Cibola Burn

Continuing to enjoy the series, which is rare for me.

Leviathan Wakes ???????????????Caliban's War ???????????????Abaddon's Gate ???????????????Cibola Burn ???????????????

Another solid installment in The Expanse series.

I really love the sensation of sinking into another one of these books, where I know that there is going to be 500 pages of well written, enjoyable science fiction following a main cast of characters I know and enjoy reading about. It's like putting on your favourite clothes again, or watching a favourite tv show. Obviously things change, and stakes are higher in the next book, but there are many constant qualities to the series that keep the engagement high.

In this book, a new world has been colonised by two opposing parties and Holden has been tasked with keeping the peace. As with each book, there are some guest POVs introduced that keep the story feeling fresh. The stakes in this book felt the highest, and the story the most intimate. The majority of the story was set on one planet with a cast of characters who were in much closer contact than ususal. Obviously being set across the expanse of space, in previous books a lot of our characters were interacting through video chat or sending messages. With the main conflict being on the surface of this planet, it really changed up how the characters interacted. And when stakes were raised for survival on the alien planet, it affected majority of the characters in the book. I really enjoyed reading this one, and I'm looking forward to the next one in the series.

The series continues to be good fun. This specific installation has a middle that's a bit slow, possibly on purpose, but if you reach past the bump, the pace picks back up.

The authors are relentlessly exploring the consequences of the world-changing events that happen basically in every book of the series, without shying from big, sweeping changes. Quite the contrary, they lean in and really go for it: suddenly there's a new Frontier? Guess what, Land Rush happens!

In more than a way, this book plays on the isolation and the lawlessness of the life in the newly colonized Frontier: what do the laws of civilized society really mean, when that civlilized society is something like 3 years away?

I'm not sure I finished this on a previous read as most of it didn't seem familiar.
It's a little long. I'm a plot person so all the character development was a little tedious.
Now off to the next one.

Von vielen als “schlechtester Teil der Reihe” angesehen, war ich trotzdem positiv überrascht. Schon deswegen weil Band 3 durchaus “schlimmer” war.
Die Geschichte hat mich etwas an eine Firefly Episode erinnert. Kolonisten, Wüstensettings, Killerschnecken ... Ok, die Killerschnecken waren zuviel. Ebenso das geradezu Comic-esque, übertrieben böse und nicht nachvollziehbare Verhalten des Antagonisten.
Ansonsten fand ich nur die Perspektive der Elvi unnötig, deren größtes Problem sich scheinbar darauf bezogen hat dass sie “untervögelt” war. Kein Witz. Facepalm
Bin jedenfalls sehr gespannt auf Band 5.

A change of pace, but unlike the previous book in the series, it's an enjoyable one. The new characters don't live up to the first two books, but they're not a bore to read. The scary alien stuff is back to being scary. I'm looking forward to the next book.

I swear, this series just keeps getting better and better. I always find myself wondering what type of chemistry the story will take, and how they can up the stakes, and these guys never disappoint. The authors seriously know what they're doing with sci-fi. The environment is different than it has been in previous books, and the levels of danger are higher. Despite Caliban's War having my favourite character extras, I would say this is my favourite book to date. Can't wait for the next!

Another excellent story in the series! The one less-than-stellar part for me was the “battle” scenes involving Miller, Elvi, and the whatever it was supposed to be. I found that section difficult to follow and to understand what the whatever it was even consisted of. But, as usual, the plot, characters, and pacing of the story were far superior to most other works, especially in series as long as this one.

Another great adventure with our space friends! As always, it could have used more Naomi, Chrisjen, and Bobbie but I'm hopeful for more of the last two in upcoming book.

pretty similar to the book before, but not in a bad way, probably my least favourite as it has lots of filler, but still some good foreshadowing.

I thoroughly enjoyed Cibola Burn. I think it may be my highest rated “Expanse” novel aside from Book #3, Abaddon's Gate. This might seem strange, since perusing some found reviews on the Internet seems to suggest that CB has an unfortunate reputation. Part of me wonders if this is due to the audiobook being read by a different narrator... and I know that changing voices halfway through a series could be admittedly jarring. Luckily, I came to the book just in time for the new recording by the narrator of the rest of the series (Jefferson Mays). The other part of me wonders if it's due to the change in setting - as this is the first novel not set (mostly) in space, but planetside. Honestly, I found this change refreshing, and almost necessary to keep my engagement. I like the gentle reintroduction of past characters, and the use of brand new ones. It feels like the story is progressing nicely from book to book, and suddenly I find myself wondering about the setting of Book #5.

