In The Mercy of Gods, the humans of the planet Anjiin became enslaved by the Carryx, and they didn't put up much of a fight. That's not surprising since the Carryx have been conquering other races for millennia, and their society is built on using conquered races as useful tools. If a race turns out not to be useful to the Carryx, then they simply eliminate them. Former research assistant, Daffyd Alkhor, now finds himself the leader of the human captives, but a role he achieved because he accepted captivity, to the dismay of many of the remaining humans. By betraying a group of human conspirators to the Carryx, Daffyd earned favor and established his leadership position; however, that came at a price since he alienated himself from the other captives in the process. He must now find a way to ensure that the humans remain useful to the Carryx, even though he is pretty much hated by all of them.

The story was pretty big in scope right from the start, and this book expanded it even further. We learn a lot more about the war between the Carryx and the deathless enemy, and we even get to experience the events across multiple planets. We learn more about some of the other enslaved races and a lot more about the Carryx society and history. This remains a series that is carried by the plot, although we do get some interesting character development this time, especially with Daffyd and the spy swarm. Not enough for me to actually care about them, but enough to for me to al least remember them by the time book three comes along, lol.

So I do continue to recommend this series, but still must caution fans of The Expanse that this series is extremely different, and frankly, nowhere near as good. However, it is good enough to spend time with, and I would say I enjoyed book two more than book one, so it is trending up.

Jefferson Mays does his usual excellent job with the narration for the audiobook version.