The Not a Book Club Club discussion

Section 2

Please keep all discussion and speculation to the events of Chapters 10-20.

No spoiler tags required. Though it would be highly appreciated if you Uncheck Add to my Update Feed to avoid accidentally spoiling this for your goodreads friends.

Please do not discuss events from later chapters/books. Referring back to events from a previous section/book is fine.

So I'm barely into this section (2 chapters) but I continue to be confused by the format. Chapter 10 is Avasarala.

Not that I'm complaining, I literally yelled "hell yes" in my kitchen this morning. But that's a lot of PoV's. We're getting into Game of Thrones territory.

1) Namono (prologue)
2) Pa (1,5)
3) Filip (2)
4) Holden (3,6)
5) Salis (4)
6) Clarissa (7)
7) Dawes (8)
8) Avasara (10)

I also looked ahead and I won't post names for spoiler reasons, but there are11 more POVs we haven't seen yet. A few look to be one-offs though.

That's pretty crazy. Most of the last books have been Holden + 3 new PoVs, and no repeats (with some one-offs in prologues). Or so I thought. Although Book 1 just had 1 extra and apparently Abaddon's had 4?

Leviathan Wakes
Prologue: Julie
POVs: Holden, Miller
Epilogue: Fred

Caliban's War
Prologue: Mei
POVs: Holden, Avasarala, Bobbie, Prax

Abaddon's Gate
Prologue: Manèo
POVs: Holden, Bull, Melba, Anna, Clarissa

Cibola Burn
Prologue: Bobbie
POVs: Holden, Basia, Elvi, Havelock
Epilogue: Avasarala

Nemesis Games
Prologue: Fililp
PoVs: Holden, Alex, Naomi, Amos
Epilogue: Sauveterre

Still that's mostly consistent. This is all over the place.

I'm counting a total of 19 PoVs for this book. If you're interested I've enclosed each POV name and the number of chapters they have in spoiler tags. There are no plot spoilers, but just knowing a character shows up might be a spoiler, so I'm erring on the side of caution.

(view spoiler)[
1) Namono (1)
2) Pa (10)
3) Filip (7)
4) Holden (10)
5) Salis (1)
6) Clarissa (1)
7) Dawes (2)
8) Avasara (3)
9) Prax (3)
10) Alex (2)
11) Naomi (4)
12) Jakulski (1)
13) Fred (1)
14) Bobbie (2)
15) Vandercaust (1)
16) Amos (1)
17) Marco (2)
18) Roberts (1)
19) Anna (1)
(hide spoiler)]

By looking at the counts it appears that there are 3 main POVs, and the 4th one is kind of rotating. The top 3 POVs have 10,10,7 chapters each. Then the next 3 are 4,3,3. There are 9 POVs with just a single chapter (including prologue/epilogue) and 4 with 2 chapters.

I'm loving the book so far, but I always worry about too many POVs.

So Markos wants to abandon Ceres and much of it's people to Earth. Taking the food meant for regular belters for himself and his Navy. I can't say that surprises me. Although at first I thought he was suggesting they blow up the station so that Earth couldn't have it.

It looks like Pa and her family are having none of that though. I hope that they take the food and try to get it to the people it was intended for.

Apparently Pa was the XO on the commandeered Mormon ship under Fred Johnson back in Cibola Burn. I don't remember her. She feels like Fred betrayed her. I'm not sure if that's true. She also has no love lost for Bull.

I was just thinking that about the point of views on my drive home when I started a chapter with Alex's.. SO many POVs, and normally that would drive me crazy. But it is hanging together pretty well for me so far! Thanks for the analysis - I find that pretty interesting.

Lets see.....Markos is just such a psycho - he really scares me. I too was thinking, and am still worried, that he planted bombs on Ceres. But maybe leaving it in the state he did is more destructive than bombs.

I like Pa's pretty scary decision to break off with the Belter Navy. I don't remember her at all interacting with Fred Johnson, but I do remember her annoying me with how she blocked Bull. I didn't like her earlier POV chapters, but she is growing on me.

I thought Avasara's chapter, when she is getting ready and sharing her thoughts was quite touching. I love her private vulnerability and her public bad-assery.

That's a good point. Just because Marco didn't blow it up right away, doesn't mean he didn't leave a trap. What if was simply waiting long enough to blow it up and put the blame on Earth for the death of all the Belters?

