Tiamat's Wrath (The Expanse Book 8)

This was the problem with thousand-year Reichs. They came and they went like fireflies.

A hundred people, more or less, waiting for a tube car on a moon above a planet that circled a sun that hadn’t born them, and jockeying to be the first ones through the door so that they could get a good seat. Maybe the most human thing possible.

That’s the thing about autocracy. It looks pretty decent while it still looks pretty decent. Survivable, anyway. And it keeps looking like that right up until it doesn’t. That’s how you find out it’s too late.

Chrisjen Avasarala was dead.

The huge moments in life seemed like they should have more ceremony and effects. The important words—the life-changing ones—should echo a little. But they didn’t. They sounded just like everything else.

Dreams were fragile things to build with. Titanium and ceramic lasted longer.

There was no better way to seem trustworthy than to be liked by a dog, and there was no better way to convince a dog to like you than bribery.

Everything they were trying to interact with here had been waiting since humanity had been a kinky idea that two amoebas came up with.

“The people who have power over you are weak too. They shit and bleed and worry that their children don’t love them anymore. They’re embarrassed by the stupid things they did when they were young that everyone else has forgotten. And so they’re vulnerable. We all define ourselves by the people around us, because that’s the kind of monkey we are. We