Humanity has finally gone through a gate and settled on the first world in another solar system, but the settlers are being classed as illegal squatters by the corporation that believes the planet to be legally there's.   So when the corporation ship turns up with the intention of taking everything away from the settlers, the settlers have a surprise waiting for them and all hell breaks loose.

Avasaralla thinks it'll be a great idea to send Holden to mediate and sort things out, because she thinks Holden will make such a disaster of it that it'll scare everyone back in Sol system away from leaving for other new worlds.

And on top of all this, or maybe because of all this, the planet is waking up from its billion year slumber.

While that all sounds really good, which it is, the telling of this story just drags on and on and on and on.   This book would have been way, way better if it had lost a few hundred pages.   And on top of all that, it's a really depressing story from beginning to end, showing up Homo sapiens at their very worse.

It was so tedious i kept on having to take breaks and read three whole books just to break this up into manageable chunks of depressive dragging on.

Let's hope the next one, Nemesis Games, is better, eh? ( )

If you've read even a handful of my other reviews, you're likely aware that I am not predisposed to read much a series of novels. I usually get two or three into them, and I've sated my curiosity and am ready to move on to something else.
But The Expanse series is the exception. I so enjoyed Cibola Burn that I am probably just going to go straight into [b:Nemesis Games|22886612|Nemesis Games (Expanse, #5)|James S.A. Corey|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1407524221s/22886612.jpg|42456264]. (That, too, is an exception. Normally I'll wait a few months before moving to the next book in a series.). ( )

Woof, it took me most of the year to get through this because suddenly, I wasn't making long 3 hour round trips for work anymore (left that job for other reasons besides a global pandemic, but anyway...) While not as narratively strong as earlier books, this had all sorts of fun xenozoology to make my heart sing. I've been watching the television adaptation first, so it's interesting to go back later to the source material and see how much more depth there is in some aspects (versus where the show makes additions from other material to bring Bobbie and Avasarala's lines in).

Really appreciated the connections to previous books with Basia and Lucia (parents of Katoa, Mei's unfortunate protomolecule-infected friend) and Havelock (Miller's old Ceres station Earther work partner), and looking forward to where it goes next. I'll try to be more timely on my audiobook listens, though... ( )

I can't even begin to express how much I love this series. Right now it easily my favorite series in any genre going. A big giant space opera with lots of great characters. A central mystery that passes through every novel and yet the satisfaction of always getting to have a sparkling conclusion to the current book.

Holden and his crew entertain me. I care about them. I can't wait to see what is next. It helps a lot that the books have been regular. The once a year pace allows me to keep on top of the series. Sometimes when it takes a while to get the next book I don't always jump right back in. This is not one of those series. I can't wait for the next one.

If you like action, space opera, hard science fiction, sprinkled with humor and a kick ass story. This series is for you. ( )

TW/CW: Violence, sexual situations, brutality, murder, scary situations

RATING: 5/5

REVIEW: Cibola Burn is the fourth installment in James S. A. Corey’s Expanse series. It follows the crew of the Rocinante as James Holden is called to a distant planet to serve as a mediator between the squatters who live there and the corporate interests who protest the squatters’ presence.

This is one of my favorite books in the series (so far). I love the setting on a foreign planet with entirely new species and people, and the surprises and challenges that face not just Holden and his crew, but all of the people involved. I’m also very interested to see what comes of what Proto!Miller discovers here.

This series is definitely one of the best sci-fi I’ve ever read. I tend to prefer fantasy very slightly over science fiction, but this book definitely lives up to the hype.

I recommend this series to fans of sci-fi anywhere, and also just people looking for an exciting, thought-provoking series. ( )