Babylon's Ashes (Expanse, #6)

by James S.A. Corey

History, Michio believed, was a long series of surprises that seemed inevitable in retrospect. And what was true of nations and planets and vast corporate-state complexes also applied to the smaller fates of men and women. As above, so below.

There was something to be said for living a life that didn’t involve lengthy interrogations. By that standard, at least, Holden had not lived his well.

Josep yawned and propped himself up on one elbow, looking down at her. He was a beautiful man in a slightly ruined way. He wore his hair longer than a crew cut, shorter than his shoulders. The gray in it still only a highlight in the black. Decades had roughened his skin, and the ink there told the story of his life: the neck tattoo of the OPA’s split circle that had been covered over later to make the upraised fist of a radical collective long since collapsed. The elaborate cross on his shoulder, inscribed in a moment of faith and kept after that faith had crumbled. Phrases written along his wrists and down his side—No more water, the fire next time and To love someone is to see them as God intended them and Ölüm y chuma pas pas fóvos—spoke of the various men he had been in his life. His incarnations. That was part of why Pa felt so close to him. She was younger than him by almost a decade, but she’d been through incarnations too.

Incredible characterization in just a paragraph

“Shouldn’t let go of being educated,” he said. “Universe spent a lot of time telling you something. Now you’re second-guessing it. Maybe all those other things were getting you ready for this.”

He’d become a voice within the OPA on Ceres by showing up early at every meeting, listening carefully before he spoke, and making certain the right people knew his name.

Situations change and clinging too tightly to what came before kills you.

All through human history, being a moral person and not being pulled into the dramatics and misbehavior of others had caused intelligent people grief.

proffered

Good word

“I thought if you told people facts, they’d draw their conclusions, and because the facts were true, the conclusions mostly would be too. But we don’t run on facts. We run on stories about things. About people.

All beautiful things should have just a little sorrow about them. Made them seem real.

My life has become a single, ongoing revelation that I haven’t been cynical enough.”

time his determination against the universe would have felt like a fair fight. Anger alone would have carried him forward, and maybe the scourge of fatigue would have made him feel he was expiating his sins.

There were mistakes you made because you were young. Everyone made some of them.

cruciform.

Good word

“There’s a way we do things. This isn’t it.

History itself was a massive n=1 study, irreproducible. It was what made it so difficult to learn from.

histrionic.

Good word

Doesn’t take away from the essential dignity of the situation. And this is a fine hill.” “A what?” Bobbie looked over, surprised he hadn’t followed the idiom. “Fine hill to die on.”

“And the chances that’ll work?” “Terrible, terrible chances. Very low. Dumb plan on every level.

But the impulse to help was there too. To carry a burden together, even if it meant having less for yourself.