Abaddon's Gate
The alien artifact that once haunted humanity has finished its work. Beyond the orbit of Uranus, it has raised an enormous Ring — a gate opening onto a vast, silent space that should not exist, and onto questions no one in the solar system can answer.
Earth, Mars, and the Belt each send ships to study it, and Jim Holden and the crew of the Rocinante are pulled along with the flotilla, unwilling celebrities at the frontier of a new age. But not everyone aboard is there for science. Among the fleet travels a young woman under an assumed name, nursing a private vendetta that could destroy Holden — and a Methodist pastor who signed on as a witness to history, hoping to hold a fracturing expedition together.
When humanity crosses the threshold of the Ring, old rivalries, raw fear, and blind ambition follow it through. In the strange country on the far side, the choices of a handful of people may decide whether the human race steps forward into the stars or brings ruin down on itself.
The third novel of The Expanse turns the series outward, trading the politics of a single solar system for the awe and terror of a doorway to everywhere.
Captain of the Rocinante, reluctantly famous and pulled to the frontier of humanity's next great unknown.
Daughter of a disgraced family who joins the expedition under an assumed name, driven by a private vendetta against Holden.
A compassionate Methodist pastor invited as a civilian witness, trying to keep a fracturing expedition from turning on itself.
Hard-nosed security chief aboard the Belter flagship, tasked with keeping order as tensions boil over.
The Rocinante's engineer and Holden's partner.
Yes. Abaddon's Gate is the third novel of The Expanse, following Leviathan Wakes (2011) and Caliban's War (2012), and it opens directly on the aftermath of the second book — the alien protomolecule has finished the work it began on Venus. It is followed by Cibola Burn. Start with Leviathan Wakes.
Yes — it won the 2014 Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, presented in Seattle in June 2014 for works published in 2013. It beat a shortlist that included Kim Stanley Robinson's Shaman, Charles Stross's Neptune's Brood and Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam.
Jefferson Mays, who narrates the main Expanse novels for Hachette Audio. The 2019 Hachette Audio CD release (ISBN 9781549153075) runs to 16 discs, and the same recording is what streaming and download retailers carry.
