#james s. a. corey

[yumyumpod]

Watching The Expanse for the first time: Season Four

[literary-illuminati]

Starting Mercy of the Gods and I really appreciate the book spending 50 pages setting up a bunch of high-stakes academic intrigue and interpersonal drama on a fascinating exoplanet even before the alien invaders show up.

I would actually just read at least a whole novella of it.

[myopicfascination]

Question, should I read The Expanse books? I really enjoy the tv series. But also my favourite characters are Chrisjen and Bobbie. (Yes for gay reasons, but not the only reasons.)

But yeah, should I read the books, should I start at the beginning or continue from where the tv show leaves off?

Is there more Chrisjen and Bobbie goodness in the books? (Seems like it for the earlier ones.)

But I do also want to see how the story unfolds. Anyway I am conflicted and also a gay mess, so any help would be appreciated!

[spacecimen]

My name is James Holden.

[pedroam-bang]

Daniel Dociu’s cover art for James S. A. Corey’s book Nemesis Games (2015)

[wanderingscribe309]

“Amos let his hand terminal take him to the nearest flophouse and got a room. He dumped his booze and bag on the bed and then hit the streets. A short walk took him to a food cart where he bought what the sign optimistically called a Belgian sausage. Unless the Belgians were famous for their flavored bean curd products, the optimism seemed misplaced. Not that it mattered. Amos realized that while he knew the orbital period of every Jovian moon by heart, he had no idea where Belgium was. He didn’t think it was a North American territory, but that was about the best he could do. He was hardly in a position to criticize assertions about their cuisine.

He walked toward the old rotting docks he played on as a child, not for any reason more profound than needing a destination and knowing which direction the water was. He finished the last of his sausage and then, not seeing a convenient recycling bin, he chewed up and swallowed the wrapper too. It was made of spun corn starch and tasted like stale breakfast cereal.

In the distance, the sky lit up with a line of fire like a lightning bolt drawn with a ruler. A sonic boom rolled across the bay a few moments later, and Amos had a sudden and intense memory of sitting on those very docks with Erich, watching the rail-gun supply lifts fired into orbit, and discussing the possibility of leaving the planet.

To everyone outside the gravity well, Amos was from Earth. But that wasn’t true. Not in any way that mattered. Amos was from Baltimore. What he knew about the planet outside of a few dozen blocks of the poor district would fit on a napkin. The first steps he’d ever taken outside the city were when he’d climbed off a high-speed rail line in Bogotá and onto the shuttle that had flown him to Luna.

Erich was wrong about him being the same. The man he’d once been wasn’t a collection of personality traits. He was the things he knew, the desires of his heart, the skills he had. The person he’d been before he left knew where the good basement booze was brewed. Which dealers had a consistent supply of quality black market marijuana and tobacco. The brothels that serviced the locals, and the ones that were there only to rob thrill-seeking poverty tourists. That person knew where to rent a gun for cheap, and that the price tripled if you used it. Knew it was cheaper to rent time in a machine shop and make your own. Like the shotgun he’d used the first time he killed a man.

But the person he was now knew how to keep a fusion reactor running. How to tune the magnetic coils to impart maximum energy to ionized exhaust particles, and how to fix a hull breach. That guy didn’t care about these streets or the pleasures and risks they offered. Baltimore could look exactly the same, and be as foreign to him as the mythical land of Belgium.

And in that moment, he knew it was his last time on Earth. He was never coming back.”

The Expanse

Nemesis Games: Chapter 12, Amos

[filipmagnuswrites]

Caliban's War by James S. A. Corey | War Not Averted but Delayed

War not averted but delayed. Such, it seems, might be the case with the contentious relationship between Earth and Mars in James S. A. Corey’s second novel in the Expanse series. Caliban’s War is a more ambitious work than its predecessor. It has every right to be. The heavy-lifting of the ambitious worldbuilding has been done by Leviathan Wakes. There’s no need to spend the time to define the…

[could-they-be-a-pro-wrestler]

How successful would Juliette Mao…

Would you like to submit a character? Click this link if you do!

[hectorthereader]

New books for my TBR pile.

Nuestros libros para mi pila de lecturas pendientes.

[yumyumpod]

Watching The Expanse for the first time: Season Five

[that-dinopunk-guy]

I bought some books.

[trvllngjwllr]

First Impressions TV Review: The Expanse Season 5

If you’re a fan of science-fiction, you’d be hard pressed to find a show that’s more faithful to the genre than The Expanse. Originally a novel series written by James S. A. Corey, the series is set in the far future where humanity has colonized various parts of the solar system. The series predominantly focuses on three main human factions – the Earthers, the Martians and the Belters. Among the…

[spacecimen]

”On one hand, there is the very real threat of mutual annihilation. On the other, the stars.”

[madlovenovelist]

Most Anticipated New Book Releases August 2024

August has the most amount of anticipated releases that I’ve have in years – Oy Vey! My bank balance is not going to like me. I’m going to have to think creatively to acquire a little more spending money. The first six books I’ve definitely purchasing. All of them auto-buy authors and have me salivating to get started… My Salty Mary (#3 Mary) – Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton and Jodi Meadows…

[wanderingscribe309]

Erich’s office looked the same as the last time Amos had been in it—the same wall screen showing the same ocean view, the rubber ball instead of a chair, the desk encrusted with decks and monitors. Even Erich didn’t look different. Maybe better dressed, even. It was the context that changed it all. The screen showed an ocean of gray and white, and Erich’s clothes looked like a costume.

