Just finished the last book, Leviathan Falls. The plot resolved generally how I expected it would, with the deliberate distruction of the farcasters (uh, ring gates) to defeat the Technocore (uh, black smoke things).
Yeah… the ending was pretty much exactly what I expected.
I have to admit that the epilogue was not what I expected, but was pretty damn funny nonetheless.
Agreed, no major surprises in the ending, and they did a good job tying up most plot lines. Still a bit annoyed that they never explained what happened to Filip or let Naomi know that he survived. There are still two novellas left to come, but I’m pretty sure one is a prequel.
Loved the epilogue as well.
I like the parallel to Hyperion. That hadn’t occurred to me. There was an element (not small) of horror to the Expanse, but not like Dan Simmons. I really enjoyed the Expanse series and novellas, but Hyperion is on a different level IMHO.
I also thought the info about the (single) gate network creator made it seem a heck of a lot like MorningLightMountain from Hamilton’s Commonwealth series. And the original Eros protomolecule infection to be a heck of a lot like a Jain technology attack in Neil Asher’s Polity series. There is a lot about the Expanse books that seems to have just been copied from other books.
I just finished it last night…
Amos ends up basically leading the human race (in Sol system, at least)? I’m not sure how to feel about that…I’d like to see what he’s done with Baltimore, though 
About to turn my attention to the last 3 books. I read Babylon’s Ashes before S6 of the show, and while I thought the plot wasn’t the best, it was entertainingly told. Especially compared to the book I’m reading now (The Eye of the World, which I started reading after watching S1 of the Wheel of Time show… which just draaaags). So I’m ready to get back into the world of the Expanse and finish the story straight through - the only thing I know is the time jump and Laconia is a major plot point. I’m excited to see where it goes!
IMO the whole middle trilogy was a big waste. All nine books should have been about the bigger picture—the gates, what is through them, and what is behind them—instead of spending three books on a scuffle with Space Osama.
I dunno, Cibola Burn was about that (the one with Ilus) and it’s probably the worst of the entire series. Whereas Nemesis Games (about the Earth getting pummeled) was fantastic.
Different strokes. I’d pretty much flip those views.
So he was the leader? I wasn’t so sure about that; I just figured he was the oldest, most experienced guy around and in typical Amos style, volunteered to protect his people because he was the logical person to do so.
For me, the amusing part was that through the whole series, I kind of had it in the back of my head that Amos was going to get killed heroically in a gunfight protecting Holden, or in fixing the Roci in the middle of a space battle. I never really had any expectation that he’d actually live through the series, much less 1000+ years past it.
I was mostly being tongue in cheek there, but yeah, after a thousand years, you’ve got to figure he’s at least got some kind of “Elder Statesman” kind of status. Like, you’d really have to be on the ball to contradict the advice of the thousand year old man, ya know?