Cibola Burn (The Expanse, 4)

Me: "I don't think I can hate a character more than I hated Ashford. Adolphus Murty: "Hold my beer."

It's been about two years since the end of Abaddon's Gate. The gates are opened and now there are thousands of new habitable planets up for grabs and a land rush has begun. Refugees from Ganymede have settled on one of the new planets they've named Ilus. But, when scientists and security forces attempt to land on the planet and claim dominion, things go from bad to worse fast. Holden is tasked by Avasarala and Fred Johnson to keep the peace and they find themselves caught between settlers who are trying to eek out a life in a new place and the company which owns the official claim. When a catastrophic event is compounded by the spread of a deadly disease and Detective Miller is back and need's Holden's help, it's a race against the clock to find a cure and safe everyone.

In addition to Holden, we have 3 new POV characters: Dimitri Havelock who was Detective Miller's partner back on Ceres and is now working for Royal Charter Energy aboard the Edwards Israel. Basia Merton, a welder from Ganymede who lost his son Katoa (who shared a rare genetic disorder with Pax's daughter Mei) who has come to Ilus in hopes of keeping his family safe. And lastly, Elvi Okoye who is a biologist from Earth who hopes to study New Terra, but who finds herself in the middle of a disaster she never expected.

This book is definitely telling a much smaller story; and a very human one. It's full of complicated and imperfect people, most of whom are doing the best they can with the hand they've been dealt. But, it's also about how easy it is to dehumanize your "enemy" in the pursuit of your own goals. And, those who are far more concerned with being right than doing what is right. "There was no point to the attack except spite and the kind of violence that passed for meaning in the face of despair."

Three Things:

1. Basia's story broke my heart. I can't imagine the pain of losing a child and then trying so hard to get your family to safety only to end up in another big mess. He made some bad choices - no doubt. But, given his anger and grief I also understand why he made them.
2. I really loved all the Holden/Amos interactions we got in this book. "'I also,' Holden continued, 'may have shoved him down and stolen his hand terminal.' 'Stop making me fall in love with you, Cap, we both know it can't go anywhere.'''
3. I loved Elvi and Fayez together. In my head, they are living happily ever after and nothing bad is ever going to happen to them again.

This series just keeps getting better and better. I can't wait to see what happens next.

The Expanse franchise - and make no mistake, it is a franchise - keeps rolling right along. Originally based on a video game, the Expanse now encompasses five novels (as I write this) with another four coming, several shorter pieces of fiction, and as most people know, an upcoming television series on the SyFy channel.

The train just keeps right on rolling, and I think deservedly so. There's a quote from George R. R. Martin on the front cover that says "Interplanetary adventure the way it ought to be written." While that's true, I think the statement could be modified to read "...the way it used to be written". I think a lot of us who have been reading science fiction for a very long time have lost the sense of wonder - probably due to age and becoming jaded more than anything else - and are glomming on to the Expanse as a return to their youth and what turned them on to the field in the first place. And while science fiction writing today is far superior and much more literary than what it was back in its infancy, it's good to go back to the kind of story that we grew up with. But the difference between the Expanse and stuff from the good old days is, in my opinion, the quality of writing. The Expanse is proof that you can have space opera adventure that is well written and that can stand up to the rest of the field.

CIBOLA BURN is the fourth novel in the series, and the first to take place outside the Solar System. The events of ABADDON'S GATE have, well, opened the gates to distant space and the thousands of new worlds that promise a new life for folks trying to start over. The novel takes place on one of these planets. Independent settlers have reached New Terra, and are starting new lives there. Royal Charter Energy, however, is the U.N. sanctioned settler of that planet, and a shuttle is getting ready to land. The settlers blow up the landing pad, taking the shuttle and the lives of several people on it, including that of the assigned planetary governor, with it. And thus, the conflict central to the novel, is set up. The settlers think the planet is rightfully theirs - they got there first and have been setting up their colony. RCE is sanctioned by the government back home, and so it legally claims the planet as theirs.

RCE and its security people view the settlers as terrorists, since many of RCE folks were killed in the shuttle explosion, and use a heavy hand in trying to take control of the planet. The settlers just want to live their lives in peace, but can't since RCE's security goon, Murtry does not hesitate to kill any settler who gets out of line. Things have gotten so out of control that the U.N. sends in a mediator.

What, you were wondering how James Holden and the crew of the Rocinante fit in to this? You mean you can't picture Holden as a mediator? That's alright, no one else can either.

Things don't start well when Holden meets the assembled group for the first time, and it really goes downhill from there. Tensions and violence escalate as neither side will give ground. And then things get worse. While all this action has been occurring, what has been relegated to the background - and maybe even forgotten - is the fact that the race that created the protomolecule (you remember the protomolecule, don't you?), the very race that closed the gates in an attempt to stop the race that was killing them from spreading throughout the galaxy, has a role in this story.

CIBOLA BURN is certainly a planetary colonization adventure story. It's also a study of human perseverance and struggle, and, eventually, of cooperation and compromise in the face of planetary disaster. It's also a story of romance, of family, and of caring people. We've never seen Jim Holden in this light before, trying to be a peacemaker rather than a rabblerouser - and he handles it really well. The rest of the crew of the Rocinante, while not banished to the background, do not play as big a role in this story as they have in the previous three books. But they are there, and they make important contributions. And let's not forget Miller. I'll leave the reader to figure out what's going on with Miller.

