The Mercy of Gods Book Review

Released in August of 2024, the first book The Mercy of Gods is the first installment in the planned trilogy known as the Captive’s War. Written by the same Authors that brought you The Expanse James S.A. Corey. This Author duo are at it again with a new, an unattached adventure from the Expanse Universe.

There is a lot of hype to be going around with this trilogy as this is trilogy has also been greenlit for a series to be produced at Amazon. Amazon was the same studio that saved the second half of seasons from SyFy who cancelled after the first 3 seasons of the Expanse.

As this series is projected to be shorter, there is a good chance we can get the whole story before it meets the same fate.

I started readying the Captive’s War trilogy just this week as the second installment “The Faith of Beasts” was released in late April 2026. This means there tends to be a year and a half to two year gap between releases.

If you are familiar with the chapter structure of the expanse. It’s not quite the same here in this book. Though each chapter is mostly following a specific character, the chapters do still switch off to other characters where the story fits.

The story mainly follows a band or high level and lightly respected researchers on the planet of Anjiin. The characters that we follow through this series consider them a tight nit group that does not what to be torn apart on their research.

The group is lead by the lead researcher Tonner Freis. He is a highly intelligent and relatively young lead researcher that his team follows.

Arguably, where the book starts out however is with what I would consider to be the main character of the book. Dafyd Alkhor, A low level researcher with family ties to well renowned politicians that help fund the research that is occurring.

Else Annalise Yannin, is a senior researcher of Tonner Freis team, and also happens to be romantically involved with him. Her character proves to be pivotal in the story throughout the entire run of the book.

Again, what feels like trope from the Expanse we have Campar, He plays the tough joking guy of the group. I can relate this character the most to Amos Burton from Expanse. This character through a little more on the side, is a big part of the book as well.

There are many other characters in this series as well. I have heard at times there are actually to many characters to follow. If I wanted to cover them all this article would be way to long. Especially cause for many of them we never get a point of view from despite their critical roles through the course of the story.

The book does not feel repatative and there is rarely any downtime during the course of the novel. I felt that there were several unique locations through the course of the entire story with some locations being truly horrifying.

Because there is so many characters as well as creatures that are in this book however, it takes awhile to piece what creature is what. The names can be hard to get a hand on in the memory as well.

I think that this is something that will resolve itself once getting into the second book in the series. I am very curious as to where The Faith of Beasts will take the story next.

The ending this first entry in the Captive’s War was tantalizing and had me running out to get the next on in the series. I was fortunate to not have to wait for the second book in the series so all the characters remain fresh in my mind.

So do I recommend reading The Mercy of Gods? Yes. I will warn, this might not be for everyone, this is a story that essentially is a space prison story with extra action and intrigue. If you liked the Expanse, you will likely enjoy this book as well. With everything going on with the Captive’s War Trilogy as well like the second book just releasing and the streaming show in active development, there is never been a better time to pick this series up. You can also count on the author duo is not going to make everyone wait for the finale to the series.

If you want to pick up this book on Amazon you can purchase the paper back version, or the kindle version here. as it helps out the site and let’s us know what content you want to see more of in the future.

We will see you soon for the review of the sequel to this book next time!

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