The eighth novel in the “Expanse” cycle.
“Thirteen hundred Gates opened into other solar systems across the galaxy. But as humanity builds its interstellar empire on the ruins of the Aliens, the number of threats and mysteries only grows.
In dead systems where the Gates lead to things stranger than the Aliens’ planets, Elvi Okoye desperately tries to uncover the reasons for a genocide that happened long before the first humans ever appeared—and to find a weapon to fight forces whose power is on the edge of comprehension. But the price of this knowledge may be higher than she’ll be able to pay.
At the heart of the Duarte Empire, Teresa Duarte prepares to shoulder the burden of her godlike father’s ambitions. The sociopathic scientist Paolo Cortazar and the prisoner from Mephistopheles, James Holden, are only two problems in a palace that’s growing increasingly tangled with intrigue—and Teresa has her own plans and secrets that even her father-emperor doesn’t know about.
And scattered across the vast human empire, the Rosinante crew fights against Duarte’s authoritarian regime. The memory of the old times is being erased, and the future under Laconia’s unending rule—along with the battle humanity can only lose—seems more and more likely. Because against the horrors lying in the interworld space, courage and ambition alone are not enough…”