CIBOLA BURN is another worthy entry in the Expanse universe, and I'm told that the next novel, NEMESIS GAMES, is even better. I'm looking forward to seeing what Corey has in store for us there.

The fourth book in The Expanse series by James S.A. Corey, Cibola Burn, was released on June 17, 2014 and I devoured it in three days. Things are going well for Corey right now as earlier this year it was announced that SyFy has decided to make a television series out of The Expanse books, ordering a first season of 10 episodes, describing it as their "most ambitious" series and "Game of Thrones in space." Then, just a few weeks after Book 4 (Cibola Burn) of the series was published, they learned that Book 3 (Abaddon's Gate) won the prestigious Locus Award for Best Science Fiction. Other books that have won the Locus award include classics of the genre like Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov, Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis and 3 of the 4 books in the Hyperion cantos by Dan Simmons. Great company! As you can see from my review, Abaddon's Gate is a really good book, but the truth is that Cibola Burn is possibly even better!

Abaddon's Gate is like a roller-coaster, a thrilling ride that ends with an "oh ****!" sequence that completely upends the set of rules we thought the Universe was abiding by, opening up the story to dizzying set of possibilities. Cibola Burn is not as "big" a story as Abaddon's Gate, but it is even more suspenseful (which I did not even think was possible). Cibola Burn is really more like a very good Western. After the events of the previous book (spoiler alert), there are now thousands of star systems, with who knows how many habitable planets, for humanity to expand to. So, basically there is a land rush on, and Cibola Burn is set on Ilus, one of the first planets that has been colonized by former Belters (people who were born and raised in space, in the Asteroid Belts). However, a mega-corporation named Royal Charter Energy who gets a charter from the United Nations to explore the planet (which they call New Terra) and its resources (especially it's very import lithium deposits). But by the time the RCE ship gets there, Belter colonists have been there for more than a year and someone plants a bomb and destroys the landing pad, damaging the main shuttle, killing the official UN representative (and most importantly) preventing RCE from getting a secure foothold on the planet.

Because even the fastest ship would take the better part of a year or more to get to the planet (and even signals from Earth take several hours to be transmitted), the humans are on their own trying to settle what is essentially a property dispute in a jurisdiction where the rules are "TBD." This is basically a wild, wild west scenario. So, how will humans in the future advanced civilization deal with an uncivilized situation rife with conflict?

This is the powder keg that Corey has set up as the primary explosive force behind the plot developments. For the first time in the series, the entire book basically deals with problems pertaining to one planetary system. Although there's also a bunch of new characters, the people we have been following for four books: James Holden (captain of Rocinante), his lover (and Rocinante executive officer) Naomi Nagata, pilot Alex Kamal and chief engineer Amos Burton return and we get to learn a lot more about them. My favorite character in the series, Chrisjen Avarasala (the profane grandmother who basically is the most powerful person on Earth), has a too-brief cameo in the Epilogue chapter along with Bobbie Draper, the huge female Marine who is so important in Caliban's War.

In addition to these characters, there are new people in the story who we get point-of-view chapters from: Basia (a Belter colonist on Ilus who is a father of two teenagers a bit over his head), Elvi (a Earther scientist who is sent by RCE to investigate alien life on the planet and finds herself the subject of one of her own experiments) and Havelock (an Earther who is working in the security department on the RCE ship and has appeared in previous books in the series in more limited fashion). Of these my favorite was Elvi (demonstrating once again that the all-male duo that is James Corey can fully realize female characters with the best of them!) However, the most memorable new character is the villainous Adolphus Murtry, the chief of security on the RCE ship and who turns out to be a psychopath).

Amazingly, Holden is sent to Ilus to serve as a United Nations representative to mediate between two groups of people who feel like they can basically justify any action if it leads to their desired result of control over this new planet. Since we know from the first three books in the series that Holden is pretty headstrong himself (and diplomacy is not his strong suit) it should not come as a surprise that the situation on Ilus/New Terra (the warring factions can't even agree what to call it) goes from bad to worse. And then the crazy alien stuff starts happening.

In my opinion, Cibola Burn is the best story in the series so far. It is incredibly suspenseful and exciting. However, in terms of the overall Expanse series there is not much development in answering some of the larger questions of the series (except one very big event that happens towards the end of the book that I will not spoil for you here except to say that it involves the protomolecule from Leviathan Wakes) and that is somewhat disappointing but frankly I was so gripped by the overall story that I absolutely devoured the book (which is not small) in roughly two days of reading.

The only bad thing about finishing this book so quickly is now I have to wait almost an entire year until Book 5 comes out. But I am cheered by the news that the series has been expanded from the original trilogy to nine books. Let's hope the SyFy television series will be as successful!

Title: Cibola Burn. Author: James S.A. Corey. Paperback: 592 pages. Publisher: Orbit. Date Published: June 17, 2014. Date Read: June 20, 2014.

OVERALL GRADE: A/A- (3.83/4.0).

PLOT: A. IMAGERY: A-. IMPACT: A-. WRITING: A.