Caliban’s War (The Expanse #2)

Since Amazon is inexplicably tethering Caliban’s War and Abaddon’s Gate together where reviews are concerned as if they are different formats of the same book, I am just going to post the two of them together here.

Caliban’s War by James S.A. Corey (really Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck) picks up not altogether too long after the final, captivating events of Leviathan Wakes and it smoothly carries on with the story of the relatively near-future narrative that is The Expanse.
The absence of Miller from the story is made up for in large part by a Holden who has become more like the detective than he would have thought possible judging by how harshly he had criticised Miller’s methodology and personality during the first novel. This internally conflicted characteristic makes Holden a more interesting and substantial protagonist than he was in the first book though it does produce some difficulties on board the Rocinante.
Fans of the television show would be gratified to see Chrisjen Avasarala finally making her appearance in the literary version of The Expanse. Though she is more vulgar in the book than in SyFy’s adaptation, the core of the character is there…a ruthless and often cold political force to be reckoned with who manages to compartmentalize her personal and professional lives with impressive skill.
The new characters added into the narrative are well-developed and easily as interesting as those from the first novel, which is something I hope they can keep up through the additional books in this series (including the ones as yet unwritten).
It says something about the intense and dangerous nature of the events unfolding in this book that an alien biological machine terraforming Venus according to entirely unknown programming takes a backseat in the minds of the characters and that same dismissal carries over to the reader…at least until the end, when it can no longer be ignored.
I am very much looking forward to reading the next installment after the way this one ends and I am even more so looking forward to seeing how the television adaptation will tackle things as the events of this book make it onto the screen during either the latter portion of season two or the beginning of season three depending on how they put everything together.

Abaddon’s Gate takes The Expanse series through the first tentative steps toward becoming a full-fledged, interstellar space opera. From this point on in the series, humanity will no longer be confined to the solar system we’re all too familiar with and the surrounding void between our local system and other stars.
This is, surprisingly, the first time religion really gets brought into the books…and there is quite a bit of it, as well there should be. This is a series of novels that is largely predicated on first contact, and that would damn well shake up religious thought all over the world. Not only are we dealing with first contact, but first contact with an unknown species that was around billions of years before we came down from the trees and who have the ability to manipulate matter and energy in ways we have only ever imagined possible. We stumbled upon something truly alien to us, waiting out at the edges of our solar system and disastrously attempted to weaponize it because, of course we would…we’re notoriously short-sighted and impulsive when it comes to thinking up ways to kill one another in real life and the odds of that changing over the hundreds of years separating us from the fictional future of The Expanse are pretty slim…and if none of this had an impact on us as far as theology is concerned, these books would require far too much suspension of disbelief.
By the time Abaddon’s Gate starts off, there is a giant ring structure (assembled on Venus by an alien intelligence before lifting from that planet’s surface) between the orbits of Uranus and Neptune, looming there and just waiting for us to cross the threshold…and it stands to reason that Holden would be one of the first to cross over into somewhere truly awe inspiring in what it represents.
Along with the novelty of having a religious perspective tossed into the mix we get a whole new cast of characters to populate the narrative since Holden and the crew of the Rocinante are the only major ones carried over from the previous novels into this one…and none of them feel like throwaway bit parts, which is something the authors have excelled at so far through the series.
This third volume of the series answers a number of questions that have been collecting since the first novel, but it certainly adds just as many new ones that will hopefully be just as exciting to answer in reading what follows.

CALIBAN’S WAR is the second installment of the Expanse series, which compromises the majority of Season Two of the series. Unlike with the first volume, I read this before watching the second season and I’m glad I did. I felt my viewing of the second season of the Expanse was enriched by my reading how the author originally intended the story to go.

The premise for the Expanse series is it’s roughly two hundred years in the future and mankind has spread to the rest of the solar system. Earthlings live on an overpopulated and resource stretched planet but in relative comfort, Martians live in a militarized communist society, and the Belters live in abject poverty in order to serve the needs of the two settled planets.

Our heroes actually start in a pretty good place, however. The protomolecule which was the focus of the first volume has been neutralized, the Rocinante crew has a job as pirate hunters, and neither Earth nor Mars is particularly interested in wiping out the other. This all goes to hell, though, when Ganymede Station is attacked by an unknown force that wipes out a group of Martian Marines.

Caliban’s War introduces some interesting new characters with Bobbie Draper, a beautiful but physically intimidating Marine, who suffers from survivor’s guilt after the aforementioned attack as well as Avarasala, the foul-mouthed spymaster of the U.N. Both characters are every bit, if not more entertaining than the original protagonists of Leviathan’s Wake.

