Paperback, 624 pages
English language
Published June 26, 2012 by Orbit Books.
We are not alone. On Ganymede, breadbasket of the outer planets, a Martian marine watches as her platoon is slaughtered by a monstrous supersoldier. On Earth, a high-level politician struggles to prevent interplanetary war from reigniting. And on Venus, an alien protomolecule has overrun the planet, wreaking massive, mysterious changes and threatening to spread out into the solar system.
In the vast wilderness of space, James Holden and the crew of the Rocinante have been keeping the peace for the Outer Planets Alliance. When they agree to help a scientist search war-torn Ganymede for a missing child, the future of humanity rests on whether a single ship can prevent an alien invasion that may have already begun...
The series is escalating nicely, and I'm enjoying the intensity of the characters.
The second book in the series extends the world and characters of the first book in the series. In addition to flushing out some of the existing characters, the book introduces several new characters that would have been fun to see in the first novel.
Finally, I am wondering if the meta-themes of from the first book (The role Eros and Venus play in coordination with two of the characters fulfilling their need for a meaningful relationship) are purposefully being drawn through another theme from this book of all the new characters having either androgynous names or having their names be sexually opposing. If this is purposeful, then my regards for the authors is increased even more.
