“I know what Belter is,” Marrel said, thrilled at the idea that this man spoke a dialect considered dead for a thousand years.
“Cool,” the man replied. “So it’s been a rough millennium around here. We’re starting to get our shit together, and I’ve been doing what I can to help with that, but it’s slow going.”
“Are you a leader of these people?” Marrel asked.
“I’m not into job titles. Name’s Amos Burton. If we’re good, I’m just some asshole. If you’re here to start some shit, I’m the guy you’ll have to go through first. Tell ’em I said that.”
He gave Marrel a vague smile and waited. The diplomatic group listened as Marrel translated for them.
“Great,” Amos Burton said when he was done. “Now we got that shit out of the way, follow me. We’ll grab a few beers and get reacquainted.”
Acknowledgments
Usually, we start these by talking about how any book is, on some level, a collaboration. This time, we’re talking about more than a book. The first volume of The Expanse was written a little over a decade ago, and between there and here, it has been a long, wild ride with us racking up debts and reasons for gratitude all along the way.
This series and all that came with it would not exist without the hard work and dedication of Danny Baror and Heather Baror-Shapiro, the whole brilliant crew at Orbit including (but by no means limited to) Bradley Englert (and his predecessors, Darren Nash, DongWon Song, Will Hinton, and Tom Bouman), Tim Holman, Anne Clarke, Ellen Wright, Alex Lencicki, and Lauren Panepinto. Special thanks are also due Carrie Vaughn, for her services as a beta reader, and the gang from Sakeriver: Tom, Sake Mike, Non-Sake Mike, Jim-me, Porter, Scott, Raja, Jeff, Mark, Dan, Joe, and Erik Slaine, who got the ball rolling.
The support team for this series has also grown to include the staff at Alcon Entertainment and the cast and crew of The Expanse television show. Our thanks and gratitude go especially to our showrunner, Naren Shankar, and the inimitable Dan Nowak, who were there from the beginning to the end. And an extra-special thank-you to Sharon Hall, who took a chance on our books and taught us how to make them into TV.
Also critical to the success of this project has been the consistently brilliant performance of Jefferson Mays, who, if you got this as an audiobook, is the voice you’re listening to right now. If we’re ever in the same bar, that man drinks for free.
And, as always, none of this would have happened without the support and company of Jayné, Kat, and Scarlet. We lost time with them in order to do this, and it wouldn’t have been worth doing if they hadn’t been there for us when we got back.
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By James S. A. Corey
THE EXPANSE
Leviathan Wakes
Caliban’s War
Abaddon’s Gate
Cibola Burn
Nemesis Games
Babylon’s Ashes
Persepolis Rising
Tiamat’s Wrath
Leviathan Falls
Memory’s Legion: The Complete Expanse Story Collection THE EXPANSE SHORT FICTION
Drive
The Butcher of Anderson Station
Gods of Risk
The Churn
The Vital Abyss
Strange Dogs
Auberon
For the first time, all of the short fiction set in James S. A. Corey’s New York Times bestselling Expanse series are available in this collection.
A groundbreaking new fantasy trilogy from Expanse coauthor Daniel Abraham.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2021 by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck
Cover design by Kirk Benshoff and Lauren Panepinto
Cover illustration by Daniel Dociu
Cover copyright © 2021 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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First Edition: November 2021
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Corey, James S. A., author.
Title: Leviathan Falls / James S.A. Corey.
Description: First edition. | New York, NY : Orbit, 2021. | Series: The expanse ; book 9
Identifiers: LCCN 2021032581 | ISBN 9780316332910 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780316379465 (signed edition) | ISBN 9780316332934 (ebook) | ISBN 9780316332927 | ISBN 9780316379366 (BarnesAndNoble.com signed edition)
Classification: LCC PS3601.B677 L478 2021 | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021032581
ISBNs: 9780316332910 (hardcover), 9780316379465 (signed edition), 9780316379366 (BarnesAndNoble.com signed edition), 9780316332934 (ebook)
E3-20210910-JV-NF-ORI