The crew of the Rocinante actually gets a lot of character development in this book too. Holden is coping with the loss of his naivite and idealism. Naomi is dealing with the fact Holden isn’t quite the man she started dating. We also get a good amount of new information regarding Amos as well as Alex. Amos is one of my favorite characters in the Expanse and this book highlights being from Earth doesn’t mean you’re not from a hellish childhood surrounded by poverty.

I loved their sections of the book and how they brought the perspectives of their respective planets to the forefront. Is Detective Miller missed? Incredibly. He was one of my favorite parts of the original series and his absence is notable. However, that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy this book a great deal.

However, there is a number of problems with the book which I think hurt its storyline overall. The first of these is the fact this feels a bit like a video game plot. Someone is using the protomolecule to make super-soldiers ala Resident Evil or the Alien movies. This, despite the fact the protomolecule is completely beyond anything human technology can command. We’re not talking centuries beyond human technology but billions of years so the idea it can be used to make monsters under the control of Jules Pierre Mao is ridiculous.

I also wasn’t a big fan of Praxis, the scientist whose missing daughter is the impetuous for the plot. He’s an okay character but doesn’t really have any layers other than, “Find daughter” and “grow space crops.” Even so, it’s nice to get a sense of the Rocinante crew by the fact when he comes to them and asks them to help him find his probably-dead child, they immediately drop everything and help him try to find her.

In conclusion, Caliban’s War is a decent continuation of the Expanse novels even if I felt it was a bit derivative of other sci-fi franchises. I would have been more interested in continued focus on the Mars-Earth-Belter relationships versus more study of the protomolecule. The new characters more than make up for this, though, as does expanding on the existing heroes. Too many books don’t continue expanding their leads in sequels, just repeating the behavior of previous works. That isn’t the case here.

8/10

I was a little underwhelmed. I felt the first book had more action and better characters.

There were only two sequences in this novel where I was really drawn in by what was happening, and one of them had a big deus-ex-machina moment. That wasn’t the only time where it felt like a character escaped probable doom. It seemed like it happened so much that I was caring less and less about the situations the protagonists found themselves in.

Furthermore, the characters seemed a bit self-righteous. Maybe it’s because they weren’t really challenged with anything that they couldn’t handle. Towards the end I felt myself rooting for the bad guy because by then it seemed like the villains were the underdogs. The last 5% of the book was really hard to get through because it felt like a big, unearned, self-congratulatory party for the good guys.

Overall, I think the first book was better. I’ll give Abaddon’s Gate a try, but if it’s like this one, it might be my last in this series. Your experience may be different than mine.

The second installment is just as good as the first, if not better. We get a few more viewpoints in addition to Holden. Prax, a botanist whose search for his daughter is the driver for the plot. Bobby, a Martian marine and Avasarala, a major UN figure. Avasarala is an amazing character, a foul-mouthed, no nonsense figure who basically runs the UN, after watching the show I totally get why she was included from the start. The stakes are raised in this one, we see some great action sequences, and though I thought it was a little slow at the start, the last half of the book flew by. Holden goes through his own character arc, starting off a little jaded, more like Miller. I also really love the crew on the Rocinante, I think it would be cool to get a POV on some of those. The end was suitably spectacular and I can’t wait to find out what happens next.
Just a quick note. I watched the show before reading the books and from what I remember I really don’t like what they’ve done with Amos. He’s one of my favorite characters in the books and I remember not really liking him in the show. Perhaps I just took up his character wrong in the show but if so it’s a real shame. Yeah he’s dangerous and you never quite know what he’s going to do, but he is loyal to the crew, he’s a good guy.

Caliban’s War picks up where Leviathan Wakes ended and captures the same mix of Fire Fly-inflected sci-fi, with Neo-Noir elements, set to a backdrop of interplanetary political machinations (Corey develops this aspect in this second instalment in the Expanse series). As with Leviathan Wakes, Corey presents gallery of loveable rogues and flawed heroes trying to resolve personal and interplanetary crises amidst a galaxy poised on the brink of war.

Now, one might argue that, on occasion, the writing veers towards the utilitarian, and that the story, occasionally, strays into the realm of narrative cliche; however, and honestly, I did not care a jot. Caliban’s War moves at a breakneck pace, while managing to be smart, surprising, and, most importantly, hugely enjoyable. The characters are well drawn and likeable (and behave accordingly), the universe is rich and convincing, the plot compelling, and the resolution immensely satisfying. And the incidental details, Bobbie’s first experience beneath an open sky, Avasarala’s musings on the limitations of empire, add the kind of depth one might expect of superior sci-fi.

Most importantly, though, Caliban’s War is great fun and a thrilling read. I look forward to the next instalment.

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