Butch and the four other heavily armed thugs with professional trigger discipline who’d escorted them from the elevator walked out, closing the door behind them. Erich waited until they’d gone before he spoke, but the tiny fist of his bad arm was opening and closing the way it did when he was nervous.

Erich walked over to the wall screen, limping. A few seagulls circled, black against the colorless sky. From the last time he’d been there, Amos knew the buildings that should have provided a foreground. Most of them were still in place close in. Out toward the shoreline, things were shorter now.

“I was right here when it happened,” Erich said. “It wasn’t a wave like a wave, you know? Like a surfer wave? It was just the whole fucking ocean humping up and crawling onto shore. There’s whole neighborhoods I used to run just aren’t there now.”

Erich looked at Peaches like he wasn’t sure how she’d gotten in the room. His laugh was short and hard, but it wasn’t a no. Amos picked up the pitch. “Idea is we get in, grab a ship, and head for Luna.”

Erich sat down on the ball, his legs wide, and rolled a few centimeters back and forth, his eyes half-closed. “So what’s the score?”

“The score?” Peaches asked.

“What are we taking? Where does the money come in?”

“There isn’t any,” Peaches said.

“Then what do I get out of it?”

“You get out of here,” Amos said. “Place was kind of a shithole before someone dropped the Atlantic on it. It’s not getting better.”

Erich’s wasted, tiny left arm squeezed tight to his body. “Let me get this straight. You’ve got a score where I go seven, maybe eight hundred kilometers, sneak past some private mercenary death squad, boost a ship, and the payoff is that I get to leave everyone and everything I’ve got here? What’s next? Russian roulette where if I win, I get to keep the bullet?” His voice was high and tight. He bit the words as he spoke them. “This is my city. This is my place. I carved my life out of the fucking skin of Baltimore, and I spent a lot doing it. A lot. Now I’m supposed to put my tail between my legs and run away because some Belter fuckwit decided to prove he’s got a tiny little dick and his mama didn’t hug him enough when he was a kid? Fuck that! You hear me, Timmy? Fuck that!”

Amos looked at his hands and tried to think what to do next. His first impulse was to laugh at Erich’s maudlin bullshit, but he was pretty sure that wasn’t going to be a good idea. He tried to think what Naomi would have said, but before he came up with anything good, Peaches stepped toward Erich, her arms out to him like she was going to give him a hug.

“I know,” she said, her voice choked with some emotion Amos didn’t place.

“You know? What the fuck do you know?”

“What it’s like to lose everything. How hard it is, because you keep thinking it can’t really be gone. That there’s a way to get it back. Or maybe if you just act like you still have it, you won’t notice it’s gone.”

Erich’s face froze. His bad hand opened and closed so fast, it looked like he was trying to snap the tiny pink fingers. “I don’t know what you’re talking—”

“There was this woman I knew when I went in. She killed her children. Five of them, all dead. She knew it, but she talked about them all like they were still alive. Like when she got up tomorrow, they’d be there. I thought she was a lunatic, and I guess I let that show, because she stopped me one day at the cafeteria and said, ‘I know they’re dead. But I know I’m dead too. You’re the only bitch here thinks she’s still alive.’ And as soon as she said that, I knew exactly what she meant.”

To Amos’ astonishment, Erich started to weep and then blubber. He fell into Peaches’ open arms, wrapping his good arm around her and crying into her shoulder. She stroked his hair and murmured something to him that could have been I know, I know. Or maybe something else. So clearly something sweet and touching had just happened, even if he wasn’t clear what the fuck it was. Amos shifted from one foot to the other and waited. Erich’s wracking sobs grew more violent and then started to calm. It must have been fifteen minutes before the man pulled himself out of Peaches’ embrace, limped to his desk, and found some tissue to blow his nose.

“I grew up here,” he said, his voice shaking. “Everything I’ve ever done—every meal I ever ate, every toilet I ever pissed in, every girl I ever rolled around with? It’s all been inside the 695.” For a second, it looked like he was going to cry again. “I’ve seen things come and go. I’ve seen shit times turn into normal and turn back to shit, and keep telling myself this is like that. It’s just the churn. But it’s not, is it?”

“No,” Peaches said. “It isn’t. This is something new.”

Erich turned back to the screen, touching it with the fingertips of his good hand. “That’s my city out there. It’s a mean, shitty place, and it’ll break anyone who pretends different. But it’s gone, isn’t it?”

“Probably,” Peaches said. “But starting over’s not always bad. Even the way I did it had some light in it. And what you’ve got is better than what I had.”

Erich bowed his head. His sigh sounded like something bigger than him being released. Peaches took his good hand in both of hers and the two of them were silent for a long moment.”

The Expanse

Nemesis Games: Chapter 38, Amos

[musicwordscolourslights]

He'd outgrown his childhood home, but in the back of his mind, the unexamined assumption was that it would still be there. Changed, maybe. Grown a little older. But there.

- James S.A. Corey