Cotton Candy Days: A Review of Cibola Burns, James S.A. Corey

The wind is whipping through the greenery casting shadows of summer over my computer as I intently stare at one of my flower containers. Over night the flora in my backyard started sprouting bizarre off-shoots morphing the entire species into something completely unrecognizable.  I don't know what is happening but hazard a guess that August is at foot; August, North America's sweetest sorrow.

Here in Toronto where I live, much to the dismay of some of my maritime cousins, there is nothing that hammers home the end of all things flip-flop than the CNE. The CNE this city's local fair runs for three blessed corn dog, fried pickle weeks wrapping up all it's greasy goodness Labour Day long weekend. It has all the bells and whistles:  cotton candy, games of chance, twice fried butter, mid-way, corn dogs, The Polar Express. I just love me a good fair. The only drawback is the lacklustre displays of pies, jams, breads, quilts, best-looking gourds, tomatoes, and dahlias.  Being the largest fair in this country, you would assume that there was a stage dedicated to hourly pie beauty contests. Alas, the home economic feats of excellence has been surpassed by endless shammy, magic blender displays.

But where is the science fiction, you ask, where? Folks, things are going to get nuts very quickly as I commence my very subjective review of Cibola Burn,
fourth instalment of The Expanse series by James S. A. Corey. I thought a nice segue, filled with the spirit of cotton candy would lull you into a semi-conscious state before I slam you with space-operatic enthusiasm bordering close on obsession. James S. A. Corey is the pen name writing team of Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck who have my heart forever since the release of their first book, Leviathan Wakes. The two wanted to capture the point at which humanity moved from the confines of our solar system into the great expanse that is the universe, during that rather bumpy, vomit zombie process, opening Pandora's Box. To date, we have met a sentient Venus, the very alien, very scary protomolecule, a full-scale Mars/Earth/Outer Planets war, Medina, a gateway eons old, now humanities access to countless star systems and the crew of the Rocinante, who always happen to be at the wrong place at the right time.

The Expanse books are reliant upon each other. Pick up Cibola Burn without doing your do diligence of reading the other three and you will be one very confused but entertained reader. All four are fast-paced, with Leviathan Wakes the best written with Cibola Burn coming in second. Cibola Burn moves the plot along to humans settling our first planet beyond our little corner of the Milky Way. Using the Gate, the crew of the Rocinante are requested by the United Nations to act as mediators on a newly discovered planet, rich in minerals, contested over by two groups of settlers.


While Calaban's War, and Abaddon's Gate are politically charged plots with great character development, Cibola Burn hones in upon humanities homegrown nightmares; racism, greed. Hence we have a book that is possibly more horrifying than the others simply because we recognize the fear more easily. This does not attenuate the spine- tingling alien anxiety that pulses through all The Expanse books. What is currently thriving on Venus may have it's protomolecular tentacles through-out the universe. Settlement has never been so harried. Cibola Burn delivers a more focused story-line of the same plot driven question pulsing through all the books; are we alone and do we truly want to find out if we are or worse, we aren't? 

The Expanse series is an amazing romp with Cibola Burn a SF grand slam home run. Go now, read it and be forever freaked out.

Home: A Review of 2312, Kim Stanley Robinson

I am in love.  Maybe not in love but definitely in crush at this moment.  I doubt my husband mind's too much as my object of affection is for once not LL. or even 007 but the solar system.  The solar system, our so-called address in this ridiculously endless universe that we barely comprehend but so vibrantly exist in, is my crush. 

It has been awhile since my last sojourn down the solar system path of useless facts. (Jupiter has 63 known! moons.  Scientists do not know why Neptune is blue.)  My first trip through the planets was grade 4.  Learning, memorizing the order, participating in the class project of displaying the vastness, distance and size of each planet on one long black paper rolled-out down the school hallway is my first memory of how amazing space is but also how frustrating to scale models can be.  Life carried on from there with Recesses filled with the constant debate of who's turn it was to be Muffit in our enactments of Battlestar Galatica. Space was part of my childhood but only in the form of entertainment.  It wasn't until Grade 9 sitting in Science class that I became a science loving nerd whose entire world view was upended having learnt that all those stars out there are really from the past. To date, still my favourite fact.

So what sparked my old flame, SF of course. Patterns surround us, all you have to do is look for them and voilà  everyone is wearing peacock blue to work.  Recently, I clued in that most of the books read these past 9 months have similar thematics: the expansion and settlement of the solar system, and the solar system portrayed as a character upon itself.  


