Abaddon's Gate

Expanse, Book 3

By: James S. A. Corey

Narrated by: Jefferson Mays

Length: 18 hrs and 24 mins

Publisher's Summary

For generations the solar system--Mars, the moon, the asteroid belt--was humanity's great frontier. Until now. The alien artefact working through its program under the clouds of Venus has emerged to build a massive structure outside the orbit of Uranus: a gate that leads into a starless dark.

Jim Holden and the crew of the Rocinante are part of a vast flotilla of scientific and military ships going out to examine the artefact. But behind the scenes, a complex plot is unfolding, with the destruction of Holden at its core. As the emissaries of the human race try to find whether the gate is an opportunity or a threat, the greatest danger is the one they brought with them.

©2014 Ruth Field (P)2014 Hachette Audio

Critic Reviews

"Great characters, excellent dialogue, memorable fights, freakish experiments and twisty-turny mysteries" ( Wired.com)

Epic! Loved it

Great book, interesting story, cool plot twists. Totally worth it. Loved the performance, captivating book. Philosophical

Amazing

After watching season 3 on TV I couldn’t imagine how much was missed from the book, especially my favourite character Bull. What a ride! Now off to watch the next season but I’m more excited to listen to the next book in a the Expanse series.

Great, but somewhat lacking.

The weak book of the series.
It feels lacking in contrast to the cacophony of characters and strong personality of the 2nd book.
The story and writing is impeccable, as the series are.

Lets just forgive everything.

This book ended my enthusiasm in the series. The following while contain SPOILERS. To make the villian (with a weak, juvinile motivation) so beyond evil to only forgive her in the last chapter is too much for me. If she would have died instead Id be fine but no, lets invite her on the Roci and make her a teammember.

Too much internal struggle

I love this series, but I’d say book 3 had too much of an internal struggle

really good

Nice entry to the series. Still enjoying the characters. Enjoying the new characters each book. looking forward to the next instalment.

loved it

I am so glad that the TV show made me aware of this series, they are both really great and the science parts are really interesting.

Another enjoyable romp

Another enjoyable romp from Corey’s “Expanse” series. Our heroes, Jim Holden and the crew of the Rocinante, have new problems – as if the proto-molecule and all it has been creating weren’t enough already! This 3rd novel of the series sometimes lacked the break-neck pace of the earlier books, but there are nice plot developments, new characters to introduce and of course lots of action sequences. Same narrator, Jefferson Mays, as 1st two books – he does a good job.

The Expanse Series Continues to Impress.

Any additional comments?

Although, in my opinion, it is not as good as the first two books, Abaddon's Gate is great continuation of the series. The Authors continue to flesh out their universe and developed well thought out characters. I eagerly await the next installment.

Ran out of steam

Loved the first two books, but this one just drags on and on with very little actually happening. The overarching story is fine, but the filler is excessive and sometimes embarrassingly poorly written. "He was hoping X would happen, except that he wasn't". Don't think I will continue with this series.

Great trashy stories, just need editing!

All these books to be half the length and that would be great. But nevertheless I'm addicted. Great trash reading.

Missing chapter names

The chapters are missing their names.

The chapter numbering is misaligned, "chapter 2" is chapter 1, "chapter 3" is chapter 2...

Good story, but performance clean up needed

The story is fantastic, like the other books great characters. certainly worth a listen or read.

Seems there are a few repeating sections - not sure if this is software related or the recording.

Could not stop listening .

Loved the story, some overtones of space odyssey with Miller character, but overall excellent and well narrated . I would recommend.

A series that delivers.

As always its great. Top notch narrative and performance. Its all about the characters.

Coming back to old friends

I love this series. It's written so well that I feel that I know the characters like friends. each book introduces a selection of new characters and they're all fully fleshed out with very realistic back stories.
unfortunately the plot of this book didn't grab me. I can't say a huge amount without spoilers but it felt that the story moved away from the proto molecule and focused more on human problems. whilst this was well balanced in the previous books, in this book i found myself wanting to know more about the alien species rather than the dramas on board ship. it wasn't enough to give less than 4 stars for the story, however, so clearly it wasn't that bad and the narration pulled the book up to the five stars I have given the previous instalments.

Gripping entertainment!

This entry in the series spends a lot of time with new characters, rather than with Holden's crew. However, it is both exciting and interesting. It was good to learn more about the ring but the best parts were the action sequences on the Behemoth.

I particularly liked Barca and wanted more of him. I found Anna a bit too saintly and her moralising was tedious. Attempts to humanise Clarissa felt somewhat misplaced- I was confused about why we were clearly expected to sympathise with her.

The narrator can do different voices, but mostly chooses not to - this meant that sometimes I couldn't tell who was speaking. This was a minor annoyance, but I wish he had differentiated the voices throughout.

Overall, an exciting addition to the series and I was sorry when it ended!