I think this is my favourite so far. The bulk of the story is an assessment of humanity, all three major factions trapped in a state in which wrong moves could spell major disaster, and does. It portrays humanity as stupid and greedy and rash and also capable of exceeding all that when necessary, unifying towards greater goals. Each character has the fredom to be a believably terrible person with understandable, albeit sometimes extreme, motivations. And from all that chaotic human expression, comes the sort of opportunity that sanity would suggest had just been proved to be one we weren't prepared for, and yet one we would seize anyway. It's also just an eminently readable book. Every time I picked it up, I ended up reading for over 2 hours.
In broad strokes, this book covers the part of the expanse story concerning the ring that has been made by the 'protomolecule' that now sits orbiting Jupiter. It follows the crew of the Roci as they are pulled towards the ring carrying a media crew that is interviewing them. It covers Clarissa/Melba, who has military modifications installed with the sole intention of killing Holden for destroying the reputation of her father (Mao). And it covers the events on the Behemoth (the old Mormon ship Nauvoo) inside the 'slow zone' inside the ring. The resolution of the story leaves humanity with a junction of gates leading to a thousand other star systems. Drummer isn't in the book version but I believe she is a stand in for the books character of Michio Pa, notable in some of the 'Bull' chapters.
It's an excellent book in an excellent series.
Finished reading - 16/08/26