This book was great, I felt that the three previous books just set the stage for this: an awesome alien world, getting there, strained politics that makes everyone angry.

This was the Expanse version of a “ship in a bottle episode”, although with enough new characters introduced that some might quibble with that description. But compared to the other books in the series, this one just didn't have the scope or depth that I've come to love (and, I guess, expect) from James SA Corey.

It was still a fun novel to read, though, and I think that if it hadn't come on the heels of a book as good as Abbadon's Gate I probably would have enjoyed it more.

I love this series, but I was quite disappointed in this instalment. So much unfulfilled promise, and not to mention the worst female character ever written :(

Spent the entire second half of the novel wanting to punch the antagonist in the face...

I could not really say what this book was about, and I didn't enjoy the new characters as much as the ones in the previous books. Still enjoying the universe, and will likely pick up book five when I get a chance, but no top marks from me for this particular one.

This is the fourth instalment of the series and after a slight dip at the end of the last it's back to its best. It was great to read about the small group of characters again and their story was both enthralling and funny. Can't wait to read the next one!

Four books deep into the Expanse series and the ideas are all coming together and the depth of this universe is really starting to sink in. The duo known as James SA Corey have truly created something special in this series, although there were things about Cibola Burn that didn't quite click as well as the past books in the series.

The first thing is the characters that were introduced in this book were not exactly great. They weren't bad, but we've kind of reached a point where the readers are all so invested in Holden, Naomi, Amos and Alex that it's natural to want to see more of them.

Mix in the fact that there were characters introduced in the second and third books that deserve another spin (Chrisjen, Bobbie, Anna, etc.). From what we can tell, we'll probably get back into their heads in the fifth installment, which is cool, but in Cibola Burn in particular the characters really felt like they were there just to bring the reader to the crew of the Rocinante to keep them front and center.

Each character had their strengths, for sure. It was nice to get some time with Havelock considering that Miller is still floating around as a servant of the protomolecule, but Elvi and Basia had a glimmer of hope of being interesting but tended to fall a bit flat and served just to end up being links to the crew. This brings up a point that I've seen floating around that if they are going to simply create characters whose sole purpose is to help us keep tabs on the crew, why not just get inside of the crew?

It feels late to get POVs from Amos, Naomi and Alex, but Elvi and Basia were good characters that could have been a lot better if we didn't have to inhabit their thoughts. Murtry – our villain – border-lined on ridiculous at times in how dastardly and uncaring he was. While I understand that he's supposed to be a counterpoint to Holden, his motivations were so over-the-top and thin at times that he fell flat. A lot of that probably had to do with how fleshed out Melba was before or even the evil corporations we've had in the past.

RCE didn't feel like an evil monolith, which is good, but Murtry was almost trying to make them into one, which was weird.

The general premise was solid, because we saw what the protomolecule did to the worlds that it inhabited through the gates, hinting that Earth was destined to be one of these thousand worlds reachable by gate to be strip-mined for resources, but it never got that far due to the mysterious alien power that caused the creators of the protomolecule to shut down the gates. We also saw how ridiculous humanity can be in drawing lines in the sand as well as the challenges of humanity expanding to other worlds.

Of course, a lot of what happened in this book felt almost like it was jammed in there to make for a full length novel, with the weird side plots. I'm talking about killer slugs, blinding rain, natural disasters and ships falling out of orbit. They all demonstrated what could and probably will go wrong on these planets that are accessible via the gates, but we were approaching biblical plague levels of fatigue here.

Still absolutely a fun book and I'm looking forward to the rest, but probably the weakest of the bunch. They can't all be winners and I'm okay with that.

Mediocre, although interesting, just mediocre. It seems more and more this series ends will end up in episodic books where the main cast all survive somehow magically and nothing really happens. But lets hope for something better in the next book.

Do� I recommend it thought? If you really liked the other ones and have nothing else to read then yes, else no.

The expanse! As an almost western! I'm torn on this addition to the Expanse, because while it was decent enough in its own right, it did very little for expanding our understanding of the Expanse universe. So - new readers will enjoy it, but existing readers won't gain much new from it. 3.5 stars, but on a generous round-up.

