The Mercy of Gods

Picking up The Mercy of Gods by James S.A. Corey was my way of getting my reading habit un-stuck. This is the first novel in what will presumably become a sprawling series of works like the novels and short stories of The Expanse.

This is (so far) totally removed from our reality, set initially on a world that humans appear to have colonized, but that is in the distant, not-quite-known past. The world is invaded by an alien empire which enslaves or exterminates all of the worlds it encounters, and the core group of protagonists (scientific researchers who had just discovered how to bridge the two “trees of life” on their world) are taken to a prison/research facility where they need to prove their (and humanity’s) worth.

It reminded me a bit of both Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis series and, honestly, a bunch of other science fiction that I couldn’t name specifically. They are not breaking any particularly new ground here, but it is a pretty solid story and I look forward to seeing where they go with the series.