Teaser

With the remnants of humanity enslaved by the Carryx, Dafyd Alkhor continues his plan to bring down the system from within. But not everyone is happy to wait for his plan to work, and there may be an external threat more powerful than anyone realises . . .

Review

Following up an international sensation like The Expanse was never going to be an easy task, but when James S. A. Corey’s new project was announced as a trilogy with roots in everything from biblical texts to the golden age of grand space opera, I was intrigued. It’s safe to say I had a few issues with the opening book of this new trilogy, but The Mercy of Gods had a big world to build, and laid the foundations for a saga that looked suitably epic. This second book (I have not read the extra novella Livesuit), ought to be where things start coming together. I’m not a great believer in the oft-cited middle-book syndrome that argues middle books of trilogies are usually the weakest. For me, they’re often the high point, even as the characters are at their lowest ebb. However, in the case of The Faith of Beasts, my confidence was severely misplaced. I dare say this is Corey’s weakest book to date.

The action (and I use the word loosely) is split between two locations. Firstly, we have the prison laboratory familiar from the first book. Here, Dafyd continues to scheme his acts of rebellion while still enforcing the rules of the Carryx, trying to keep as many humans alive as possible for when the moment of rebellion comes. He is aided by the Swarm (an alien spy), and gains unlikely allies in the form of the Lothark, another set of alien prisoners. The Lothark are the high point of the book, as this series is at its best when delving deep into some truly weird alien cultures.

The other half of the story finally leaves the prison behind, only to end up in another prison camp, this time doing active research on a formerly hostile world. Here we get some answers regarding the Deathless enemy of the Carryx (which are rather too heavily tied to a side novella for my liking, but that’s a grumble for another time). The change of location is nice, but ultimately it end sup being more of the same, with humans toiling away for alien overlords while plotting resistance.

Now that we’re two-thirds of the way through the series, I think what surprised me most about this trilogy is the characters. The Expanse was a perfect synthesis of all those ragtag-spacers stories like Firefly, Dark Matter, Killjoys, and every other group of intergalactic drifters you can think of. It executed all the basics perfectly, but what really set it above the competition was how great the characters were, both on their own terms and in how they bounce doff one another.

In The Captive’s War, however, it’s as if there were different writers at the helm. The spark is gone, and the characters are uniformly forgettable. Even when they are feuding it’s hard to bring myself to care about any of it. at one point a major side character dies, but is replaced in their role so efficiently that we may as well have kept the original around. Even the Swarm, an alien parasite that takes over other people’s identities, is far more interesting as a concept than as a character. Maybe the Carryx are right and all humans are interchangeable, because that’s certainly the way they come across here.

With only one book left in the series, it’s a sure thing that I’ll be sticking around to see how it all ends, but I can’t deny that The Faith of Beasts is a disappointing middle volume to the trilogy, and a surprisingly weak entry in the anon of one of my favourite writing partnerships.

Book Stats

• The Captive’s War #2
• First Published 2026
• 436 Pages