“(En ‘t zou mij ook niet verbazen dat er een film of zo van komt.)” schreef ik vorig jaar, en kijk: ondertussen is Expanse al een semi-franchise geworden: er is een bestelling voor dacht ik negen boeken en is er sprake van een film en een tv-serie.

Helaas: het is er aan te lezen.

Niet dat dit geen onderhoudend boek is dat ik op een dag uitgelezen heb, niet dat ik er spijt van heb dat ik het gelezen heb, en niet dat ik de volgende boeken plots niet meer zou kopen of lezen, maar: dit voelt meer als een routine-procedural aan dan de vorige drie boeken. Ik heb de indruk dat we van dit kaliber nog gemakkelijk een aantal boeken zouden kunnen krijgen: ergens een conflict met wortels in de tegenstellingen Aarde/Mars/Outer Planet Alliance, James Holden en zijn kompanen komen er aan, één of meer eendimensionale onredelijk slechte slechteriken, hier en daar een personage dat een beetje meer uitgediept is kwestie van tearjerk-momenten te kunnen hebben en op het einde winnen James Holden en kompanen, dat alles doorspekt met een paar glimpsen van verdwenen aliens, een paar glimpsen van het standpunt van andere niet-echt-verdwenen aliens, en een paar glimpsen Realpolitik uit de cenakels van de mach op Aarde/Mars/Outer Planet Alliance.

Het was hier namelijk precies zo:

• De mensheid heeft sinds kort toegang tot duizenden Aarde-achtige bewoonbare planeten.


• Een aantal mensen van de Outer Planets (belters genaamd, gewoon om in ruimtestations te werken op en rond asteroïden, manen, planetoïden etc. verder dan Mars) hebben een land grab gedaan op een planeet die zij Ilus noemen.


• Royal Charter Energy (RCE), een groot bedrijf van op Aarde, heeft van de VN een concessie gekregen om diezelfde planeet, die zij New Earth noemen, te exploiteren.


• Conflict, want de belters waren er eerst. Gevolg: terrorisme-achtige dingen.


• VN stuurt Jim Holden om te  bemiddelen.


• Slechte slechterik van dienst Murtry, chef van de veiligheidsdiensten aan boord van de Edward Israel, het ruimteschip van RCE, is onredelijk slecht. De zaken escaleren.


• Plots gebeurt er iets dat te maken heeft met aliens die al miljarden jaren verdwenen zijn.




• Happy end.

lange

plot armour

The Expanse is probably my favorite modern Sci-Fi series. I fell in love with Leviathan Wakes, and it just hasn't stopped. Cibola Burn definitely does justice to the characters I've come to love, entrenching them in conflicts new and familiar alike. By far my favorite aspect is the relationship between Holden and “Miller” and I was extremely sad to see that it is more or less ended. The dialogue is, as usual, snappy and funny and absolutely will translate well into the tv series (Please be good to this one, Syfy... just... be good). The Peril quota is off the charts as the entire crew of the Rocinante and everyone they encounter utterly fails to catch a single break throughout the entire book.

I didn't like this book quite as much as Abaddon's Gate if only because these the human-generated peril situations that occur are so deeply frustrating. We sit there, like Holden, seeing what needs to be done and just getting knotted up in ego, bureaucracy, and neurotoxic slugs. It's a feeling I'm too familiar with in my daily life (except the neurotoxic slug part) and the idea that we are all wasting time trying to get through the day when bigger issues are looming uncomfortably close hits pretty close to home. Murtry's single minded obsession with his way or the highway stretches a bit further than I can personally conceive, but that doesn't mean it isn't a real possibility.

We get a slew of new viewpoint characters in this one and cameos by some old favorites. Of these, I found Elvi the hardest to read (probably the most traditional “girl” character the Corey team have ever done and thus a little hard for me to stomach) and Havelock's the most compelling. Havelock's perspective is the only reason I'm able to take any of the RCE's team actions as logical possibilities for this situation, and he provides a much needed justification for the “evil corporation.”

