Auberon (The Expanse #8.5)

The Expanse series started in 2011 and eight of the projected nine novels have been released to date. In between the publication of those full length books several short stories/novellas taking place in the same universe have been released with Auberon being the seventh not counting The Last Flight of the Cassandra which was released as part of a roleplaying game as a Kickstarter project. With only one full length novel in the series left to be released this could well be the last Expanse short story/novella we see. It has been a good ride. Auberon is set in the time frame between Persepolis Rising (#7/2017) and the last book released, Tiamats Wrath (#8/2019).
This opens at a low point for the home team, Earth, Mars and the Outer Planets have just surrendered to Laconian forces who came out of seeming nowhere with advanced alien tech and easily dusted the rest of humanitys finest. Think the second world war if Hitler had won. Occupation forces are moving into all the important population centers with big plans for change. One major planet, Auberon, has deeply imbedded corruption at its core and local criminal elements are loathe to give it up. The arriving Laconian occupation governor, Biryar, mets the threat head on. Whether this was a wise or survivable choice occupies the rest of the story. Rest assured that Abraham/Francks world building and depth of characterization continue to be masterful but for me the real test is, Does the story pull me in? From the first pages the fact that I was reading fell away and I was just there-in the story and engrossed.
$2.99 Kindle book price divided by Amazon typical read time of 1 hour, 12 minutes=$2.50/average hourly reading cost

I don’t usually post negative reviews, but in this case I have to make an exception. If this had been the first book I read by these guys, I would NEVER bother reading anything from them again. I have loved all of the other books in the Expanse series, but this thing just doesn’t make any sense. I has none of the characters, it has nothing interesting about the planet or the people. The basic story maybe warranted 2 or 3 paragraphs in a bigger story. It just reads to me like something that was knocked out in an afternoon to make a deadline. I feel like I have been punked, that somehow someone sent a bogus story to my kindle. I see all these other review saying it is great, an I have to believe that they are reading something else.

I’ve enjoyed all 6 novellas. + Drive Some basically detailed things I already knew from the first couple seasons of The Expanse and some provided richer appreciation of the known story lines. This novella is the last new thing I read. It beautifully fleshes out the Laconian story arc (as did Strange Dogs) but also updates Erich’s story since I read it in Nemesis
I think I figured out (ie: it finally dawned on me) a big part of why I enjoyed the entire Expanse experience so much. I found myself “rooting” for both sides of the stories at different times – In Auberon I hoped for the best for Gov. Rittenaur (earlier books I rooted for HC Duarte) AND I rooted for Erich (or the OPA, the Rocinante crew and the resistance fighters against Laconia).

I think a basic irony of the series is highly relevant in real life today. There is a struggle throughout The Expanse story between the desire to prevent mutual annihilation due to the struggle for dominance between Earth/Mars/OPA in the beginning, then between the Earth/Mars/OPA alliance and Marco Inaros, then the Earth/Mars/OPA alliance against the Laconians. In each case the conflict is between people fighting for independence and people seeking order via control. The gold nugget l think, is none of them are “wrong”. They are just acting out an external conflict, often with the best intent. Is Duarte a ruthless imperialist or is he trying to create universal peace? Judgements about good or bad seem mostly a matter of tactics – whether the ends justify the means.

“Auberon” is the latest novella set in the Expanse universe. It takes place between PERSEPOLIS RISING and TIAMAT’S WRATH, books 7 and 8 of Corey’s popular and commercially successful series (I say commercially because, while the first novel, LEVIATHAN WAKES, was a Hugo finalist, the series has been, in my opinion, unfairly snubbed in awards circles since that time. The
writing is engaging, the characters terrific, and the stories are top of the line.

“Auberon” is no different. As with most stories in the Expanse, there is more to the story than meets the eye. On the surface, the story is simple, at least at the start. The planet of Auberon is one of the most important colony worlds on the other side of the ring gates. Because of that Duarte – who is still at full power at the time of this novella – has decided it’s time for the planet to be added to the Laconian Empire. He sends Rittenaur to be the new governor of the planet and to bring its politics and society into line with that of the Laconian Empire. Auberon, on the other hand, has its own corrupt structure in place, and the “old man” that is running the place has different ideas.

What this story is really about is how an honest person tries to change a corrupt system and how complex family relationships turns that attempt on its ear. Corey deftly makes the reader see both sides – well, all three sides – of the story, and somehow makes the reader see that there are some powers stronger than the government one serves.

A short, but beautifully crafted story set in the Expanse Universe. After taking control of the gate system of colonies, Duark sends new governors to the planets to oversee the occupation. When Rittenour and his wife arrive on the exotic, but smelly, Auberon, they find that their implacable Laconian culture clashes forcibly with that of the existing local society’s established system of corruption and criminality. Like all colonialist enterprises, both now and in the future, there has to be some flexibility to succeed.

Great writing with very visual impressions of the planet easily formed in the mind of the reader and the main protagonists are full bloodied characters with all of the internal strife doubts and fears of real people. This novella may not add anything to the main story line but certainly widens the view of the Expanse as a whole. Needless to say, narration by Jefferson Mays is excellent.

Auberon is a story well worth reading even outside the confines of the Expanse series (though if you have not read any of this excellent set of books and enjoy S.F. then this must be remedied immediately!), covering, as it does, the politics of colonialism, and the inner anguish of the clash between ideals and desire, what it is to be human, set in the future but as relevant today. Slightly slow at the beginning but as it rolls it really picks up steam.
Highly recommended.

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