Cibola Burn

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 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.

Cibola Burn est le quatrième volume de de la saga de science-fiction The Expanse signée James S.A. Corey, le nom de plume du duo composé des auteurs Daniel Abraham et Ty Franck.

Il s'agit du roman qui sert de base à la quatrième saison, annoncée pour le 13 décembre prochain, de la série TV tirée de cette saga. J'ai donc découvert ce roman sans en connaitre à l'avance l'essentiel de l'intrigue, contrairement aux trois premiers tomes que j'ai lus en ayant déjà vu leur adaptation pour le petit écran.

L'intrigue tourne autour de la colonisation de New Terra, la première planète habitable découverte suite à l'ouverture des anneaux interstellaires à la fin du précédent roman. Une première vague de colons, des réfugiés de Ganymède qui ont erré de longs mois dans le système solaire pour être accueilli, en vain, afin de décider de s'installer sur New Terra quand l'existence de cette planète habitable a été installée. Depuis, une corporation a obtenu une concession des Nations Unies pour coloniser la planète et exploiter ses ressources naturelles.

Comme d'habitude avec The Expanse, ce roman se compose d'une cinquantaine de chapitres d'une dizaine de pages chacun, avec des personnages différents offrant autant de points de vue sur le récit :

- Basia Merton est un réfugié de Ganymède, membre du groupe des premiers colons sur sur New Terra, ou Ilus comme ils l'appellent ; avec son groupe d'amis, il refuse l'arrivée imminente de la corporation

- Elvi Okoye est une scientifique faisant partie de l'équipe envoyée par la corporation sur New Terra pour étudier la faune et la flore locale en vue de coloniser la planète

- Dmitri Havelock est le chef adjoint de la sécurité à bord du vaisseau de la corporation qui arrive en orbite de New Terra

- Evidemment, on retrouve une fois de plus James Holden, cette fois mandaté conjointement par les Nations Unies et l'OPA pour une mission de médiation afin d'éviter que la situation ne dégénère sur New Terra entre les premiers colons et les nouveaux arrivants

- Enfin, quelques chapitres, plus courts, donnent la parole à Joe Miller, ou plutôt l'avatar du défunt détective, tel qu'il a été recréé par la proto-molécule pour dialoguer avec Holden

Ce qui m'a d'abord plu dans ce roman, en plus de son thème qui me semblait prometteur, c'est que certains protagonistes ont des liens avec des personnages rencontrés dans les tomes précédents. Ainsi, Basia était un ami de Prax dans le deuxième tome, nous avions alors eu l'occasion de le rencontrer brièvement, avec la mort de son fils dans la laboratoire secret où était également détenu la fille de Prax. Havelock était quant à lui le partenaire de Joe Miller quand celui-ci travaillait encore pour Star Helix sur Ceres. Ce sont des rappels qui font plaisir quand on suit une saga comme The Expanse avec une multitude de personnages qu'on suit le temps d'un roman mais qu'on abandonne parfois sans les revoir.

Malgré ce point plutôt sympathique, je dois dire que j'ai eu un peu de mal à entrer dans le roman. Alors que j'en étais à la moitié, je me disais que c'était plaisant à lire mais que ça trainait un peu en longueur. J'espérais que la deuxième moitié serait à la hauteur des promesses à la fin du tome précédent.

Malheureusement, la suite ne m'a pas plus enchanté, et le roman m'a globalement déçu.

J'ai notamment trouvé que l'antagoniste principal, dont on devine d'ailleurs très vite qu'il le sera quand on le rencontre, est stéréotypé. C'est le chef de la sécurité de l'expédition lancée par la corporation, il représente le symbole de l'avidité sans fin des multinationales qui négligent volontairement l'impact humain de leurs choix, mais c'est fait sans nuance, le personnage ne semble être présent que pour sa fonction et n'existe pas vraiment en tant qu'être humain.

J'ai également eu l'impression que les auteurs ne savaient pas trop quoi faire de certains personnages secondaires. C'est particulièrement le cas de l'équipage du Roccinante, le vaisseau de James Holden. Si Naomi a droit à une certaine place dans le récit, avec un peu d'action, Amos et surtout Alex, le pilote, font plutôt de la figuration et leur présence n'apporte pas grand chose au récit. Ils m'ont semblé être comme des bagages que les auteurs étaient contraints de faire apparaître sans savoir comment les utiliser.