For fans of the Expanse, definitely lives up to its predecessors. For non-fans of the Expanse, please go read the Expanse. I'm excited to see it hinted that Bobbie is going to feature in the next book, and I'm cautiously hopeful about the Expanse tv series. I just wish we could pull the cast of Firefly to fill in the Rocinante's crew. Also, if anyone on Etsy is making Rocinante crew apparel, I'd like some please.

In this the fourth installment of James S.A. Corey's Expanse series, Holden and the crew of the Rocinante have another mission. This time it looks simple enough. Holden is tasked with mediating a dispute between squatters on a new planet and the company that has the right to exploiting that planet. Of course things soon go bad. First, the dispute turns bloody, and then things go from bad to worse as the planet itself starts waking up – violently. Soon Holden & Co. find themselves once more in a do-or-die situation.
Good book.

Executive Summary: I still feel that that this book was very different from the rest of the series to me. I found it much more enjoyable on my reread than I did the first time, but I still consider it the weakest book in the series.Audiobook: So one of the things I worry about with digital media beyond DRM is that you don't really own things. Here is a good example. They re-recorded this book and instead of the Erik Davies version I originally listened to, I now have the Jefferson Mays version.Thankfully I'm happy about that, but I'm still concerned I didn't get a choice to swap versions. I worry the same thing will happen with [b:The Martian 18007564 The Martian Andy Weir https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1413706054l/18007564.SY75.jpg 21825181] where I like the original narration.In this case I think the Jefferson Mays version is far superior. I'm not sure why I didn't like him when I first did this series, but I think he's a pretty great narrator. It could also be that he's gotten better as he went along and now I just tend to lump all his performances together.If nothing else, it's nice to have all of the books narrated by the same person.Full ReviewSo for the first 3 books of the series I haven't been bothering to update my reviews. I think I enjoyed those books on first read, and reread simply confirmed my first impressions. This book however I like much more on my reread than the first time. There are a lot of factors at play here. 1) It's been 7 years and 1 global pandemic since I first read the book. 2) The book has been adapted into a TV show that I enjoyed 3) They re-recorded the book with the normal narrator.It's hard for me to decide which of those factors played the largest role, but I suspect the answer is some of all 3.I still found parts of this slow and I still found that some of the characters felt more like camera than actual characters I cared about or rooted for.But I was far more interested in how the events unfolded this time. And while I feel like Murtery was an over the top asshole, I've come to realize just how many Murtery's there are in the world.Elvi's lovesick subplot was still annoying, but didn't feel as pronounced as I remember it. I thought Havelock and Basia were both still pretty unlikeable early on, but I found more nuance in my second reading than I picked up on the first time.Overall I feel like this book is largely a side story that sets the stage for far bigger events in the next book. The epilogue is an excellent summary of the novel, and kind of feel like the bulk of the story could have been a novella instead. That said, I still enjoyed it, and thought it was a much better read the second time around.————–Original Review—————Executive Summary: This one felt very different from the rest of the series to me. Whether or not that is a good thing will largely depend on the reader I suspect.Audiobook: Erik Davies is OK. Originally I was pretty indifferent about the narrator change for this book. I was never particularly attached to Jefferson Mays. I had sort of of hoped that as this was the first book released in hardcover maybe the change was due to them getting a better reader. Turns out that wasn't the case. For the most part he's not worse than Mr. Mays, just different. However Mr. Mays at least did a few accents and Mr. Davies seemed to only have a Russian accent and spoke with no accent for Avasarala, which just seemed to really annoy me.If this wasn't a series that I thought made for an easy to follow audiobook, I'd probably consider switching to reading it for book 5. Who knows though, maybe he'll grow on me.Full ReviewThis is a hard review for me to write. I spent a good portion of it annoyed at the book. That would make it sound like I didn't like it, but that's not the case.I've always been more of a Star Trek fan than dystopian sci-fi fan. When it comes to Space Opera, I like politics and war at a higher level. Large factions feuding over planets and ideals.For me the first three books really sort of fell more into this. This book however felt much lower level. The politics of the first three books serve as the basis for things. There has always been discrimination between the belters and the inner planets, but never has it been so central to the conflict as in this book.That may appeal to some reasons, for me it mostly made me uncomfortable and mad. Not at the book or the authors, but the characters. I think most authors would be happy to evoke strong emotions in their readers, but for me personally I generally don't like to spend my recreation time angry.As seems to be par for the course, we get a bunch of brand new POV characters this go around, save for James Holden. Two of them are minor characters from previous novels. First there is Havelock, who was Miller's Earther partner in [b:Leviathan Wakes 8855321 Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse, #1) James S.A. Corey https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1411013134l/8855321.SY75.jpg 13730452], and Basia who was a friend of Prax on Ganymede in [b:Caliban's War 12591698 Caliban's War (The Expanse, #2) James S.A. Corey https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1407572377l/12591698.SY75.jpg 17606541]. This is rounded out by an Elvi, a human scientist.I didn't like any of them, especially Elvi. I think she is the weakest female character they've written yet. I still wish they'd bring back Bobbie and Avasarala (thankfully there looks to be potential for this in book 5). I loved them so much that everyone else seem to disappoint me. I felt Anna in [b:Abaddon's Gate 16131032 Abaddon's Gate (The Expanse, #3) James S.A. Corey https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1407572059l/16131032.SY75.jpg 17606564] was already a step down, but still likeable. Elvi was another step in the wrong direction for me as well.So you have a bunch of characters you don't really like in what to me felts like a side story for most of the book. They do stupid and hateful things to one another. I know the types of people portrayed in this book exist in the world. Maybe they once existed in greater numbers. Maybe I'm just sheltered or fortunate not to run into these kinds of people on a regular basis.The whole thing just made no sense to me. Everyone's actions were stupid. I was especially bothered that many of the Engineers were the worst. Most of the engineers I know are very logical and well thought out in their actions. Sure there are exceptions to that, but this seemed to flip that on their head.I despised Murtry, head of the Earther's security and all around asshole. I'm pretty sure that was the point. The problem was I didn't feel like I had anything to root for. I spent most of the book wishing Holden and his crew would just leave and go do something else that was related to the protomolecule and the developments from [b:Abaddon's Gate 16131032 Abaddon's Gate (The Expanse, #3) James S.A. Corey https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1407572059l/16131032.SY75.jpg 17606564].Overall this book seemed to focus on the worse things that humanity is capable of. Discrimination and pointless violence. Spending way too much time and energy trying to kill one another when there are far larger problems to worry about.Despite this, I ended up enjoying the book. I found it hard to turn off when it was time to stop listening. I'm still not sure how they pulled that off. Eventually I did find myself liking Havelock and Basia more though. Elvi still felt like she was there to serve at a 4th “camera” most of the time. She was important to the plot, but I just never grew attached to her I guess.I enjoyed the final quarter of the book a lot more than the first three. We eventually get some development of things with the protomolecule, though not as much as I would have preferred. I just really enjoy spending time with the crew of the Rocinante, no matter what's going on.With the announcement of 3 more books, I worry things will be drawn out too much. Personally I'd like the protomolecule story arc to get wrapped up by book 6, and have the three new books be a completely new story arc. Time will tell what happens. Either way I'll be eagerly picking up book 5 when it comes out.

