Aliens are advanced, humanity is a backwater, deeply indebted to the aliens, and also trying to suck up where possible for survival. Lots of poverty, econ horror, emigration into circumstances that are both worse and somehow yet better. Like with many other non-first-world sci-fi, I enjoyed the change in perspective tremendously (among the mass of US sci-fi, it's easy to forget just how US-ian things like The Expanse are). That said, the episodic nature and some details put me off, and it didn't stick at all. This book is part of the 2022 Backlog Incident.