The Mercy of Gods

As a big fan of the Expanse, I couldn't wait to sink my teeth into James S. A. Corey's The Mercy of Gods. From the blurb, it was evident that the Captive's War would be a totally different kind of series. As the first installment, this novel is little more than an introduction meant to pave the way for what comes next. And yet, as first volumes go, it's not a very self-contained tale. Though good, if a bit slow-moving throughout, it's not exactly the sort of story that really captures your imagination from the get-go.

Had this been written by anyone else, I don't know if I would have read the entire book. But I've learned to trust Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck and I'll be reading the sequel to find out what happens next. Given that this series is meant to be a trilogy and that very little seems to occur in The Mercy of Gods, it will be interesting to see how the storylines will progress in the two subsequent volume. Indeed, it feels as though this first installment barely sets the stage for Dafyd Alkhor to become the great betrayer of mankind.

Here's the blurb:

How humanity came to the planet called Anjiin is lost in the fog of history, but that history is about to end.

The Carryx—part empire, part hive—have waged wars of conquest for centuries, destroying or enslaving species across the galaxy. Now, they are facing a great and deathless enemy. The key to their survival may rest with the humans of Anjiin.

Caught up in academic intrigue and affairs of the heart, Dafyd Alkhor is pleased just to be an assistant to a brilliant scientist and his celebrated research team. Then the Carryx ships descend, decimating the human population and taking the best and brightest of Anjiin society away to serve on the Carryx homeworld, and Dafyd is swept along with them.

They are dropped in the middle of a struggle they barely understand, set in a competition against the other captive species with extinction as the price of failure. Only Dafyd and a handful of his companions see past the Darwinian contest to the deeper game that they must play to survive: learning to understand—and manipulate—the Carryx themselves.

With a noble but suicidal human rebellion on one hand and strange and murderous enemies on the other, the team pays a terrible price to become the trusted servants of their new rulers.

Dafyd Alkhor is a simple man swept up in events that are beyond his control and more vast than his imagination. He will become the champion of humanity and its betrayer, the most hated man in history and the guardian of his people.

This is where his story begins.

The worldbuilding is intriguing, to say the least. But since we learn so little about the Carryx and their motives, it's impossible to tell if this new series will resound with as much depth as the Expanse. Kudos to the authors for creating aliens that truly feel alien. I for one certainly did not expect the Carryx to be giant lobsters that can mutate their bodies to fit their societal roles within their hierarchy. Their interstellar empire has been built by the species they have enslaved over the course of centuries or millennias, and we do meet many of these creatures throughout the novel. Why they felt the need to capture some of the brightest minds of Anjiin, take them across the stars, and then set them to resolve tests that seem to make little sense, no one can tell. I really enjoyed reading about the swarm and particularly liked how its sentience grew as the tale progressed. From the very beginning, I got the feeling that humanity was the Carryx's great enemy, the one they've been fighting forever. Though there is no confirmation within the pages of The Mercy of Gods, the new novella Livesuit appears to imply as much. Which could mean that the human population of Anjiin could be an offshoot from an era when mankind went out to colonize the stars that lost contact with their brethren ages ago. Needless to say, I can't wait to discover more about all this!

The characterization is well-done but still leaves something to be desired. It's not that the protagonists are not well-drawn. It has more to do with the fact that they're a bunch of academics and to be honest they are a bit boring. In dire straits from the moment their planet is invaded, most of them get caught in a downward spiral of despair. Having no clue what the Carryx want from them, they must find a way to perform the tasks the aliens set for them, or they will be eliminated if they prove unsuccessful. This leads to a grim atmosphere as most of the characters deal with depression. Dafyd is the only enterprising fellow, and it's nice to see him grow from being a somewhat meek research assistant to the person who'll come to be known as the great betrayer. I feel that too much time was spent on Jessyn's mental health issues and the fact that she was running out of meds. Unless her role will increase in the greater scheme of things moving forward, in my opinion her POV took up too much airtime. Even though Else, Tonner, and the others are all three-dimensional characters, there were simply too many perspectives that were unnecessary in The Mercy of Gods. I don't think we needed that many points of view to convey how the team was coping with ennui and hopelessness.

To put it charitably, I would say that this novel is a slow-burn. So yes, the plotlines move at a snail's pace from start to finish. I'm not saying that it's a monotonous read, though there are a few tedious parts here and there. It's just that not much actually takes place and that most of the storylines are much longer than they need to be. Still, there are enough revelations and surprises to keep you interested, but those are few and far between. The tale picks up in the last 100 pages or so and I'm curious to see where we'll go from here.

What hurts The Mercy of Gods the most, in my humble opinion, is the absence of any kind of endgame and an exciting or compelling ending. The end offers very little in terms of resolution. It's more of a "to be continued" sort of thing. Still, by then I figure that you'll be fully committed and eager to give the second volume a shot. To be honest, Leviathan Wakes, though an engaging and self-contained novel, did not prepare us for how enthralling and far-reaching the Expanse would turn out to be. Let us hope that it will be the same for The Mercy of Gods.

The final verdict: 7.5/10

For more info about this title, follow this Amazon Associate link.