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It’s probably getting obnoxious, me hopping on here and talking about finishing up trilogies/series. But…I’m doing it again. It’s like a way of staying accountable to myself, and actually reading some stuff that’s been sitting on my shelf for way too long. And I’m happy with the results!

I feel a little bit like LEVIATHAN FALLS should come with an asterisk for this review, because while it’s the final novel in THE EXPANSE, I do still have MEMORY’S LEGION (a collection of novellas & short stories) to go. I’m gonna try to get to that in the next little while, but in the meantime, yeah. Wow.

This is a big one. I didn’t plan it this way, but it’s almost exactly ten years ago that I started reading THE EXPANSE. I wasn’t tracking my reading or anything back then, but I have a picture from April 26th, 2014 of the library copy (THE LIBRARY! What a concept!) of LEVIATHAN WAKES I was reading.

I think in a lot of ways, this series redefined my whole life as a reader. At the very least, it got me reading a whole lot more sci-fi than I ever had. But THE EXPANSE also goes hand-in-hand with me getting involved with Bookstagram & these books have been there for me in some really difficult times (same with the show), and they will always have a really special place in my heart & on my shelves.

LEVIATHAN FALLS really surprised me in one particular way; it feels remarkably self-contained. I mean, obviously you wouldn’t recommend it as a standalone or a good starting point for this series. And inevitably, everything that’s come before weighs heavily on the story. But this book really tells its own story, and I dug that about it.

The book picks up not long after TIAMAT’S WRATH.

Teresa Duarte is still with the crew of the Rocinante. Jim is still dealing with the fallout (and really PTSD) from his captivity. And Amos is…well, Amos is not himself. But then again, he is? At least some of the time.

Things feel fragile, at best.

There’s a new character in this book who plays a pivotal role, Aliana Tanaka. Tanaka is tasked with finding Winston Duarte, or whatever has become of him. Her primary method of doing that involves relentlessly tracking the Roci. Find Teresa Duarte, use her to approach Winston Duarte. Tanaka is a former Martian Marine & is a total badass, so it’s hard not seeing a little of Bobbie Draper in her. She’s positioned as kind of the villain of the piece, but like so many characters in THE EXPANSE, she’s a lot more complex than that. I really enjoyed Tanaka’s chapters, and I think it’s cool that this late in the game, the authors are still introducing major new players.

Knowing this was the final book made reading anything with Jim & Naomi extra bittersweet. I think theirs is one of the best fictional love stories of all time, and seeing them this late in their lives and still with so much fiery passion for each other was just…oof. Love these two forever.

I had barely started dipping my toes into the world of audiobooks when I read TIAMAT’S WRATH, so LEVIATHAN FALLS is the first EXPANSE novel I’ve listened to partially on audio (I did listen to GODS OF RISK a few years back). It changed the experience for me in some ways, but mostly it had me thinking like…was Amos always this fucking hilarious?

And I know the answer is yes, he always was. It’s just when I’m out walking my dogs and laughing maniacally at the bone-dry, extremely fucking weird, extremely fucking Amos stuff that comes out of his mouth…it just cracked me up.

I might have mentioned it in my review for TIAMAT’S WRATH, but I had a complicated relationship with the show. Maybe not that complicated. I just put off watching it for several years, because I didn’t want it to cloud my relationship with these characters. I didn’t want to read the books & see the characters from the show. I wanted to preserve what these characters looked like to me for as long as I could.

And then, well. Curiosity got the best of me. And the show is fucking brilliant, full stop. Just an amazing, beautiful show. But it did create kind of a weird messed up soup in my head; events getting mixed together, book characters now looking like show characters. Very Big Things happen in the books that do not happen in the show, and vice versa. And it’s ok. In the end, it just all worked out for me.

Circling back to Amos, I think he’s the one character where it’s impossible for me to now separate the two, and it’s Wes Chatham’s incredible portrayal of this character that will always stick with me. That said, for sure the faces of all the characters in the book are the same as the show, and again, I made a certain amount of peace with that in light of how fucking amazing the show was.

This one gets BIG WEIRD & has a whole ton of protomolecule fuckery going on. Like, maybe the most protomolecule fuckery of the whole series, which was sort of inevitable. With how painfully human this whole series feels, sometimes it’s easy to lose track of the fact that some of it is decidedly not human.

For sure the part of LEVIATHAN FALLS that I latched onto the hardest was the dynamic between Amos & Teresa. He’s been training her in engineering, they make an awesome team, and every time he calls her Tiny, I’m reminded of his last assistant and the nickname he gave her. Oof. Amos is looking out for Teresa in a big way, and as we know, he is a man with an extreme capacity for violence. Yeah, I just loved the vibe between these two…obviously Amos has some real trauma in his past, and so it’s no wonder he’d become so protective of a kid like Teresa.

Also shoutout to Muskrat, Teresa’s Black Lab, making his second appearance here. I always felt like the Roci could use a Very Good Boy on board, and they finally got one!

I’m not sure what else to say! I’ve loved this series with my whole entire heart. I’m sad it’s over but it’s been a hell of a ride. Hoping to tackle MEMORY’S LEGION in the next little bit & then maybe start of rewatch of the show!