At this point, it is not apparent that Dr. Strickland is involved so there's immense fear of tragedy from lack of proper medical attention. Prax searches everyday amongst all the casualties for his daughter, but she never turns up. Basia Merton , whose youngest son Katoa is also missing, leaves without that son.
Although, this is not without a physical confrontation between the two distraught fathers. There's an exchange which Basia's eldest child, his young daughter Felcia , intercedes and terminates. Basia takes passage with his remaining family aboard Barbapiccola. Holden and the crew of the Rocinante Naomi , Amos , and Alex are doing mundane work for Fred Johnson , hunting down space pirates, when Fred calls them back because of the Ganymede situation. They take an inconspicuous ship, the Somnambulist , to Ganymede to check out the situation. Chrisjen Avasarala , assistant to the Undersecretary of Executive Administration on Earth , is trying to stave off the coming war between Earth and Mars.
She notices there's a spike in activity around Venus , where the protomolecule-infected Eros station crashed after the Eros incident , during the Ganymede attack; she interviews Jules-Pierre Mao , thinking perhaps the infected Julie might have contacted him from Venus. He won't admit to anything, but she thinks he knows much more than he's letting on. She pulls some strings and pulls all the ships back, averting war. Prax gives up his food to a hacker in exchange for videos from Mei's daycare. He finds the videos of the mystery woman and the doctor, but the hacker leverages Prax's desperation to extort more and won't show him more unless Prax gets him additional chicken.
Prax recognizes Holden from his previous broadcasts, and asks Holden to help him find Mei. The hacker gets Prax the videos he wants after they bring him a case of chicken and Amos roughs him up. The videos show Mei's abductors taking her into an old, unused corridor just before the attacks started. They breach the corridor and find a lab; inside they find the body of Basia's son, who has apparently been infected with the protomolecule.
In the next room over, they encounter a room full of armed people having a pizza party; Holden tries to be politic, but Prax goes off half-cocked about his daughter and takes out his gun, causing a firefight to immediately break out. Holden's squad is much quicker and manage to shoot everyone first.
They encounter more resistance the farther into the complex they go, and many of the Pinkwater people are killed; it seems the unknown players were evacuating through a secret docking port, while simultaneously fighting against an unknown third party. In the lab equipment wreckage they find fine, black filaments. Holden is horrified and calls for immediate withdrawal and extraction. They try to backtrack to the secret landing pad, but find it blocked from all the damage, and are forced to go outside the dome in the vacuum of space.
Alex comes in hot in the Roci and they manage to escape after avoiding torpedoes fired from seemingly all the ships in orbit. Avasarala's immediate superior, Sadavir Errinwright UN Undersecretary of Executive Administration , puts her on the Venus project and gives her a blank check. She quickly realizes this is merely politicking to get her off the Mars conflict, presumably by Adm. Avasarala hires Bobbie to help her look into Venus, and hands over all her intel. An hour before the fighting on Ganymede, the warship Arboghast around Venus is blown up — stripped apart in layers and disassembled.
On the Roci , they find that during their escape, a monster pulled open the cargo bay door with its bare hands and has been stowing away in there, in the vacuum, for days. Holden and Amos try to attack it, but it attacks them; it flings a mag-locked pallet at Holden and traps him there. They shoot it a few times and it goes back to hibernating. Prax notices that the protomolecule seems to be constrained to its host, instead of reallocating its bits around like on Eros, and that it's feeding off a radiation leak in the corner.
Prax goes EVA and throws radioactive bait past the monster; it follows after the bait out into space, but leaves a bomb in the cargo bay. Bobbie notices Avasarala's assistant, Soren , taking a data chip somewhere he shouldn't be going, so she follows him to a bar. He gives the data to someone militaristic looking, clearly disguised as a civilian. Soren tries to exculpate himself by telling Avasarala that Bobbie is actually a Martian Intelligence operative, but she instantly realizes he is lying.
She further deduces that Errinwright must be responsible for the monster s on Ganymede, working with Mao-Kwikowski to weaponize the protomolecule. She calls to question Errinwright, and he realizes that she made the connection, so he tells her she'll soon be flying to Ganymede on a Mao-Kwik yacht. She has no choice but to acquiesce, otherwise she'll lose her political power.
Chrisjen Avasarala tells Bobbie she's the only remaining fully trustworthy person in her team and tells her she's coming along. Bobbie and Avasarala get on Mao's yacht, the Guanshiyin. Mao is supposed to be going along too, but he abruptly excuses himself at which point Avasarala realizes she is compromised and to a great extent trapped and shackled.
See a Problem?
More interestingly, she is an Indian lady in her seventies who is extremely intelligent, an expert at political machination, and cusses up a storm every time she opens her mouth. Chrisjen Avasarala, looking younger than her description in the book. They are mainly based on the Ellen Ripley template of ass-kicking sci-fi women, and usually result in male characters who happen to be female. Fortunately for mankind, she is on the side of the angels. There is also an Ellen Ripley-like female marine called Roberta Draper, a much less believable character but quite well developed and fun.
The great thing about reading Caliban's War soon after watching The Expanse TV show is that I now have an affinity for the main characters. If I had relied on my sieve-like memory of the previous book it just would not have worked. Also, the vividness of their TV counterpart makes it easy to put names to faces, so they are almost as familiar to me as the crew of the USS Enterprise. Beside the great character work Caliban's War also has a fast-paced, intriguing and exciting plot, with some nicely detailed world building.
