Babylon's AshesWe’ve reached the point in this series where it’s okay for the authors to throw a bunch of points of view at the reader. By now, the world-building is solid and the political landscape is pretty clear. The downside to this is that the only POVs I really want are Holden, Naomi, and the others from the Rocinante. However, this method also allows us to peek in on some old friends in such a way that gives us a perspective of what’s going on across the system.

Such alternate POVs are also necessary because everyone on the Rocinante is pretty sorted. They still have their issues, but the crew has established itself as a family. It’s other characters who still have work to do. My favorite character arcs in this novel are not my favorite characters, but Filip’s story is poignant and Michio Pa’s is dramatic. I’m sure both of them will pop up again in the future, and I look forward to seeing them.

The dark line that threaded this book reminds me of the collapse of Ganymede earlier in the series. This time, it’s a collapse that’s system-wide. I appreciated that not every character was completely aware of the issues, but I definitely finished the book with a sense of weird dread about future events.

On the other hand, despite the multiple vivid scenes involving ship-to-ship (and occasionally closer) combat, I loved that at the end of the day, the plot was solved by SCIENCE. The story of the missing ships becomes relevant, if not necessarily explained (which I’m totally okay with).

Avasarala is still my favorite. Bobbie continues to be a BAMF. Naomi also achieves a different sort of BAMF status in this installment. I’m ready to dive into book 7.

Rating: 5 (out of 5) stars. Cross-posted to Amazon and Goodreads.