James Holden – Tyson Adams

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Take my love, take my land.
Take me where I cannot stand.
I don’t care, I’m still free.
You can’t take the sky from me.
No parallels at all.

The Free Navy have demolished Earth. They’ve taken over the system with their surprise attack utilising the latest Martian technology. Now Earth and Mars are fighting back. Cracks are appearing in the Free Navy’s plans, like the fact that they have wiped out food production and have 3 years left before humanity collapses. Great time for Marco – hubristic leader of the Free Navy – to pursue his grudge against Holden, Naomi, and the rest of the Rocinante crew.

I’ve been looking forward to reading Babylon’s Ashes since finishing Nemesis Games. The staging of a war, the political conflicts, the host of interesting and complicated characters; this was set to be a ripper of a novel. So I was a little disappointed and found myself plodding through some of the story.

This was partly my own fault, as I have less concentrated reading time currently. When I did get quality reading time the book was as entertaining as anything in this series. It was also partly that the character of Marco Inaros was fully revealed for a narcissistic authoritarian populist who is more intent on punishing minor sleights than running the galaxy (gee, wonder if he’s modelled after any particular political leader). It didn’t help that there was a tinsy bit of plot contrivance – albeit one that has had quite a bit of setup – in the final moments of the plot.

Despite these points, I did actually enjoy Babylon’s Ashes. It wasn’t the strongest instalment in The Expanse, but this still remains a stellar series.

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Book review: Cibola Burn by James SA Corey

Cibola Burn by James S.A. Corey
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“I’m gonna need to shoot that guy at some point,” Ahhh, Mondays.

Book 4 of The Expanse series has Holden and the Rocinante crew sent to a new solar system as UN Negotiators. Displaced Belters have taken up residence on a newly discovered planet through one of the Stargates (they’ll always be Stargates to me), only to have an RCE research vessel arrive, necessitating Holden and Amos to smooth things out. They get along as well as you’d expect, but their conflict is the least of their problems.

Cibola Burn thoroughly impressed me. At a stage in the series where the quality would usually take a nosedive, James SA Corey has managed to keep it onwards and upwards. Part of this is giving us a great villain in Murtry; someone who is the antagonist but not necessarily the bad guy. The other part is that Corey’s plots are much more extensive than you initially expect. I’ve seen other reviewers complain about this aspect, in that the story starts off headed in one direction but ends up going somewhere else entirely. But I see this as a strength and a justification for a novel that cracks 600 pages.

I enjoyed Cibola Burn more than Abaddon’s Gate – although it was still a great read – and there are no signs that this series will rest on its laurels. I started the next instalment, Nemesis Games, immediately after finishing Cibola Burn: that should tell you everything you need to know.

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Book Review: Abaddon’s Gate by James SA Corey

Abaddon’s Gate by James S.A. Corey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When most people die in space from sudden deceleration you’d think they’d install some airbags in spaceships. Safety first!

The third Expanse novel by James Corey sees Holden and his crew being manipulated into starting an interplanetary war. Since they now have a Stargate – I assume that name isn’t trademarked, or at least the Goa’uld won’t blast me for using it – the interplanetary war threatens to become an intergalactic war. Although war isn’t the correct term for advanced intelligences fighting people, the correct term would be genocide. Let’s see Holden talk his way out of this one.

Abaddon’s Gate was another great instalment in the Expanse series. The core characters are back and continuing to be grown and layered. The new viewpoint characters are also interesting, although they aren’t anywhere near as cool as Avasarala, a character that won’t be topped any time soon. The story also went in directions I wasn’t expecting, mainly due to the complex layering of plots. I’m tempted to call this the most ambitious of the Expanse novels so far, but my memory could just be on the fritz.

I’ve seen a few other reviews that suggested events and characters were a little too conveniently manoeuvred into place. I’d say the opposite is true and indicates that people will have to pay attention to the story and character developments. Some people clearly got a little lost.

Cibola Burn should be interesting now that they have the Stargate system to explore. I’m sure humans will try to make a mess of that somehow.

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Book Review: Caliban’s War by James SA Corey

Caliban’s War by James S.A. Corey
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Sometimes in a novel when you go down the well you have to put the lotion on your skin, other times you’re travelling back to Earth. The latter; this one is the latter.

James Holden and his crew of the Rocinante are back again serving as an ad hoc belter law enforcement when they are sent to investigate an incident on Ganymede. Things quickly circle the drain from there as the war between Earth, Mars, and The Belt threatens to start again at any moment. Oh, and Venus is now under alien control. Fun times.

This is the second novel in The Expanse series by James SA Corey (aka Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck) and as a sequel to Leviathan Wakes it delivers. I thoroughly enjoyed the further adventures of the Rocinante crew, but the new characters of Bobbie, Prax and Avasarala only added to fuel to the fire. Avasarala in particular is a great character to follow, making the political side to the story palatable (Avasarala is portrayed by Shohreh Aghdashloo in the TV series, and I’m sure the writers had her in mind when the character was created).

I guess that means it is time to start reading the third novel in this series. Tough job but someone has to do it.

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