J'ai tout de même admiré la capacité des auteurs à disperser les personnages à plusieurs endroits pour nous faire vivre l'action depuis différents points de vue, en faisant rebondir le récit d'un chapitre à l'autre et en limitant les angles morts. La gestion du rythme et du suspense est toujours aussi bonne, même si j'imagine que cette construction très américaine du roman peut gêner certains tant elle semble artificielle.

J'ai aussi apprécié les thèmes abordés par les auteurs, même s'ils sont si nombreux qu'on a parfois du mal à comprendre de quoi ils veulent vraiment nous parler. Cela commence comme un roman sur la colonisation, la nouvelle frontière, l'impérialisme, le terrorisme, puis on bascule dans le thriller médical avec des organismes locaux qui menacent les colons, avant de revenir au coeur de la saga : la découverte de la technologie dont la proto-molécule est issue, et ses effets le destin de l'espèce humaine. Tout est plutôt bon, mais l'ensemble manque un peu de cohérence.

Enfin, j'ai beaucoup aimé l'épilogue, qui reprend un peu de recul par rapport au récit sur Ilus / New Terra et permet d'espérer une suite plus palpitante.

Mon impression après avoir refermé ce livre est donc mitigée : cela reste bon, mais à mes yeux ce n'est clairement pas du même niveau que les précédents volumes. Pour moi, c'est sans hésitation le moins bon des quatre premiers tomes de The Expanse. J'espère que le prochain, le cinquième de la série, saura m'émerveiller à nouveau.

I'm not sure if these are getting less fun to read or if I'm expecting more fast passed and energetic stories. I find it hard to read through the detailed parts of the story. My mind has already constructed the scene and I just skim through the plot beats and get to the dialog. So far to me they have been getting steadily worse. I'll take a break and come back to the rest later.

A very enjoyable read with a more focused plot. The action is basically in one place, surrounding a group of people and three ships orbiting everything.
A new planet with a breathable atmosphere: who doesn't want to give it a try? And who owns it? Who can have the right to explore its resources? Who can research it? Who can give it a name? How to use natural resources to feed everybody?
All these questions are intertwined in this story in a masterful way inspired by the old known power struggles of colonization and its dangers. But in space!
One of my favourite books in the series because it has the perfect balance between action and inner reflection from the characters.

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.

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.

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.

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.

  There is really nothing like reading “The Expanse”.  Fantasy has always been my favorite genre in part because good fantasy makes you feel like you're on a wonderful theme-park ride full of exhilarating moments that allow you to truly immerse yourself in the experience.  Prior to reading “The Expanse” series I had never found a sci-fi book that made me feel the same way, but this series is just so much fun.  The characters are enjoyable and complex.  The setting is well-designed and immersive.  And its big setpieces and moments are done just so well.  Last year I eagerly devoured the first three books in the series and I was very excited to read the fourth in anticipation of what would come next after Abaddon's Gate left off with a lot of interesting possibilities.  I am pleased to say that Cibola Burn manages to not only meet the expectations set by its predecessors, but exceed them.    Cibola Burn is like its predecessors in many ways.  It has a few holdovers from the previous books in Holden and his crew while introducing new characters that are relevant to the situation they find themselves in.  Things go really bad for a while before Holden is able to somehow save the day.  Along the way there is a ton of action, some really strong moments, some badass dialogue and a few moral questions are asked of the reader.  All of this is pretty simple but this series just makes these tropes WORK.  Is some of Holden's plot armor/competence/sheer luck bullshit? Absolutely, but I don't care because I want him and the crew of the Rocinante to succeed time and time again.  The book is also just super well-written.  It is a big book (almost 600 pages) and yet it paces itself in a way that allows tons of things to happen while also having these things mean something.  Some authors fall into the trap of having constant action without any moments where the story just breathes, but the authors behind “The Expanse” know how to make each moment count.  It's a genuine skill and I think it's a major reason why these books succeed the way they do.    While much of Cibola Burn's quality can be talked about in conjunction with its predecessors, it also has a number of strong attributes on its own.  The setting of New Terra is truly fantastic and feels like a new fantasy world.  It's the best ‘ground' setting in “The Expanse”.  It also features a number of strong characters that didn't exist in the first three books, namely Elvi and Murtry.  The reintroduction of Havelock was also a nice surprise.  I hope he kind of takes Miller's place now that Miller seems to be totally out of the picture.   All in all, Cibola Burn is a very worthy entry into “The Expanse” series.  Up next is Nemesis Games.  When I first started “The Expanse”, a common thing I heard was that the series didn't get really good until 4-5 books in.  Given how much I've liked the first four books, I'm sure Nemesis Games will blow my mind. 

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.