The Expanse. Book 7. Persepolis Rising. James S.A. Corey

“That sense of purpose is exactly what Mars lost when the gates opened. This is not an invasion. This is the return of the true Martian spirit. It has finally taken its rightful place, and I am happy—hell, I am delighted—to have lived to see it.”

It has been three decades since the hegemony of the inner planets, Earth and Mars, fell. Enough time for humanity, scattered across thousands of worlds in its expansion beyond the solar system, to change everything beyond recognition. Balancing on the edge of wonder and catastrophe, colonies trade fiercely, make the most bizarre discoveries, experiment with forms of social organization… and at the center of this strange new world’s web is the all-powerful Transport Union, ruled by the Belted, children of the vacuum who know no other homeland than the endless expanse of the stars.

But the past does not die. It sprouts—tenacious shoots from grains sown in the protomolecule-fed chemogenetic soil. Old Mars dreamed of terraforming, passing the baton through centuries and generations, until it changed beyond recognition and a colossus fused with a war machine burst out of the open gate—armed with a doctrine intolerant of any weaknesses and faith in the bright future of a united humanity.

And then… Someone sells their soul for the illusion of security—and loses their body. Someone drowns in a quagmire of indifference. Someone disappears into the meat grinder of state-building, where “I” is a crime, and an untimely breath is suspicion. Someone becomes an executioner’s apprentice so as not to become a victim. And someone weaves resistance from threads of despair, shares their own passion to remind us that there is always a choice; to slow down the reforging of free people into the gears of the system... But will one spark be enough to ignite the entire noose? And what will be born from that flame: freedom — or more perfect, imperceptible shackles?