I do recall someone annoying me during Bull's chapters, I guess that had to be her. I plan to do a full reread at some point.Probably leading up to the final book in the series, which will be in another 3-4 years if they can keep to the 1/year schedule. I may appreciate that book a lot more than I did the first time.

Good point on Avasarala. Really though I love anytime she's involved whether she's the POV or not. I hope she finds her husband. It doesn't seem very likely though.

So far we're not getting as much Bobbie as I'd like though. I really want her to join the crew!

I'm really worried someone I care about (Holden, Naomi, Amos, Alex, Bobbie, Avasarala) is going to die this book. Then again I thought that last book too, so hopefully I'm wrong again.

It's interesting that they brought Prax back. I was never a huge fan of his. Where is he located? Did they say and I just missed it? Is he on Ceres? It seems wherever he is was under the thumb of the Free Navy since he thinks they killed his co-worker for defying them.

I am not sure where he is but I think it is one of the supposedly neutral stations that is clearly not that neutral. I am wondering, kind of like he did, if his other co-workers are also dead. It seems likely. Since they were all wanting to just hurry and get the information to earth because people are starving - and since the expressed worry was proper lab procedure - they must be somewhere with a mix of folks.

Oh and I found it interesting with Marco in an earlier chapter how he brought up Afghanistan as the model to emulate. That is not a situation I know tons about, but the comparison seems apt.

Suzanne wrote: "Oh and I found it interesting with Marco in an earlier chapter how he brought up Afghanistan as the model to emulate. That is not a situation I know tons about, but the comparison seems apt. "

Yeah. If you think about it, there are a lot of politics quite relevant to present day stuff. Presumably this was already done before the US election though.

Avasarala 2020. Even though she wasn't born in the US. We can just make her World President instead!

I would SO vote for her!

Just finished this section, and i am most certainly suffering from too many point of views. I liked the simplicity of the previous books, to me it was a winning formula. As a result, i am not enjoying this book as much as the previous ones.
I am enjoying the story, and most of the characters. Filip can take a running jump off a cliff. Pa is interesting, and i enjoy their setup.
Holden is let down so far. It feels like his story has fizzled out. Hopefully it will pick up and we will see more of a team dynamic again.
Plenty more to read to hopefully change my mind. So far, it is a 3 star (lowest rating i have given an expanse book so far).

I can see the number of PoV's being overwhelming. In the end it didn't bother me that much.

My earliest impressions were like "Why is everyone a Belter/Free Navy?", but I think in the end it made sense to do it this way.

I just hope it's not something they feel the need to do with every book. I'd like to go back to a 3+1 in the next book if it makes sense, or at least fewer than 10 PoVs.

I didn't have the same issues with Holden though. Hopefully it picks up for you as the book goes on. I'd probably rank this my second favorite of the series so far.

I'm enjoying this. I'm finding Filip fascinating. An absolute toxic blend of his father's fanaticism and brainwashing with a really unhelpful adolescent rage and feelings of abandonment. I wonder if they're going for a redemption arc for him or whether he's just going off the chain.

I'm also really loving Clarissa. The bit where she's telling herself that she's not a monster was so sad.

I agree - Clarissas little mantra was really touching.

Rob wrote: "It's interesting that they brought Prax back. I was never a huge fan of his. Where is he located? Did they say and I just missed it? Is he on Ceres? It seems wherever he is was under the thumb of the Free Navy since he thinks they killed his co-worker for defying them. ."

He's on Ganymede I think. He makes reference to having lots of food production and being neutral at least in name.

But you probably already know this now :)

Regarding the PoV thing I wonder if it can be laid at the feet of the TV show development? It does feel a lot more like the TV show than the books so far with punchy little chapters told from viewpoints that are needed rather than a round-robin through a list of characters.

Hmm...that is a good point. It definitely isn't a cyclical thing 'meanwhile back on the Rociante...'.

Lindsay wrote: "He's on Ganymede I think. He makes reference to having lots of food production and being neutral at least in name.

But you probably already know this now :)"

I do indeed, but it just shows your more observant than me. :)

And I wouldn't be surprised if writing for the TV show has a big influence on their future novels. It's a thought that hadn't occurred to me, but makes sense now that you suggest it.