Caliban's War

4.00/5.00 “Desparate psychotic people do desperate psychotic things when they're exposed. I refuse to grant them immunity from exposure out of fear of their reaction. When you do, the desperate psychos wind up in charge”.

Caliban's War, the second entry into The Expanse is an action packed, character driven story that lets us stew in this world for some more time before the plot moves on. One feels eirily like the characters in this world, watching the protomolecule's venusian occupation with anticipation for something to happen, while humanity reacts badly to the coming of the unknown. Paranoia cripples Earth and Mars, and war brews. While the plot of Cailban's was seems a realistic depiction of a civilization's reaction to the protomolecule, it lacks any inspiration, riding the coattails of the excellent existing and new characters, Caliban's War seems very much like a repeat of Leviathan Wakes in many ways.

However, the book is entertaining with action, wonderful, lovable characters who defy tropes and bring freshness to the science fiction genre, while expanding on the incredible world of The Expanse. Like Holden, I also wish to see the wonder of Io, basking in Jupiter's lethal glow, a testmaent to the terrifying beauty.

Emotional Impact -> Action takes a high spot in this book, and Avaserala-bobby plotline showing so much promise. I enjoyed this book, especially the yatch takeover and the confrontation between Avasarela and Holden, two very diametric characters trying to work together. The ending was very good and very satisfying, with Bobby's duel with the monster being nothing short of amazing. However, the plot is repetitive and nothing too big happens. This story isn't that different from book 1. It is the same or similar story with different characters. Characters -> Really enjoyed Holden's, although I think Holden's inital emotional shutdown was repeated so many times. We get it, he changed during the time jump. Avaserla is a very interesting character and is a lot of fun. She gave me strong Mary Sue vibes but she does fail a lot in this story. But I do think she has the potential to be very hard to like. Her cussing is a disservice to this story. Its a gimmick that doesn't add any value to the character. Many others characters seemed to take back seat as we learned more about the new memebers. I'm sorry, but Prax is a very uninteresting POV. Prax seemed like a more sympathetic reconstruction of Miller, but is almost one-dimensional compared to Miller. Some of the decision Prax makes are understandable, but the whole character is not compelling for some reason. Plot -> Here is the problem with this book. This plot is not very different from book 1. There is more "political" drama here, although that is not very interesting. Replace Miller with Prax, Julie with Mei, Fred with Avaserala and we are back to book 1. Even the villians are the same, which Amos acknowledges as a snarky comment at the end of this book. How is a kidnap-rescue a plot in The Expanse? I almost didn't want to get into the politics here, as I think James S. A. Corey is clearly not very good at writing interesting politics. We need to return to sci-fi world building, moral struggles and semi-rightenous crusades. Prose -> Very similar to book 1, but a slight step down in my opinion. World Building -> Excellent. Ganymede was so well flushed out. The orbital mechanics, the military world building takes a step up in this book. We learn more about earth and how the culture has changed there which is very intersting. Great!