The Mercy of Gods by James S.A. Corey is a 423 page novel published by Orbit of Hatchette Book Group published in 2024, and is Book One of the Captive’s War, a planned trilogy that will also feature additional novellas in between main installments. Like the author’s previous series, The Expanse, this work has also already been confirmed to be in the works as a television adaptation.

Genre:

Science Fiction

Synopsis:

A spectacular new space opera that sees humanity fighting for its survival in a war as old as the universe itself.

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 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.

First Line:

You ask how many ages had the Carryx been fighting the long war?

My Thoughts:

“I think some important scientific questions have finally been answered. Alien life exists, and they are assholes.”

I’ve only read one other James S.A. Corey book, the first in The Expanse series, Leviathan Wakes. Looking back at my review, it seems I thought that one started and ended with a bang, but was a real slog in between. In contrast, this book was much more consistent throughout.

I did watch The Expanse TV show and loved it. In many ways, The Mercy of Gods felt reminded me of that other series: humanity laboring to learn about a previously unknown alien threat.

If they survived this alien hellscape, it would be because of this. Because in the face of trauma and violence, what they wanted first was to know, to understand.

In the far future, an alien race called the Carryx has made a habit of conquering other worlds and assimilating its native intelligent species, IF said species can prove themselves useful to their new overlords. Otherwise, they get culled. Humanity has now fallen into the clutches of this merciless intergalactic empire. Can they prove their worth? Should they revolt, even knowing it’s a death sentence? In the meantime, the reader is aware that there is another race if aliens locked in a generations-long war with the Carryx, and maybe they might be the ones to finally topple the tyrants.

The characters are a collection of humans the Carryx found most likely to be useful – top tier scientists and scholars, for example. There is the young research assistant who knows how to read other people and act in a way to set them at ease; the man who irritates his fellows by defaulting to making jokes in times of stress (mentioned to be gay, although this aspect of does not come into play in this part of the story); the researcher whose suicidal ideation comes flooding back once she runs out of her routine medication as a prisoner. This work group serves as this book’s version of the crew of the Rocinante, and while I wasn’t overly fond of or super connected to any of them, I didn’t actively dislike any of them like I did in Leviathan Wakes (I enjoyed the characters as they were portrayed on the TV show MUCH more!)

“Stop sciencing all over my story,” Jellit said. “The fact is that it worked.”

Overall this was an interesting story, with a lot of intriguing ideas and a sense of tension carrying it forward. But I am disappointed that this is a case of Book One of the series offering zero resolution of any kind. Obviously I expected the overarching story to continue, but often each installment in a series has a more focused arc that meets with some kind of resolution, but not so here. If I do read on, it will have to be with the understanding that the next book while likely also leave me feeling this way, waiting until the end of book three to feel any satisfaction whatsoever. I might be willing to do that, but honestly, since it’s already been announced this series is being turned into another television show, I am more likely to just wait to watch that.