Cibola Burn by James S.A. Corey, Book #4 of the Expanse Series
Introduction
After a thousand worlds were opened up by James Holden in Abaddon’s Gate everyone wants to be the first to claim the richest world possible. Belters, Martians, and people of the UN take any ship that they can find to leave the solar system. This novel, Cibola Burn, is about one particular world where refugees from Ganymede and a corporation with UN land rites called the Royal Charter Energy (RCE) come into conflict. James Holden is brought in to negotiate their claims but none of them are prepared for the consequences of waking up a planet after a billion years asleep that was created by the entities that sent the protomolecule to the solar system.
Summary
This novel has four Point of View characters plus a fifth called the investigator.
Basia Merton is one of the Ganymede refugees that came to Ilus to escape the destruction of Ganymede. He is part of a sabotage plan upon the RCE who came to take over the planet which they call New Terra. The RCE has a charter from the UN to explore and develop the planet. The refugees are not recognized by the RCE. The refugees want to destroy the RCE colony ship, Edward Israel, but Basia has reservations at the last minute. An RCE shuttle is destroyed which kills the provisional governor and leaves a scientific team stranded. Adolphus Mutry, the leader of the colony ship’s security detail, comes down to the planet and takes charge. Basia gets involved in a plot against him.
Elvi Okoye is a scientist, an exozoologist, on the RCI team that wants to explore the planet. She is stranded with the rest of the scientific team.
Dimitri Havelock is a security officer on the colony ship. He was the partner of Miller on Ceres employed by the Star Helix security firm. Now he is employed by RCI and is the head of active security on the ship while Murtry is on the planet.
James Holden is the only character who has previously been a Point of View character in the series. After the shuttle is destroyed Chrisjen Avasarala, the UN Secretary-General, convinces Holden to go to the planet and serve as a negotiator. Since this is the first case where conflict among the new worlds has developed, she wants an impartial person to negotiate a solution.
The Investigator viewpoint’s purpose is unclear until the end of the novel where it is explained.
Review
This novel is very good and I would recommend it for readers of the series but there were some curious plot choices made in the novel. I liked that this novel focused on a more constrictive story compared to the solar system wide stories of the previous novels. It was interesting seeing Holden, the man of action, attempting to play the negotiator. The character of Basia was suitably conflicted. He mixed the story of Ganymede with his complicity in the plot to hurt the RCE members. Another aspect was finding the courage to let his daughter Felcia choose her own path. He also decided to help the Rocinante crew when he was presented with the chance to do so.
Recommendation
I’m not sure where the arc for Elvi was supposed to go. She starts out with a schoolgirl crush on Holden. I thought maybe she would have put Holden in a compromising position. That could have been interesting but the whole idea was dropped suddenly. I don’t understand why Havelock was brought back as a character. His arc didn’t have anything to do with him being a partner to Miller. He was dropped into this story randomly. Security officer Carlos “Bull” c de Baca was a character from Abaddon’s Gate. If Bull’s name was substituted for Havelock’s name then I don’t think that any of the plot elements would have been changed. That tells me that Havelock was not an essential character. I did like his interaction with Naomi at the end of the novel. The novel, Cibola Burn, was another enjoyable read and I intend to read the next novel in the series, Nemesis Games, soon.
Links
Link to Goodreads page for Cibola Burn
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18656030-cibola-burn
Link to my review of Abaddon’s Gate Book #3 of The Expanse