Abaddon’s Gate by James S. A. Corey
The problem with this novel is that you could take care of all of it in about a paragraph: the Rocinante (or some other ship) enters the ring and discovers gates to other star systems and boom, you’re at the next installment. Instead we have more of everything that has worked so far, more Belter/Earther/Martian politics, more fleets of ships, more hapless Rocinante running from missiles, more Holden heroics and more military/corporate villainy, more Mao (Clarissa this time). On the theory that it will all work again. And of course it clunks along like a solid used car. This novel is the very definition of churn. Where we arrive is at the point where things can be different because suddenly the protomolecule has finally done something. The something is, of course, a revelation of stargates to other places. Which many a novel and TV series has accomplished just by use of the word. But anyway. It is more readable than it sounds but if this book of the series had to exist it could be much shorter. There is some interesting stuff with the ability of the ancient aliens to manipulate the laws of physics inside the ring. But that’s about it.