"Babylon’s Ashes" by James S.A. Corey

I can see why this book was where most of my friends dropped the series. We went from philosophical questions about consciousness and mysterious alien remnants to a polygamic crew family fighting against a narcissist who makes every mistake possible and acts like a baby. The antagonist has zero chance of being relatable or likable. His main plan is to simply fight everyone with brute force to kill a single ship.

The main two battles end abruptly. The battle for Medina station ends with a single person sending a single missile to a reactor powering railguns a minute after we hear about that reactor for the first time. The second battle for the same station doesn't even begin; they throw some mass into the gate, and suddenly, the enemy evaporates.

The characters are all so dull and one-sided that they feel fake. I'm sure the authors started using low-quality ghostwriters because hardly anything happens in the sixth book. The only cool spots are the chapters of the original crew.

They say it will improve in the next book, so here we go! It's a shame that the sixth book killed the TV show due to the dull source material.