I should be used to the glacial pacing of The Expanse. The author team is very consistent in this, as displayed in the fourth book of the series, Cibola Burn. If Abbadon Gates was like an airplane crash disaster movie from the 70s, Cibola Burn moves into post-apocalyptic disasters in a way.

The Expanse so far is dealing with two different storylines. There's the protomolecule that was created by a mysterious race that turns out to be extinct now, and which has left various technological wonders like the Ring behind. Then there's the conflict of the three factions in the solar system: Earth, Mars and the Outer Planets Alliance. This conflict reaches for the stars, as a bunch of squatters from the OPA colonize the first ever planet outside of the solar system through the ring, Illus. But at the same time, an Earth energy company chooses this planet to claim it, and conflict abounds between those two factions throughout the novel.

James Holden of all people is sent to mediate between the two parties, and doesn't really succeed at first, until natural disaster strikes, and he starts investigating the defense grid of the ancestor race of the protomolecule to save them all.

The last 20% of the book had the usual frantic pacing and excitement that I am used to, and again it made me wish that everything that came before was cut down by quite a bit.

But alas, this is why the Expanse books are great, but not absolutely outstanding, IMHO.