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A review by gilroi
The Mercy of Gods by James S.A. Corey
dark
informative
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
This is a weird book, but not because of anything the book itself does (or does not do). In a vacuum, The Mercy of the Gods is a fairly boilerplate, run of the mill 'hard' SF novel; if you like SF door-stoppers that focus more on plot minutia, passably plausible future-tech and encyclopedic worldbuilding detail, than characterization, emotion, or cultural worldbuilding detail, this book is perfect for you. Ignore the rest of this review and read it now.
However, when viewed within the body of work the authors have published beforehand, The Mercy of the Gods is kind of bizarre. The previous series written by James SA Corey, The Expanse, is radically different than TMoG, and not just in terms of thematic tropes. It's also structurally differnet, and not really in a good way. Thematically, the Expanse was notable (to me) and enjoyable (for me) for focusing on cultural and sociological worldbuilding, being concerned with the politics of class, having dense characterization. Structurally, the books used changing POVs to move the plot forward and show different perspectives on plot development, and while the books were never briskly paced, they never wasted their time or felt like a slog (to me).
None of this is true of TMoG, which has a huge cast of largely identical characters (there are three categories of character, of which there are three to four examples of each: Leader Guys In Conflict, Women Who Are Emotionally Unpredictable / Ambiguous For A Tragic Reason, and Support Guys Who Are There For The Other Two Types Of Characters To Bounce Ideas Off) all from the same profession and class background, from a world with no discernible difference from Earth save that it has different country names and a higher technological level. As such, every POV feels roughly the same except Jessyn's, because her mental illness is very deftly written (I suspect this is because she is based on a real person in the author's life, and while I also suspect I can guess exactly who that person is because I've read several interviews with them, I'm not going to out and say it because that sounds extremely creepy). As such, it's not clear who'se POV it is in almost all chapters.
The plot is extremely meandering but also emotionally distant-- monstrous events like the colonization of Earth take place, but everything feels very detached. This is especially strange because these chapters feel very much like the part of the Expanse where Earth is bombed from orbit, but it lacks all emotional resonance or feeling. Same with a section where the main cast is held captive by the aliens-- there is striking resemblance to an excellent part of Cibola Burn where colonists on an alien world are trapped underground, but there is again no real emotion present in these sections because there's no sense of perspective. While every chapter is told in the third person from the POV of a named character, things frequently feel like they're written in omnipotent POV because the main cast has so little discernible difference in perspective from each other.
It's also horribly paced, with several (very very long) chapters in a row that don't really move the plot along or acclimate the characters to their surroundings; it just feels like they're there so the writers can figure out the plot and the worldbuilding as they go along, but they forgot to edit the extremely bland chapters out. This book would be 2x stronger if it was half its size.
I don't know why they changed so much, why it's so different on every level. I strongly suspect, though, that the writing duo that is James SA Corey benefited hugely from their first few Expanse books detailing a structured TTRPG adventure. At almost all times, it feels like the Expanse knew where it was going; TMoG never really does, and every plot development feels like it just appeared there suddenly, with very little buildup or foreshadowing despite having a wealth of paged in which to do so. I also think James SA Corey benefited from being less well-known when the Expanse came out, and thus they were more heavily edited-- the books ended up more polished. Now that the Expanse is extremely well-known in SF circles, James SA Corey are probably edited less, and can throw their weight around more to keep in things that an editor might want them to cut.
In a nutshell: if you loved the Expanse for any other reason than it was long and moderately hard-SF, you might still like The Mercy of Gods! But if you like both, you'll probably like them both for very different reasons, because they are such different book with such a variant level of quality that if I didn't know better, I'd assume TMoG was written years and years before Leviathan Wakes. It feels, at best, like a sophomoric attempt made by authors who have the capabilities to do much, much better.
However, when viewed within the body of work the authors have published beforehand, The Mercy of the Gods is kind of bizarre. The previous series written by James SA Corey, The Expanse, is radically different than TMoG, and not just in terms of thematic tropes. It's also structurally differnet, and not really in a good way. Thematically, the Expanse was notable (to me) and enjoyable (for me) for focusing on cultural and sociological worldbuilding, being concerned with the politics of class, having dense characterization. Structurally, the books used changing POVs to move the plot forward and show different perspectives on plot development, and while the books were never briskly paced, they never wasted their time or felt like a slog (to me).
None of this is true of TMoG, which has a huge cast of largely identical characters (there are three categories of character, of which there are three to four examples of each: Leader Guys In Conflict, Women Who Are Emotionally Unpredictable / Ambiguous For A Tragic Reason, and Support Guys Who Are There For The Other Two Types Of Characters To Bounce Ideas Off) all from the same profession and class background, from a world with no discernible difference from Earth save that it has different country names and a higher technological level. As such, every POV feels roughly the same except Jessyn's, because her mental illness is very deftly written (I suspect this is because she is based on a real person in the author's life, and while I also suspect I can guess exactly who that person is because I've read several interviews with them, I'm not going to out and say it because that sounds extremely creepy). As such, it's not clear who'se POV it is in almost all chapters.
The plot is extremely meandering but also emotionally distant-- monstrous events like the colonization of Earth take place, but everything feels very detached. This is especially strange because these chapters feel very much like the part of the Expanse where Earth is bombed from orbit, but it lacks all emotional resonance or feeling. Same with a section where the main cast is held captive by the aliens-- there is striking resemblance to an excellent part of Cibola Burn where colonists on an alien world are trapped underground, but there is again no real emotion present in these sections because there's no sense of perspective. While every chapter is told in the third person from the POV of a named character, things frequently feel like they're written in omnipotent POV because the main cast has so little discernible difference in perspective from each other.
It's also horribly paced, with several (very very long) chapters in a row that don't really move the plot along or acclimate the characters to their surroundings; it just feels like they're there so the writers can figure out the plot and the worldbuilding as they go along, but they forgot to edit the extremely bland chapters out. This book would be 2x stronger if it was half its size.
I don't know why they changed so much, why it's so different on every level. I strongly suspect, though, that the writing duo that is James SA Corey benefited hugely from their first few Expanse books detailing a structured TTRPG adventure. At almost all times, it feels like the Expanse knew where it was going; TMoG never really does, and every plot development feels like it just appeared there suddenly, with very little buildup or foreshadowing despite having a wealth of paged in which to do so. I also think James SA Corey benefited from being less well-known when the Expanse came out, and thus they were more heavily edited-- the books ended up more polished. Now that the Expanse is extremely well-known in SF circles, James SA Corey are probably edited less, and can throw their weight around more to keep in things that an editor might want them to cut.
In a nutshell: if you loved the Expanse for any other reason than it was long and moderately hard-SF, you might still like The Mercy of Gods! But if you like both, you'll probably like them both for very different reasons, because they are such different book with such a variant level of quality that if I didn't know better, I'd assume TMoG was written years and years before Leviathan Wakes. It feels, at best, like a sophomoric attempt made by authors who have the capabilities to do much, much better.