa is able to bluff their way out just by saying I'm the High Consul's daughter, I have authority. sure, Duarte claimed that they were going to "take advantage" of the concept of primogeniture in his fall-back plan, but... thinking that the drawbacks of primogeniture apply to other people and not to you is pretty flawed, my man.

all in all, authoritarian regimes are terrible both from a moral perspective and from a "functional government structure" perspective, and if you want to counter those drawbacks you should 1) do so in a less risky way, and 2) have a better fall-back plan. or just, y'know, don't have an authoritarian regime with yourself as god-emperor, what is wrong with you?

man, i really hope we get an Amos POV next book, i bet his head's gonna be interesting to look in now. (now we just need Naomi and Alex to have Significant Protomolecule Interactions, and we'll have the whole set :P)

i liked Teresa a lot! i also really enjoyed Elvi's chapters. her relationship with her husband was super sweet. i actually cackled at this line from her last chapter: "And with Teresa on the run with James fucking Holden, treating [Duarte's condition] as a state secret was more and more ridiculous."

Bobbie's death was sad, but it was also a triumph, and it felt right. it definitely wasn't as much of a gut-punch as Clarissa's was, in the last book.

i kind of want to read or write some fic about repaired!Amos now. also, i haven't read any of the Expanse novellas, but someone in the Expanse discord mentioned one of them (Strange Dogs) and it apparently features the two repaired-corpse kids in Cortázar's lab, so i think i might read it.

overall, it's given me a lot to think about, & to be excited for if the TV show ever gets this far. (but i'm already excited enough that the show is doing a season 4 -- especially since Cibola Burn, the next book to be adapted for the show, is one of my faves! :D )