This review is written with a GPL 3.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at Bookstooge.booklikes. blogspot.wordpress.com by  Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission.

Title: Caliban’s War

Series: Expanse

Author: James Corey

Rating: 4 of 5 Stars

Genre: SFF

Pages: 583

Format: Kindle digital edition

 

Synopsis:

The protomolecule is transforming Venus at a ferocious rate. So much so that everyone, Earth, Mars and Belters, are extremely worried about it.

At the same time someone has figured out how to weaponize the original piece of proto-crap into controllable super soldiers. All they need is children with completely compromised immune systems. But of course, things don’t quite go as planned and everything begins to spiral out of control.

Now it is up to the crew of the Firefly, errr, Rocinante, a U.N. official, a Ganymedian soybean scientist and a Martian Marine to stop the badguys, save the kids and give humanity a chance to collect its breath before Venus takes everyone out.

 

My Thoughts:

Hot diggity! I am enjoying this series like it is a huge bowl of vanilla bean icecream. It just hits the spot. Thankfully this time around Holden isn’t as much a dew’y eyed idealist and I liked this kick ass version of him better, even if he and his Belter lady didn’t.

The number of viewpoints increased and I was worried that it would make things confusing or unstable. Never happened. Having the extra viewpoints of the soybean scientist, UN official and martian marine simply expanded the scope of the story.  I also felt like “Corey” summed up politics really, really well. A game to those who play.

By the end of the book Venus has become it’s own player in the story and we see its opening moves. But of war, exploration or a game, we don’t know. I am really looking forward to the next book when it comes through my reading rotation in about 2 months.

On the tv side of things, I figure I’ll read “ahead” to the 3rd book before starting the tv series. I like the books enough that I’m actually hesitant to watch the tv show as it’ll put limits of my imagining of the characters and everything. Once I watch the tv show, I’ll be picturing those characters as I read the rest of the books. Sometimes that can be good but sometimes it can be pretty bad.