Name: David Sheley's review of Caliban's War by James S. A. Corey
Item: Caliban's War
Rating: 5
Author: David Sheley

James S. A. Corey

For someone who didn't intend to wreck the solar system's fragile balance of power, Jim Holden did a pretty good job of it. While Earth and Mars have stopped shooting each other, the core alliance is shattered. The outer planets and the Belt are uncertain in their new - possibly temporary - autonomy. Then, on one of Jupiter's moons, a single super-soldier attacks, slaughtering soldiers of Earth and Mars indiscriminately and reigniting the war. The race is on to discover whether this is the vanguard of an alien army, or if the danger lies closer to home.

Caliban's War

David Sheley

Serge L

A strong follow up to the first book. Watching the characters, the world and the stakes evolve with each book has been a captivating experience. The shifts in perspective and additional new characters really help expand the scope of the story. The most impressive element is that even with such scope, the stories feel contained and manageable within the world that is adopted as the future version of our own.

NOW A PRIME ORIGINAL SERIES Caliban's War is the second book in the New York Times bestselling Expanse series. For someone who didn't intend to wreck the solar system's fragile balance of power, Jim Holden did a pretty good job of it. While Earth and Mars have stopped shooting each other, the core alliance is shattered. The outer planets and the Belt are uncertain in their new - possibly temporary - autonomy. Then, on one of Jupiter's moons, a single super-soldier attacks, slaughtering soldiers of Earth and Mars indiscriminately and reigniting the war. The race is on to discover whether this is the vanguard of an alien army, or if the danger lies closer to home. The Expanse series has sold over two million copies worldwide and is now a major television series. The Expanse series: Leviathan Wakes Caliban's War Abaddon's Gate Cibola Burn Nemesis Games Babylon's Ashes Persepolis Rising Praise for the Expanse: 'The science fictional equivalent of A Song of Ice and Fire' NPR Books 'As close as you'll get to a Hollywood blockbuster in book form' io9.com 'Great characters, excellent dialogue, memorable fights' wired.com 'High adventure equalling the best space opera has to offer, cutting-edge technology and a group of unforgettable characters . . . Perhaps one of the best tales the genre has yet to produce' Library Journal 'This is the future the way it's supposed to be' Wall Street Journal 'Tense and thrilling' SciFiNow

Book 2 of the Expanse (now a Prime Original series)

Luke Harkness

Another fantastic sci-fi epic

The second book in a series is always the decider as to whether you're going to carry on with it. The first book introduces you to the characters and where things are headed and the second book has to not only introduce new intriguing characters for you to love, but also continue on the story with an interesting plot that further envelops you in the world you spent a whole book falling in love with. This book does that. I love the characters more. New great characters have been introduced and the interesting story that emerged in the first book has continued and got even more interesting for the third!

A really good, well-paced space whodunnit.

Frederik De Bosschere

Matt Stein

My review: https://mattstein.com/books/calibans-war

Gavin

A very close redux of the first book, but without this being annoying (like Leviathan Wakes it has: a lost child as Macguffin, a dastardly black-lab Earth conspiracy, and Holden blabbing way too much on every frequency). Highly readable, went through it in two sittings.

A new character, Prax, is even more annoying and Hollywood-emotional than Holden, which might be intentional to make us disdain Holden less. Villains were sketched extremely roughly: there's actually barely any scenes with them. 

How does it do as Serious science fiction?

 Social development: Very little. Same political structures, similar international antipathies. There's UBI and a world government on Earth but no sign of the associated efficiencies or psychological gains. There's one polyamorous commune mentioned.

 Software development: Basically none. People still dock spaceships by hand, which we've left behind. Naomi hacks on "basically all" of the milspec software on the Rocinante, which is impossible to do safely with current tooling.

 Actual Science: there is serious air and food scarcity in the outer planets, which is good. The heroic vigilante mission is shown being crowdsourced, which is charming.

Ryan LaFerney

Caliban's War picks up some time after the events of Leviathan Wakes. The protomolecule is ensconced on Venus, doing Lord knows what. The Rocinante has been hunting down pirates. But all that changes when Ganymede, breadbasket of the Outer Planets, is attacked. The OPA sends Holden and his crew to investigate, and they're soon swept up in the search for a missing girl, which will lead them straight into a brewing war between a rogue Earth military faction and, well, pretty much everyone else.

Caliban's War is just as fast-paced and full of adrenaline as Leviathan Wakes. The new characters add much-needed depth and diversity. With the addition of Bobbie Draper and Chrisjen Avasarala and Prax, who provides a heart to the story that was missing from the first book. 

While the pacing is wonderful, Corey does repeat similar plot points of the first book. There is a missing girl for instance but this really is a minor complaint. This book is very engaging. 

I'll be picking up Abaddon's Gate very soon. The crew of the Rocinante are starting to feel like family. And also, if that last sentence doesn't have you running to pick up Abaddon's Gate, I don't know what will.

Janice Hopper

March 2017: with The Expanse series venturing into book 2 territory, I listened to it again to refresh my memory. Still good, though not quite as nail-bitingly tense as the first pass through.

Still one of the best SF series out there, IMHO.

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Another absolutely cracking story here. Lots of excitement and action here. I couldn't stop reading. 

Well done, folks. I just hate having to wait for the next installment!

Even more of a page turner than the first book. The new introductions for this chapter are well written with a rich depth of character. Having had the first book as an introduction allows Caliban's War to be more story driven and less explanatory, while still including reminders on the finer details of this universe. Excited to see what else the series has to offer.

