Memory's Legion by James A Corey

The Expanse is one of my favorite book series. There are other series I’ve read a dozen times, like Lord of the Rings or Dune, but sticks in my memory as the best book series I’ve read in my adult life. I wouldn’t be surprised if I reread it many times over the next few decades.

I recently picked up Memory’s Legion from the library. I found it on the shelf and easily identified it by the characteristic typography on the binding. I was just browsing for something to read, so I was excited to find something with the byline of James A. Corey. I usually spend some time checking reviews and searching for familiar authors, but just from the author I knew I’d found something good with this one.

For context, I came off of rereading Lord of the Rings and trying to get into some of the Warhammer 40k novels. Lord of the Rings is not a fast-paced book series. It’s good, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not gripping in the way a modern series is. It is one of the foundational works of western fantasy for good reason. It has an amazing world, memorable characters and nails the archetype of a heroic journey. However, the pacing is uneven and the dialog is fairly basic. Warhammer 40k novels on the other hand are largely terrible. The only reason to read them is if you are invested in the lore of the universe. The novels seem to lean very heavily on prior knowledge of the universe. When a “carnifex” or “trygon” shows up you are expected to already know what it is and what it looks like and how threatening it is. The author won’t actually describe it in any way. One of the worst I read was Mephiston: Lord of Death. I wanted to slap David Annandale through the page shouting, “show, don’t tell!”. Any story about Space Marines seems generally poor because they are all portrayed as the same flawless super soldiers. At least the Astra Militarum infantry grunts have something I can empathize with.

Within the first few paragraphs of Memory’s Legion I nearly said out loud, “This is what good writing looks like!” I was hooked by the story and it was very well written. It was a huge breath of fresh air. The quality continued through the whole book.

A nice feature of the book is that every story was followed by a few pages of the authors reflecting on the context and intent of the story. It’s the sort of thing that’s often covered in an introduction, but I think it was well placed after each story. Each one was short enough that it was possible to reconsider the story through the authors’ eyes.

Mild spoilers follow, but I do my best to avoid anything particularly impactful in these or the main novel series. For example, you may deduce that a major character survives, but major characters have a habit of doing that in most works and many of them are never in any real threat of death throughout the series.

Drive

The first story covers the invention of the Epstein drive (that name didn’t age well). It makes the story compelling by alternating two different narratives. The first is the experience of Epstein on the first successful test of the drive, in places advancing just seconds at a time. The other is his life before the test, exploring the pressures and passion that led to the invention. The title’s double meaning is pretty clear.

The story is alluded to and summarized in the novels and video series, but very little is said about Epstein himself. It’s a testament to the quality of the writing that this short story can be so compelling when covering someone I already know to be a minor player who will have no impact on the rest of the works other than this one invention.

The Butcher of Anderson Station

Much like Drive, this story covers background that is alluded to and summarized elsewhere in the novels and series, but it gives a lot more depth. Anyone who has read the series will immediately know from the title that this is covering the mysterious events of Fred Johnson’s past that led him to abandon his position in the UN military and begin advocating for the belt. It’s a fairly straightforward telling of the events, but is about Fred’s struggle with guilt. It also establishes his introduction to Anderson Dawes with a possible cameo by Camina Drummer.

Gods of Risk

This story is the first of the short stories here that partially made it into the video series (along with Strange Dogs). It happens during the period when Bobby is stuck back on Mars and no longer in the MCRN or working on the Rocinante. However, it is centered on Roberta Draper’s nephew, David. Bobby is still featured in the story but is a minor character.

The story is about dreams and survival. What do people do when the world that they knew gets turned upside down and the old narratives no longer make sense? How do you face the world when the purpose of your society is suddenly called into question? How do we support, gain strength and find new direction together with the people who are important to us?

In the story David has a relationship with a young girl. He’s forced to ask himself what the relationship means, even when he finds out she isn’t what he thought, and to decide when he’s willing to let it go. I believe that it’s a metaphor for what the society is having to go through. Can Mars give up its romanticism about terraforming and embrace the change that the ring gates present?

The Churn

Ah, Amos backstory. Amos is one of my favorite characters from the series and it’s nice to see him get some attention here. The story lays out what happened during “the churn” in Amos’s early life, the period where the tides of power are shifting and it’s all most people can do to stay afloat and avoid getting crushed beneath the waves. It’s really a story about survival: what’s important to us, what we are willing to let go of and how we have to compromise to survive.

The Vital Abyss

This had to be one of the strangest stories to read. Strange dogs deals with alien worlds, but this story deals with the strangeness of psychopathic minds. It follows Cortezar during a period of imprisonment where it’s revealed that he and his colleagues all underwent a procedure to reduce their empathy and sympathy, allowing them to conduct inhumane research. It’s a disturbing story not because of the events, but because of being inside the mind of someone so alien. The plot also moves along somewhat slowly without a clear direction because it largely deals with imprisonment where the characters have very limited ability to influence their situation.

I liked this one the least for the reasons above, but I think it may fill an important gap in the story of the main series. This story helps to explain how Cortezar went from his initial position working for an earth corp to assisting the Laconian government.

Strange Dogs

I found this one less engaging to read because I already knew the stories from the video series. This story features prominently in season six. I had found the plot line strange during the series because it was unfamiliar and didn’t seem connected to other parts of the story. Now I understand how it fits in as a stand-alone story that helps to detail the dangers and alien nature of Laconia as well as the philosophy of Duarte and the Martians.

Auberon

Wherever people go there will always be bureaucracy, politics and corruption. That’s the story set on Auberon, a small colony that is suddenly under Laconian rule. It follows all the predictable parts of a new government replacing the old and all the established powers swiftly adjusting, including the criminal organizations. It’s written largely from the perspective of the new governor, but also follows another group. In that way it’s one of the few stories in the book that is written from more than one perspective.

The story also hints at what happened to Erich after he parted from Burton at the end of Nemesis Games.

The Sins of Our Fathers

This story follows a middle-aged Philip working in obscurity and trying to escape the events of his adolescence and actions of his father, Marcos Inaros. He’s attempting to avoid his past, but when survival gets complicated he is forced to question who he is and what he is capable of.

This was a good close-out to the collection because it has a more retrospective tone than the others. It also takes place effectively at the end of the series, and reflects the themes that humanity repeats the same patterns over and over regardless of the context. It makes you ask whether, after all the events of the series, humanity learns and changes and if it needs to or whether this is enough.