The Tapas Bar At The End Of The Expanse: Non-Spoilery Remarks After Finishing Book 9: Leviathan’s Fall

By Daniel Dern: A decade ago, Leviathan Wakes, the first book of the Expanse series by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, writing together as James S. A. Corey, launched us into a (at the time) solar-system-wide adventure.

And now, a decade and three trilogies later, the tale/saga comes to an end, and, thankfully, impressively but not surprisingly, “sticks the landing” or whatever sports or other metaphor you want to use. Book 9 is a good read, and left me sad that the journey was over, but satisfied with how it went and ended. Leviathan Falls wraps up the major and minor plot lines and arcs, some going all the way back to Book 1, and gives closure to the various personal and interpersonal journeys of the main characters. Including a brief, touching epilogue, which, not unreasonably, does not involve shawarma.

(I had the same feeling of satisfactory wrap-up and closure with the third-and-final season of Netflix’s Lost In Space; ditto Andy Weir’s recent Project Hail Mary, to name a few.)

I had approached Leviathan Falls with the unfounded trepidation and baseless concern as to whether the book would do right by plot and characters. Again, it did, leaving me (ditto the friend who first got me reading these books, who I was chatting with at various stages of my reading) that combination of sadness that we’re done and the happy feeling for the journey and that the ending met our emotional (and critical) expectations.

My one suggestion, depending on how much you do/don’t remember of Book 8: Tiamat’s Wrath — consider going back and reading it. I was maybe 30-50 pages into Leviathan Falls when I read one too many references to [REDACTED] and said to myself, “Wait, what?”, got Book 8 from my library and read that before resuming Falls.

(I had debated backing up to Book 7: Persepolis Rising, because “Wait, Holden is what/where why?” but did some quick web browsing and decided that refresher was good enough.)

For those who haven’t yet read any of the Expanse books (or watched the SyFy/Amazon series, on the home stretch of its currently-final season (there apparently are legit ways to finesse contractual constraints to give us more), here’s a few quick notes:

  • Our story is PoV’d primarily by what becomes the close-knit plucky, adventury crew of the good spaceship Rocinante (and kudos to Abraham and Franck for consistently following one character’s PoV per chapter, and putting said PoV-er’s name as part of each chapter’s title).
  • Already-politically-jousting Belters, Martian colonists, Earthers and others encounter an alien technology, the protomolecule. (Somewhat like Babylon V in having the parallel and often intertwining people/political and big-ominous-alien-mystery-threat plotlines.)
  • Part of what’s gratified me about the Expanse has been that it feels like the author(s) live there, in near-future low- and zero-G, in spacecraft large and small, and that — with exceptions due to alien technologies — the laws of physics etc are explicit and respected, so, no FTL space drives or communication, for example.

No, I’m not going to say anything about what’s actually in Leviathan Falls, other than yes, James Holden, Naomi Nagata, Amos and Alex are still with us, plus other characters, good, bad and could-go-either-way from more recent volumes.

So again, all I’m going to say is, the book is available, and if you’ve enjoyed the ride so far, I don’t feel you’ll be let down by the finale. You will, I predict, be happy with [REDACTED], sad by accepting of [REDACTED], amused by [ALSO REDACTED], be expecting [REDACTED] but probably OK with [REDACTED]… and smiling at [REDACTED].

(Yes, there’s room for more stories in the Expansiverse, before, during or after, and I’ll at least try them such if they happen, but if that’s the end of it, I’m OK with that.)

And that’s all I think needs saying. Enjoy!

Or, as they say in Belter Creole, (according to Memverse) —

Dédawang ta xélixup! (That was excellent!)

One thought on “The Tapas Bar At The End Of The Expanse: Non-Spoilery Remarks After Finishing Book 9: Leviathan’s Fall

  1. Thanks! Quite relieved that the first review I’ve seen didn’t say “OMG, what a disappointment!” Not that I expected it to, but you never know whether a series will stick the landing until it does (or doesn’t). And there are few series where I’ve been waiting for the finale with quite as much bated breath as this one.

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