👽🧫 The Mercy of Gods by James S.A. Corey

Not a Book Report

I enjoy reflecting on the movies, TV, books and other media that I consume. I’m notoriously sentimental. This series documents the books that I read. These aren’t reviews or recommendations. Just a list. For me. Mostly so that I can page through what I read, where I was, and when.

Why did I read it?

I loved The Expanse television series but still have not picked up the books. I saw an article in a website I visit more or less daily, The Ringer, about a new book from the same two authors who write under the James S.A. Corey pseudonym. The first of a new planned series, this book trades the gritty, Solar System realism for new galaxies and a Noah’s Ark worth of alien species. After dipping my toe into science fiction more recently with Project Hail Mary, I decided to take a break from my Tom Clancy marathon to pick this up.

What is it?

Category	Value
Title	The Mercy of Gods
Author	James S.A. Corey
Year Published	2024
Format	Kindle
Pages	423
ASIN	B0CN6NCV7P

Publisher Summary

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.

How did I read it?

Category	Value
Date Started	August 16, 2024
Date Finished	August 18, 2024
Places Read	Lisbon, Sintra, Honest Greens

Notes - No Spoilers

• Alright, here’s the deal - I liked it. I’m absolutely going to read the next books in the series. I am bought in and intrigued. That said, whew, this thing was bleak. You have some promise of hope in the foreshadowing but this novel was dark, tragic, and not exactly hopeful.
• Still, fun premise.
• We spent way, way too much time talking about laboratories and academic funding. Just way too much.
• Also, like The Ringer pointed out, this thing has much larger scope (galaxies, lightspeed travel, more sentient aliens) than The Expanse series but the aperture is much more tightly centered around this abducted crew than the planet-spanning Expanse novels.