The Consuming Fire

Executive Summary: Another fun book by Mr. Scalzi, although I wish it had been a bit longer.

Audiobook: Once again, John Scalzi and Wil Wheaton make a perfect fit. John Scalzi books are always full of snark, and Wil Wheaton is great at delivering it. He also does a few voices along the way that makes this a definite audio choice for me.

Full Review
I found the start of this book a little slow. I'm bad at names, so maybe I missed the significance later in the book, but I don't really get the point of the prologue. Once the story got back to the main characters of the first book however, I found it really enjoyable.

This series is the kind of character-driven space opera that I enjoy the most. There is just enough science there to make things interesting, but really it's all about the people and politics from a scientific crisis than about the science behind it.

Kiva continues to be my favorite character that Mr. Scalzi has written to date. Her chapters were again the ones I enjoyed the most in this book. She's still not a person that I'd probably get along with, but one I certainly find entertaining to read about.

I think Cardenia is now a close second. She's really coming into her own in this book. I really look forward to seeing where things go next. I don't want to get into specifics but people will continue to underestimate her at their own peril.

I liked Marce a lot more in this book than the previous one. His storyline was not at all what I was expecting and led to some very interesting developments that I wish were explored more in this book.

I always enjoy John Scalzi books, and this series so far has been one of my favorites. I am a bit concerned at how short this book was and how much their seems to be to wrap this series up in only one more book. He really expanded the plot a lot in this book. While this set things up nicely for the next book, I have concerns there will be a lot of loose ends to tie up.

Overall, another fun book in this series, and I'm eagerly looking forward to the next one.