Simon Crocker

Fraser Simons

Even better written than the first book. It’s a nice change up, going from frenetic pacing to something that breathes a bit more and introduces more characters. Avasarala, Bobby, and Prax have their own chapters that alternate with Holdens this go around. 

The character work, somewhat so-so in the first book, is stellar. Every character is better in the book, and that’s saying something, considering my favourite characters in the show are Avasarala and Bobby. Avasarala is even more bad ass and swears more, and Bobby has a much better story arc that differs pretty heavily from the show. 

As with the first book, the major plot beats you’d see in the show are mostly present but everything else is different, and better, in the book. Definitely worth reading even if you’ve watched the show, imo!

Ben Burns

OK, so I'm still reading these. This book made much better use of the alternating-perspectives chapter structure than the last one. Instead of two boilerplate white-guy protagonists, it's a much more diverse cast of four (I particularly liked Avasarala). The rotation through four characters' eyes was my favorite aspect of this installment, even though it comes with a downside - the feeling that not too much actually happens - and the women sound like they were written by men.

I was planning to stop after this book - I just can't stand the cringeworthy implausibility of characters centuries from now using phrases like "wanna come with" and "boobies" and referring to movies from our era. But there's a wallop of a cliffhanger in the epilogue... so I'm probably going to keep going.

Sheila

Not quite as entertaining as the first book, but this one gave us Bobbie & Avasarala, so for that it is good. :D 

I really see what they mean now with Avasarala's potty mouth & can wholeheartedly understand why they had to tone it down for TV! (I love her for it though, I really truly do. I hope I'm that awesome when I'm old) Her husband Arjun is the best husband ever, and provided the first scene in this series where I teared up. ;~; Avasarala's relationship with Bobbie is great to read, but Bobbie in general is just an amazing character. I'm now triply excited to watch Frankie Adams portray her!

The weakest part of this book was Prax. It's not that I don't understand or sympathize with a parent trying to find their kidnapped child who may be dead, and the near-destruction of their home world on top of that, but I found reading his constant anxiety and timidity exhausting. He did have flashes of usefulness near the end of the book that I appreciated, but the lead-up to that point took far too long & with too many instances of his POV where I just didn't care. Sorry Prax.

I am tearing through this series though, oh man. And wahey! This marks book #70 of the year & with it I've completed my reading challenge!!

chan

"He'd read accounts of extravehicular euphoria, but the experience was unlike anything he'd imagined. He was the eye of God, drinking the light of infinite stars, and he was a speck of dust on a speck of dust, clipped by his mag boots to the body of a ship unthinkably more powerful than himself, and unimportant to the face of the abyss."

I liked this book SO much more than Leviathan Wakes. The fact that it spent most of its time in character development and it still kept me engaged throughout says it all.

In this book we are introduced to another great set of characters - Bobbie, Avasarala and Prax - and follow their POVs. Three completely different people who lived completely different lives and who are incredibly fun to follow.

If you ever looked up the TV series you've probably heard they made adjustments to fit what the series was trying to do. Notably, the stuff that happens inside the Agatha King and in Io is expanded and plays out differently. I don't prefer one over the other because I think both felt right for their respective mediums.

I want to start Abaddon's Gate AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!

Malin Tälle

Manuel Grabowski

I liked the first book well enough, but I loved this sequel. The growing familiarity with many of the characters makes for many great moments and the world is expanding (ha!) very nicely. What a cliffhanger, though. Had to force myself not to jump into part three right away, it was already way past 1am.

Анастасия Розова

Aaand again, took me a month. But the book is kinda slow-burning for me, plus I was really busy...

But talking about the book. I enjoyed it a lot. New characters were great and I fell in love with them pretty quickly. The old ones were as great as always and I welcomed them and their growth. The relationship and the realistic (?) feel about them. I just like the characters those authors create. You're great, guys!

The plot was a bit similar to the first book, but it didn't feel repetitive. At least not to me. Plus, it ended in a different way and talking about the ending itself...

Oh, man, the ending. I'm so intrigued right now! Like wtf, how, why, HOW? Feels like shit's about to hit the fan real hard.

Elli

I feel like I could read this book, this series over and over and never get bored. There are little critiques here and there that I could make but ultimately I just so thoroughly enjoyed the experience of reading this book.

Ben Nathan

Really cool. The story drives forward the whole time. Really smart and done really well. I'm definitely much more excited for the rest of the series than I was after book 1.

Tim Vos

An overall decent sequel to an excellent book, though unfortunately it seems to suffer from the Empire Strikes Back syndrome. While it is a very good read it mostly serves to introduce plot lines for the last sequel. You should still read it, but only if you're interested in the entire series and not just in one a single book.

Heather Killeen

HOLY CRAP THAT EPILOGUE!! I KNEEWWW ITTSSSSSS :0 

Phew, okay, breathing again now. I didn't think it was possible but pretty sure I loved this book even more than the first one! All the characters are interesting and flawed and come together in absolutely hilarious ways (Avasarala and Holden/Naomi meeting made me laugh out loud). I actually laughed out loud SO MANY TIMES while listening to this audiobook, which I don't tend to expect from action-packed, space operas! Just listening to the narrator curse constantly for Avasarala's scenes in an old lady Indian accent was so perfect lolllll

I definitely recommend it for fans of Game of Thrones and Firefly, it's like if those two series had a love child in space :D :D And holy crap the season two of the Expanse is amazing too!

Anyaconda

I love Bobbie and all the other characters. This made me laugh out loud a few times. 😂

Liz Griffin

Loved the addition of Bobbie, Avasarala, and Prax as narrators.

David Sheley &
Caliban's War by James S. A. Corey

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