Persepolis Rising by James S.A. Corey

 Persepolis Rising is the seventh book in the The Expanse series.

In this book, we flash forward thirty years since the end of Babylon's Ashes.  Our characters are older now, with Holden having greying temples, Avasarala making occasional use of a wheelchair, and the poor Rocinante in need of a serious overhaul of her interior. Meanwhile,  no one has heard from the rogue faction that destroyed Earth and took off until a giant ship takes over Medina Station and war begins.  Our crew just so happens to be on Medina Station because of course they are.

Look, reading this book in 2020 is just so...fascinating.  It's like Corey predicted that the world we actually live in would be overturned by a biological factor.  If people aren't reading The Expanse right now, they are truly missing out.

Notable quotes:

1) Punishment worked best when there wasn't a gap between misbehavior and consequence, or least that was what they told her. But there was also a real advantage in giving the offender time to savor their regret. (page 20)

I took a philosophy of punishment class in college. The certainty of punishment is a more effective deterrent of crime than the severity of the punishment. Sure, the death penalty might be a punishment for a particular crime, but if it's only actually meted out .5% of the time, it's not really a deterrent. If, however, a fine of $500 is assessed 50% of the time, people will stop committing the crime.  I like seeing this discussed in fiction.

2) "And we can have that conversation here in front of these poor fucking shitheads, or you can roll your eyes and humor the crazy old bitch with a cup of tea and we can have a little privacy. You can blame me for it. I'm too old and tired for shame." (page 142)

Avasarala is hands down my favorite character from this series.

3) Holden could almost forget that it was an occupied station until they interacted with anyone. (page 187)

The whole of Chapter 17 is all about the crew wandering around Medina Station after it had been taken over by the returning rogue faction. The description of how normal everything seemed is a lot like how life is right now. I can walk my dog and everything seems almost normal until I see someone and feel obligated to reach into my pocket to put on a mask. I recently ordered a cupcake through a drive through at a coffeeshop and the order was messed up, so I had to go inside to fix it. The chairs were up on the tables and the space was so different from how I remember it. It just made me sad.

3) As if the gap between arriving at Medina and now had been years instead of days. (page 230)

Every day in 2020 seems to be the equivalent of 10 days in 2019. The days are so long and repetitive and I'm so tired all the time.

4) The one thing he'd said that stuck with her was, I am a human being. Anything that happens to human beings could happen to me...People fall in love, so maybe I will too. People get jobs, so maybe I will too. And people get sick. People have accidents. And now, she supposed, people are divided from their families by war and history. (page 431-432)

People get sick. I could too. People are saying good-bye to their loved ones on screens and telephones.  I could too.  There are families separated in detention campus in the United States.  Uyghur refugees in concentration camps in China. Yemeni children orphaned after armed conflict. Human beings are human beings. I am a human being.

Things I looked up:

1) Persepolis: I had some sort of vague idea about this as an ancient city, but I didn't understand the title. I still don't, to be honest, but was mostly built by Darius I, the third Persian King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire.  Alexander the Great later sacked the city and plundered it.

2) "Oh, fuck you," Drummer murmured. "Fuck you and your quisling bullshit." (page 207) I did not know the word quisling, but my dear husband did.  It's a traitor who collaborates with an enemy force occupying their country. The term originated from the name of a Norwegian leader during WWII, Vidkun Quisling, who collaborated with Nazis.

3)  "I spent my madhu chandra week there." (page 245) I did not know this reference. I can't really find much about it, so I'm interpreting it as a sort of rumspringa.

Read these books if you're not already doing so!