Cibola Burn

Some refugees from Ganymede have come to settle Ilus (New Terra to others). Life is hard, but it's better than spending the rest of your life stuck on a spaceship begging for food and scrounging spare parts for your CO2 scrubber. The soil chemistry isn't quite right, but the lithium mine is a cash cow. Just gotta fill up the cargo hold and head back to Medina Station to sell it. That'll generate enough cash to buy what they need to thrive.

The thing is, they didn't check with anyone first. Why would they? It seemed like everyone turned their back on them. Along comes Royal Charter Energy (RCE) with a UN claim for the world and things get complicated fast. And by complicated, I mean people die.

Chrisjen Avarsarala (UN) and Fred Johnson show more (OPA) decide to hire the crew of the Rocinante to mediate the dispute. Holden doesn't want to go, but the protomolecule Miller simulacrum insists. It's been formulated by the protomolecule remnant to investigate why its creators are all gone, and it nags Holden just enough to make him even want to know.

Besides Holden, we get POVs from Basia Merton (one of the squatters), Elvi Okoye (RCE scientist), and Dimitri Havelock (security officer on board the RCE ship Edward Israel, presumably named after the astronomer). The authors do a great job getting you into their heads so that you can understand their motivations. Basia will do anything to protect his family after losing a son on Ganymede. Elvi is the consummate biologist, thrilled to be exploring a new world. Havelock was Miller's partner back on Ceres before the Julie Mao case became Miller's obsession and dealt with his share of anti-Earther bias.

His boss is Adolphus Murtry, a ruthless by-the-book kind of guy, who—to borrow the description that Amos and Holden have for him—is an asshole. Havelock mentions him working corporate prisons and industrial security his whole career. We don't get his POV though, so it's tough to figure out why he's so hardcore on enforcing RCE's charter given what happens over the course of the novel.

The authors explore the mythologizing of public figures. Holden and crew have a solar system-wide reputation at this point. In light of their accomplishments, Holden's public persona has been manipulated in the news media so much that he is hero to some, villain to others. We see that here as some characters are heartened at the news of his arrival to the colony. They assume that he will inherently agree with them on the spot and set things right, not realizing that things aren't that simple. Others view him as a dunce, easy to manipulate and render feckless. But, as Naomi put it to Havelock...

"A lot of people have underestimated Jim over the last few years. A lot of them aren't with us anymore."

I had a tough time putting this down at night and constantly checked the clock to see if I could squeeze in another chapter. Besides obviously wanting to know what happened to Holden and company, I was engaged with all of the POV characters this time. Each one went through personal growth, discovering things about themselves that felt good to see realized. While the standoff between the RCE personnel and the squatters was tense enough, a certain natural disaster that occurred midway through the book just amplified things.

This was a much better story than Abaddon's Gate. While all the interesting stuff happened in the first half of that book—and the second half was tedious with power mad jerks and body count padding—Cibola Burn carried my interest all the way through. It's a sci-fi adventure that lives up to the promise made in the first book. Now I get to worry and wonder what the TV show is going to cut out for season four.

4.5 stars rounded up to 5 because it made me want to stay up late to keep reading. show less

Having won this book as part of LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers giveaway, but having not yet read the first three volumes in the series, I reluctantly admitted it would help to read the nearly 1,700 pages of prologue leading up to the events chronicled in Cibola Burn—despite my normal aversion to 600-page tomes. Luckily, I found the first three volumes in the series to be fun and engaging reads that zipped by much faster than I expected.

This fourth volume provided a solidly constructed story that didn't feel at all like just the next book in a series. There was some satisfying character development of the familiar main characters, as well as a few new ones, and even an old character returning for the first time since a significant show more role in the first book. Stalwart (and frequently misunderstood) hero Jim Holden and his crew eventually help to expand (at least one more tiny step) on the mystery surrounding the alien constructors of the protomolecule, as they interact with some new bioforms on New Terra, the first of the new planets opened up by the aliens' ring network to be visited by humans.

The rotating narrative points of view, which are a feature of each book in the series, here offer intriguingly different perspectives on just who the good guys and the bad guys are in the struggle to colonize New Terra and co-opt its unique mineral wealth. They also effectively hold mirrors up for readers to view Holden from several different angles, and provide seemingly reliable rationales for deriding him just as much as for respecting him and his motives—which is a refreshing state for a presumptive hero to be viewed from.

What I find most interesting about the series is that each volume has a totally different feel to it: the series began with the first half of the first volume reading like an alien-infused police procedural; it was followed by a war story encompassing factions spread throughout the solar system; then came a somewhat metaphysical first-contact tale; and finally, with Cibola Burn, what starts out as something surprisingly like a classic western, featuring Holden as the new sheriff in town, ends up as a planetary disaster novel. That constantly changing set of story tropes helped greatly in keeping things interesting enough for me to steadfastly push on through more than 2,200 pages of reading over the last couple of months. show less

Book four of The Expanse series by James S. A. Corey, Cibola Burn, makes up for the torturous storyline of the third book. We also get a chance to step away from all the space drama as our hapless crew makes its way to a newly-found planet where they must decide just who will get the chance to call this new planet a home. The story still contains plenty of space battles and dangerous ship action, but I find the story a nice respite from having to worry about breathable air all the time.

Actually, as I texted my son while halfway through the story, Cibola Burn is like the year 2020 for the series. If it can go wrong, it does. Holden and his crew face some crazy shit, and that’s saying something given everything that has happened in the show more series so far. But they are unfamiliar dangers, which gives the story some much-needed freshness.

