The Faith of Beasts by James S. A. Corey

 

The Mercy of Gods showed us what it was like to be overwhelmed and quickly subjugated by an alien race. The Faith of Beasts asks can you live as a subservient species, and can you fight back if failure means the extinction of the human race? Dafyd Alkhor is the conduit between the surviving humans and the ruthless, nearly inscrutable, Carryx. Is there a way to win their freedom? And can he keep the cohort of surviving humans working to prove their usefulness to their captors in the meantime? Good writers can create a convincing alien world. Great ones can create a whole universe. James S. A. Corey (Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck) are great ones, and book 2 of The Captive's War is fantastic.

The first book focused on humans surviving their captivity and competing with other races to accomplish tasks useful to the Carryx. They accomplished that, and the human race survives. For now. They are given new tasks that necessitate splitting up the surviving humans. Some stay on the Carryx home world and continue their research, others are sent to recently conquered worlds to explore and investigate, and still more are sent on ships into battle zones to see if humans have any usefulness in that setting. Each group wrestles with what it means to be a captive and what the future may look like.

Dafyd struggles with leadership, forced to push people into actions they resist while carrying a clearer understanding than most of the danger they remain in. Jessyn is investigating an alien world and discovers troubling signs that may point to who the enemy of the Carryx is, wrestling with what she can do with that information. Campar is on a ship on the edge of a battle zone, learning about the fighting style of the Carryx's enemies, including new tactics that at least have the Carryx intrigued, if not worried. Meanwhile, the Swarm, an agent of the enemies of the Carryx, has infiltrated the human group and is learning important information about the Carryx. Their time among the humans, though, is beginning to change them.

James S. A. Corey further expands their universe in this book. Different point of view characters broaden the view of the empire, shedding more light on the Carryx as well as some of the other subject races. The races in this series feel truly alien, making the attempt at understanding and, in some cases, searching for common cause, all the more difficult. 

The rotating POV structure keeps momentum high, particularly because each storyline explores a different aspect of captivity, resistance, and survival. Being the middle book in a trilogy, not everything is neatly wrapped up. There is a great deal of progress in plot and character development, as well as a hell of a tease at what might be coming in the next book. 

If you like big, idea-laden space operas with truly alien races, you're going to love this series. 

I was provided a copy of this book by the publishers.