Humanity has ventured outside of our solar system for the first time. Unfortunately we are still humans and we seem to have a tendency to bring out the worst in each other when given the opportunity.We will still be petty even when we have reached, and started to colonise, space. Thousands of new worlds have opened up to humanity thanks to the gate opened in [b:Abaddon's Gate 16131032 Abaddon's Gate (Expanse, #3) James S.A. Corey https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388202946s/16131032.jpg 17606564]. The first of these new planets about to be officially colonized by humans have already been settled by a group of Belters looking for a new home. Since they don't have an official approval to settle on said planet the company who does, wishes them to leave. Before they can sit down and resolve this some of the Belters blow up the landing pad and an incoming shuttle.To stop this from escalating James Holden and the Rocinante is sent in as mediators. And there may be something left behind by the aliens, who built the gate and the protomolecule, still on the planet.The book is a really great read, one that's hard to put down because you have to know what will happen next. Even if you hate the description of some of the humans actions because it seems far too likely that those would be the actions of some of us.There are bright points though. The crew of the Rocinante is still trying to do the right thing even if it costs them, and not every human in the book is looking out only for themselves (or their employer). Several people realise that maybe, working together is the better solution to their problems.The fact that the planet is located 18 months travel away from Earth also gives everything a more urgent feeling. Help won't be able to get there in a timely manner. When things go wrong they only have each other to lean on. Which you think they would do...Hmm, not a very coherent review.