While I knew what was going to happen, thanks to the fact that Cibola Burn is essentially season four of the Amazon Prime series, I still enjoyed every moment of the story. It was fun to get to know a few new characters and get to see the main Rocinante crew outside of their comfort zone. Plus, let’s face it, a planet that is out to get its inhabitants is insane, but the two authors behind the pen name James S. A. Corey manage to pull off the insanity yet again. show less

I think I’ve got a read on this series now, enough that I can predict not only what’s generally going to happen by the end* but also how I’m going to rate it and feel at the end. I’m liking them a lot but I’ve stopped being quite as excited to find out what happened and I closed this book thinking, “That was satisfying” instead of, “That was really cool!” They’re “I want something fun but I also want to think a little” novels for me.

So yeah, Cibola Burn continues to be solidly written, with good characters, moral dilemmas, neat speculation, and alien world-building, and it’s definitely entertaining and escapist-with-meat. I liked the twist Corey made on his formula this time and I really liked seeing more of show more the mysterious aliens who’ve been in the background of the whole series. He has fun with xenobiology too! I really liked that he’s still coming up with cool (and diverse) POV characters to root for and that while he’s very much for the underdog, he’s not making things clear-cut all the same.

And of course, he ends the book with both hope and a strong sense of impending doom, so between that and my continued enjoyment of the series, I’ll be picking up the next book at some point.

*terrible things, heroic actions, weird alien stuff, terrible things, corporate and political greed, great action scenes, terrible things

Warnings: The villain kept giving me “flashbacks” to the American police system, self-justification, police brutality, and all. If bad things happening to eyeballs is a trigger for you, also beware.

7/10 show less

Re-Read 9/25/18:

This second read went down SMOOTH. :) Sure, we're out of the Solar System and Holden is attempting to play peacemaker rather than the lone voice of truth, but what he's got on his shoulders is the one-eye'd king in the land of the blind syndrome... AND massive conflict. Not whole Powers breathing down his neck this time, but things get really hairy out on the frontier where law and order is played fast and loose.

Yep. It's a cowboy novel featuring slugs that blind you, a planet literally going through an upheaval, falling moons, billions-of-years-old alien genocide, and one undead cop.

Cool? Hell yeah. Still loving the crap out of this. :)


Original Review:

After the sequence of the last novel, practically anything was show more possible. The whole universe was up for grabs, tempered with the terror of knowing that everyone in it had died. I had tons of faith in these authors before picking up this book. I knew they could pull off anything they wanted, and not only did they succeed, they succeeded fantastically. This is some of the absolute best space opera-ish sci-fi I've ever read. Perhaps I am also very invested in the characters, and so anything I think is going to be skewed horribly. Fortunately, that's also a great sign of a great book.

Holden. What the hell. That guy...

Seriously, he's one of the most interesting guys I've ever read. He has one hell of a flaw. Without him, it would certainly make for a shorter story, but never as good.

I love it! show less

This is an interesting turn of the story. The first 3 books were large in scale and story--very interested in the politics of Earth, Mars, and the OPA. There are the same dynamics in this books, but in more of a microcosm and in terms of dealing with "different" people on a ship or a newly colonized planet.

I think what makes this book so good is that Holden and his crew are family now and the dynamics are all about keeping them together. Holden has finally realized that everything isn't always black/white and simply tries to do the right thing, even when it isn't the "right" thing. It makes for a better story. The book itself is also written really well--it's obvious that the authors are getting better at their craft as the stories show more continue and it is a delight to read.

Also, the bad guy in this novel...is awesome. This is basically a western set in space. A wild frontier that is to be conquered with blood and violence, perpetuating what we always do as humans. The struggle between humans and corporate interests.

Overall, I really liked this one. I don't think it was as good as the third novel which is why I'm only rating it 4 stars, but it's still one of the best in the series. show less

In ‘Cibola Burn’, the crew of the Rocinante are apparently dealing with the trauma of constant life-threatening peril and disaster through flirtatious banter. While the plot is as dramatic and dangerous as previous books in the series, the dialogue is rather lighter and snappier. This is fun, albeit a little incongruous. The plot takes Holden and his crew-family to an alien planet being fought over by early colonists and corporate interests. The escalation of this conflict is depressingly convincing and illustrated well with narrators from both sides. In the background weird alien lifeforms and technology lurk ominously, until they suddenly become unignorable. As with prior Expanse novels, I was swept along by the thrilling plot show more twists and constant raising of stakes. The Rocinante crew continue to be an endearing lot and I’m invested in their continue wellbeing and cosy cohabitation. They barely even have to murder anyone in this instalment, thankfully, but really need a damn holiday. Their poor ship gets knocked around again as well.

I enjoyed Miller’s role and was genuinely sad when he appeared to be finally gone. (Is he really though? I wonder.) His manifestation in an alien robot brings a pleasant note of levity to the otherwise horrifyingly catastrophic situation on New Terra/Ilus. The death slugs and blindness plague are impressively terrible. Elvi and Basia are excellent new characters, especially after Elvi gets over her crush on Holden. The main antagonist, Murtry, is viscerally awful because he personifies corporate employees that justify appalling actions on the basis of shareholder returns. Avasarala only appears briefly, but her presence is delightful as ever and likely presages more involvement in the next book.

While it doesn’t have quite the brilliance of [b:Abaddon's Gate|16131032|Abaddon's Gate (The Expanse, #3)|James S.A. Corey|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1407572059s/16131032.jpg|17606564] as there is less time for reflection on events, I greatly enjoyed ‘Cibola Burn’. Another exciting and involving Expanse novel, building further detail into the future world, setting up political conflicts to come, and delivering some genuinely hilarious one-liners. show less