3.5, rounding up. I was happy to pick up The Mercy of Gods having really enjoyed The Expanse... on television. I wanted to try James SA Corey’s work but figured it’d be better to start with something that I didn’t already have preconceived notions about from an adaptation. 

I’ll start with what worked. I really enjoy alien species depicted as utterly non-humanoid, and this series is full of unusual species with their own physiologies and ways of communicating. The cast of main characters interact with these other species to varying degrees and the extent to which they can (or mostly can’t) understand them is central to the plot in a number of interesting ways. The Carryx, the species that attack the human world Anjiin, have translator technology, but their motivations and guiding philosophies are far from clear. There’s a lot of interesting world building here with hints of the past relationships between species and a broader galactic context, but the novel’s setting is, really, very narrow and this creates an interesting interplay between the micro context of the main characters’ immediate everyday lives and the wider context in which they exist. The pacing is good and I was consistently interested in what would happen next. 

What didn’t quite work for me here, unfortunately, was the character development. It wasn’t really until the very end that I cared much about any of the characters. Toward the end of the novel when some extraordinarily difficult decisions have to be made, the characters feel more multifaceted; however, for much of the novel they felt a bit one-note to me and I struggled to be invested in any of them. I didn’t think the romance aspects added anything to the plot. 

Overall, I enjoyed this and will be picking up the second installment in the series. 

Thank you to Orbit Books & NetGalley for providing me with an ARC to review. 

Content warnings: blood, injury detail, violence, war, death, genocide, suicidal thoughts, animal death, animal cruelty (lab experimentation), forced confinement, murder, mention of excrement & vomit