The Expanse authors talk Leviathan Falls’ world-altering ending

After 10 years and nine novels, James S.A. Corey’s The Expanse series ended in November with the release of Leviathan Falls. Readers will get one final trip into The Expanse’s world when the upcoming novella Our Father’s SinsIt will debut in March 2022. The television version of the story’s sixth and final season will air on Amazon Prime Video. Co-authors Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, who write together under the Corey pen name, tell Polygon that the TV show will provide a “good resolution” to the on-screen story, but it’s only in Leviathan Falls that fans can see how James Holden and his Roci family’s full story artfully comes to a close.

[Ed. note: Extensive spoilers ahead for Leviathan Falls.]

After decades of fighting to democratize information and unite humanity, Holden is forced to go against these values in order to save the human race from succumbing to Duarte and the ring builders’ plans to subsume humanity into their hive mind. By injecting himself with the protomolecule, Holden is able to seize control of the ring station in order to keep the dark gods at bay long enough for everyone — including the Roci crew — to evacuate the ring space. Amos, Naomi, and Alex head to Sol. Alex, however, says good-bye to his adopted family, the Nieuwestad, and takes with him the Roci. Once the ring space is cleared, Holden uses the last of his strength to destroy the gates, making an executive decision for all of humanity in order to save them — a bleak irony that is not lost on him.

The ending is equal parts heart-wrenching and hopeful, and it’s what Abraham and Franck have been building toward for more than a decade. They even had a mutual friend. Leviathan Falls’ last line — Naomi musing, “The stars are still there. We’ll find our own way back to them” — since they were writing the second book, Caliban’s War.

In conversation with Polygon, Abraham and Franck discussed the inevitability of Holden’s fate, the book’s open-ended epilogue, humanity’s resilience in the face of impossible odds, and — of course — aliens.

This interview has been reduced in size and clarified.

The end of Holden’s story feels both inevitable and ironic. What was your process for figuring out his arc and building toward this moment where he’s forced to make the kind of choice he always fought against?

Daniel Abraham: What we were trying to do was take this very righteous guy with a very strong opinion and spiral him through more and more experiences, depth, uncertainty, and gray until we had him still very much himself, but at a place where he could make this impossible choice, this choice on behalf of everyone, when that’s exactly what he didn’t ever want to do. We did this with several other characters. Naomi tried to not be a leader, as you can see. Her hair was the only thing she tried to cover up in her first book. That’s not where she wound up.

Ty FranckElvi goes completely against her scientific principles. All the things she believed were her most essential aspects of her ethical existence. To save humanity, Elvi breaks them all. One of the things we do over and over with characters is we show them in the spot where they’re most comfortable, and then we drag them out of it. […] The only character that that never happens to is Amos, because Amos is only one thing, and he’s only ever going to be one thing. It turns out, that this one thing is extremely difficult to kill.

The epilogue reveals that Amos was the one who will guide mankind through the next stage. This was the best place to be?

Abraham:He referred to himself early on in the series as “the last man standing”. […] He’s that combination of weird compassion and total lack of sentimentality that it just felt right. It’s a wonderful place to learn.

Franck:As a guide to a fractured humanity, he appears like an unattached guy. So he’s going to say, “Stop being such dipshits.” And when they don’t stop being a bunch of dipshits, he’s going to kill all the ones that are necessary to get everybody else back on board. […]This man just seems perfect for the job.

The epilogue leaves a lot open to readers’ interpretation — now that the different systems can be connected again, will history repeat itself or can people find a better way forward? Was that your intention?

Abraham: Part of what we were doing with the whole series was making the argument that history is prophecy, that humans don’t actually change much as an organism. The stuff we were doing in Rome, we’re doing now. And the happy ending that we have is, now we’ve got 1,300 chances to get it right. Maybe someone will find the solution. One of the reasons I think the epilogue is short is, I’m not sure what that would look like.

So much of this book raises questions about the definition of selfhood and identity, from Duarte’s planned hive mind to Amos’ transformation to the way time has changed the Roci crew. This theme had an impact on the stories and characters.

Franck: Daniel and I disagree greatly on the nature of consciousness, but the one thing we absolutely agree on is that humans are just a story we’re constantly telling ourselves, and that story is very important to us. Most of the horrible things that people do — and most of the great things that people do — are because that is the story they want to believe about themselves. […]To most, altering the truth about who we are is the biggest violation. To prevent this from happening, we’ll die. […] You take that fact of humanity and you present it with, “Hey, everybody, we can win, but all we have to do is give up the thing that is the most important aspect of every human life.” What’s the human reaction to that gotta be? I don’t think it’s going to be quiet acquiescence.

Whenever there’s a mysterious threat or figure, there’s always the risk that if you reveal too much, it will lose its potency. We did learn more about both the ring builders as well their destroyers through this book. What was the secret to finding that perfect balance of answering questions without giving too much information?

Abraham:The evolutionary history of gate builders was well-known. We also knew how biology affected their behavior, what it meant for them, as well as how different perspectives were formed. This led to book 1, which described the hijacking of other lives and using this information to incorporate the original. All of this was quite well-thought out. It was just finding a way to explain it that wasn’t just a graduate lecture. The ring entities were supposed to remain mysterious. These were supposed to always be dark gods. I know that there are folks who really like having all of the answers, and that’s great, but I don’t think it’s ever satisfying.

After the past few years, people have much more of a first-hand understanding of how quickly what we know to be reality can change, and what it’s like to live through a period of universal tragedy and uncertainty. Do you believe the current pandemic will have an impact on how people perceive and respond to this story?

Abraham:You will find me glib. Each age has its trials and tribulations. Each age experiences its uncertainty. Growing up, I had nightmares about nuclear warfare. We’ve been through AIDS, we’ve been through polio, we’ve been through 1918. This is a singular moment in our lives, but it’s not a singular moment in history. This is something that we’ve done a lot over and over and over throughout centuries. This is just our turn, and it kind of sucks because we’re here for it. I hope that the stuff Ty and I put out is — I don’t know if comforting is right, but consoling, maybe. It’s just the fact that history has a churn. It is what it is, and has always been. Even with all that, we continue to stumble forward.

Franck:Even when feeling defeated, humans are still human […]Just keep moving forward. And I think that’s what gets us from age to age. You read about horrors of history, like the Trail of Tears — they kept walking. People died on this trail but they continued walking. Some people got there. […]Sometimes people simply hold on. That is what I find most fascinating about humanity. We just keep going.

A new anthology Memory’s Legion The final novella of the series will be included in this edition. What are readers to expect from? Sins of Our Fathers?

Franck: It’s a bit of a coda to the series. It’s probably not what people are expecting, but that’s OK. The conversation is about the next step. Daniel spoke about 1,300 opportunities to succeed. This is only one example of the 1,300 people who have tried to achieve success.

Is there a way to revisit this world beyond this short story?

Franck: No. No.

Abraham: My hope is for people who want more to play the role-playing games or write their own stories. […]Continue the literary conversation. This would be the way I’d like to read it. I wouldn’t want to see another Expanse book.

Leviathan Falls

These prices were correct at the time of publication.

The biggest science fiction series of the decade comes to an incredible conclusion in the ninth and final novel in James S.A. Corey’s Hugo-award winning space opera that inspired the TV series, now from Amazon Studios.