Three quarters finished Kim Stanley Robinson's 2312, I debated whether reviewing this book but decided to just go for it.  Like most books on lists, Locus's Reads for 2012 comes to mind, I never quite agree with the acclaim showered down.  I was all in, ready to love 2312 but as I approach the 300th page I am wondering not only what has happened to the plot but what am I missing that everyone else is so on about?

That being said this post is more about the solar system than a book review so let me give credit where it is due. I have never read a book based on Mercury. Never visited the planets as I have thanks to this book. It is a glorious tale, one of espionage, human foils of living in Space and what the successes of expansion into the moons, asteroids and planets of our solar system has on Earth. These aspects of the book make it a brilliant, hard SF book.  Imagine living on a planet, whose city is a domed, encapsulated bio-bubble that slowly circumnavigates the planet on 12 rail tracks all to avoid the Sun. This is life on Mercury;  living as close to the Sun as possible, living in the shadows, being a Mecca for Sun Worshippers (people who walk Mercury, just fast enough to avoid daybreak, all in the hopes of experiencing the Holy glory that is our sun). Fascinating, highly creative, fact heavy stuff in this book, which had me to where I am now, wishing the plot that Robinson laid down in Chapter One continued to have a resounding pulse. Did I miss a few or 100 pages inadvertently? Am I reading something so avant-garde that it will change the notions of SF?  I doubt it. I think what I hold here is yet another author with too many wonders captured in his/her head that he/she must lay-out on paper not taking into account that too much detail, too much global socio-environmental issues can muddle a great idea. We all can't be Frank.

For me though the true downfall to this book is Snow, the lead human character. Unlike The Unincorporated Series and The Expanse (both more operatic than speculative SF) 2312 does not have people in it that hold your attention. I like this book for it's portrayal of the Solar System. Through it's pages I am able imagine body surfing on the rings of Saturn while contemplating on the effects Earth's gravity has on us not only physically but psychologically. Good characters who I attach to, wanting to like is lacking. Snow, just like the plot in the first chapters has a mystery to her. We want to get to know her, figure out why she grieves so deeply for her Grandma, but as the story moves along I just don't care for her.  She is annoying which is the death to any character. I read on because of the hard SF, hoping things that were laid out are brought back to the fore. It is a shame. I wanted to love this book and still do. Maybe I am missing something?

Read of the Year: A Review of Leviathan Wakes, James S. A. Corey

In the final days of 2012 I finally found a book worthy to claim as the Read of 2012.   Among the alarming stack of books read there were some notable recommendations.   However there wasn't one book that screamed at me to scream at you to read it.  You must be thinking how can I even say that considering  I read Ready Player One.  Sure did, cannot argue that fact.    I am all for admitting that the book is cool.   So cool that I bullied quite a few friends into buying it.    But (tends to always be a but) when you think about it, would you read that book again?   The Read of the Year really is going to be something you want to go back to; what is the point of being blown away to never wanting to experience it again?  Because Ready Player One really is a hard copy experience of living/breathing/dying in the GAME, once you journey to the final level do you really need to experience that high again? I don't think so.    

That being said, what book knocked me over?  It is Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey.  Now this is where things get a little intense.  Not for the faint of heart, the book is SF at it's purest:  a truly operatic space adventure.  And what a lovely holiday it has been being riveted to the horror found within it's pages. Yes, I did type horror.   

The sub-category space opera has been used by me without fully comprehending it's meaning many a time.  Thanks to seeing the term splashed out in every single review of Leviathan Wakes I looked it up.   Apparently a book that exhibits romanticism or melodrama, usually between two warring factions is a space opera.  Oh, and all of this hububaloo must take place in space to make it legit otherwise you are holding in your hand Anna Karenina.  Now that would be something, Tolstoy in space.

Leviathan Wakes is turning out to be mega-long, keep-it-coming series.  Book two is out with the third to be released in the spring. Co-authors Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck (James A. S. Corey is a sneaky pen name) created a universe in which humanity has expanded beyond the confines of Earth, and settled throughout the solar system.  Like The Unincorporated Series,  a percentage of humans have never lived on a planet, never seen blue skies, finds the idea of walking on Earth terrifying.  Politically you are either of Earth, Mars or the Belt.  The concept of being a Belter has drawn me into this story.  My imagination has come alive contemplating life in a hollowed-out asteroid.  The absolute of space has been wonderfully portrayed in Leviathan Wakes and it is this aspect that makes the book truly remarkable. There are not a lot of SF books that successfully draws you into a world that seems probable but also enviable   At least to a point, ignore the horror found in this book and you are all good.  I typed that word again, didn't I.