The third expanse book, still going strong without losing its spirit or retreading old paths.

The new POV characters feel fresh and each interesting in their own way. A betrayer, a priest, and a security chief with a similar sense of justice as Holden. I liked the fact that the planned betrayal is known from the start, the reader knows what is going to happen and has insight into the thoughts of both the betrayer and the betrayed. In particular the later Melba chapters were great emotionally.

Tilly/Anna’s Melba redemption arc I found a bit weird, considering the impact of her actions but didn’t mind it in the end.

Speaking of the end, before reading the books, I had thought the expanse was “hard Sci-Fi”, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Especially the cliffhangers at the end of the books always seem to introduce some grand new thing. Though there is no FTL-travel and much of the physics seems very plausible, especially the protomolecule has some pretty fantastical abilities, and it wouldn’t seem out of place in the Culture books which are about as far from “hard Sci-Fi” as I can imagine.