The Butcher of Anderson Station
I should start this review by saying that I'm not really a fan of this trend of publishing supplemental material in e-book format only. I suppose it makes it easier to fill out background in long series, by not worrying about the printing costs of the short stories and novellas used to flesh out the minor characters. But it makes me feel like my bookshelves are missing something. And I still don't entirely trust that e-publications are really mine to keep forever.
With that out of the way, I did download and read The Butcher of Anderson Station, the first novella of The Expanse series, published between the first and second books. At 9000 words, it's really more of a short story, and it didn't take long to read at all. But it fills in some important background. Both how Fred Johnson earned the moniker of butcher and how he joined up with the OPA.
The story cuts back and forth between Johnson's memories of Anderson Station and his interrogation by Anderson Dawes of those events. Which means that even though the end is a foregone conclusion, the story zips right along and held my interest well. I was doubly impressed by this, because I already knew, more or less, what happens.
The entire flashback is in an episode of The Expanse that I've already seen. But I liked this version of events better. Part of that is the point of view, which does a better job of hiding the twist at the end and making the reasons for killing all these people more clear. It also emphasized the importance of doing minimal damage to the station itself, since it is an incredibly expensive space ship that the government still needs to use. Whereas in the show, they just blow it up. Given the shortage of everything from air to water to every metal you can name, blowing up an operational space station is wasteful in a way that doesn't quite justify the cool CGI.
With that out of the way, I did download and read The Butcher of Anderson Station, the first novella of The Expanse series, published between the first and second books. At 9000 words, it's really more of a short story, and it didn't take long to read at all. But it fills in some important background. Both how Fred Johnson earned the moniker of butcher and how he joined up with the OPA.
The story cuts back and forth between Johnson's memories of Anderson Station and his interrogation by Anderson Dawes of those events. Which means that even though the end is a foregone conclusion, the story zips right along and held my interest well. I was doubly impressed by this, because I already knew, more or less, what happens.
The entire flashback is in an episode of The Expanse that I've already seen. But I liked this version of events better. Part of that is the point of view, which does a better job of hiding the twist at the end and making the reasons for killing all these people more clear. It also emphasized the importance of doing minimal damage to the station itself, since it is an incredibly expensive space ship that the government still needs to use. Whereas in the show, they just blow it up. Given the shortage of everything from air to water to every metal you can name, blowing up an operational space station is wasteful in a way that doesn't quite justify the cool CGI.
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