The strained relations between Earth, the Mars colony and the Belters colonies on the minor planets of the Asteroid Belt feel very real, and the main characters tremendous efforts to prevent all out warfare is quite gripping. The climax is really edge of the seat reading and far surpasses anything on Leviathan Wakes an additional pair of pants recommended while reading this book.
I also love the science and the minutiae of space-faring like: Instead of thrust from the drive creating the illusion of weight, it now came from the spin of the ring they were clamped to.
Book Review: Caliban’s War, by James S.A. Corey (Book 2 of The Expanse Series)
Clarke at his best, they make the reading experience very immersive. The several plot strands are also woven beautifully. I also enjoy the variety in the narrative, the bantering dialogue, the subtle political maneuvers, the romance, and especially the running, shooting, alien blasting derring-do's. The book is like one stop shopping for me. Highly recommended for sci-fi fans, especially if you are into the subgenres of space opera and military sci-fi—with a touch of horror.
If I were to reread it I will probably appreciate it more, but that is an honest review, as is this one. Definitely looking forward to book 3, Abaddon's Gate. Corey is a pseudonym of the two co-authors Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck. It had been built with the long term in mind, not only in its own architecture, but also in how it would fit with the grand human expansion out into the darkness at the edge of the solar system. The possibility of catastrophe was in its DNA and had been from the beginning.
It had been the safest station in the Jovian system. Just the name had once brought to mind images of newborn babies and domes filled with food crops. But the months since the mirrors fell had corroded it. For most of the stride, his leg felt free and almost uncontrolled, and then, as he brought his foot toward the hull, there would be a moment, a critical point, when the force took hold and slammed him to the metal. He made his way floating and being snatched down, step by step. View all 21 comments. Sep 03, Bradley rated it it was amazing Shelves: I mean, I was somewhat hesitant at first but it's so rich with detail and the action is perfect.
And by action, I don't just mean Bobby in her Goliath suit. I mean Avasarala on her com. All in all, though, this second book happens to kick major butt. Venus really stole the show by the end, but all the Powers butting heads was also fun as hell. Did anyone else whoop when Avasarala and Bobby got on the Rocinante? It was truly great both times I read it. The Expanse series is rapidly becoming one of my favorite stories, and it's only partly due to the scope.
Well, it's my own preferences here, so the answer is a definite YES! I know a little astronomy and scale and putting all of that in perspective with what the hell just happened at the end of this novel is right likely to blow my mind, if it hadn't already been blown when I read Stephen Baxter's The Ring. That's not really that important right now, though, because this novel isn't that novel.
This is a much better novel in all the ways that count; in characters, in action, in complicated drama and fully believable, no I think I've read some fantastic space-opera, before, and I think of Bujold as one of the best, but now I will be putting these two guys at the head of the class. For the rest of you peeps sitting on the fence about reading these books, get off your asses and get some startle on.
Feb 20, Sanaa rated it it was amazing Shelves: I wasn't ready for that. Caliban's War is the second installment in the "Expance" series and I actually enjoyed it better than the first one! No, nothing was wrong with the first one either, I even missed our pulp-noir drunken detective with nothing to lose, but fortunately the authors gave us to kick-ass female characters who more than made up for Miller's loss. What do you do? Somehow, Holden ends up as the very well known face of the person who started the war between Mars, the Belt and Earth with his ideological stick up his ass, and the poster boy for speaking the truth no matter the consequences or the validity of what he believes is the truth.
He has not changed much, although it seems that he has been getting a bit out of control and becoming very militant with it, which is upsetting those who know him best. He also gets called out on his self-righteous impulses and I love that I am not the only one who is obviously bugged by that: Luckily for the very battered scientist of the Ganymede station which produces most vegetative edible forms in the System, Prax, Holden's popularity might help him find his lost 5 year old daughter, and the good captain and his crew take on the challenge.
Do you understand what I'm saying? You will be personally responsible for the deadliest screwup in the history of humankind, and I'm on a ship with Jim fucking Holden, so the bar's not low. During the pandemonium an unknown scientific croup takes Prax's daughter as well as several other children with a medical condition and disappear.
On top of everything, some of the goo that made the vomit-zombies in the first book has been let loose in a section of the station and things get complicated when Earth government makes a connection with all of this and the viral station which ended up on Venice. It seems that the viral organisms are in a hive-like communication and not separate from each other. Was that a thing we knew about? However, one very smart, arrogant, plucky, and somewhat vulgar, yes, she curses like a sailor, Earth politician, Avasarala, who is a diminutive grandma with a tendency for wearing bright colored saris, has a real knack for what might be going on and is determined to prevent intergalactic war, which might lead to the destruction of billions of innocent lives.
In order to do that, she recruits the biggest bad-ass Martian Marine, Bobbie, who survived the first attack of the alien monster on Ganymede and is now on Earth to testify as to its existence. Bobbie is being looked upon as a trader by her fellow Martians and hates it, but is also deep enough into the reality of things to understand that Avasarala is doing all she can in order to save all parties involved, Mars included. How long has it been since a woman was in charge of the armed forces?
Not since I came here. Particularly Avasarala, with her pain of loss, her ability to play the game on the big stage of politics without losing her soul and humanity, still hoping for the best and loving with all her heart her soulmate, who loves her back unconditionally, just the way she is!!! I am so in love with this character and her life, I can barely express it!
I really hope I get to see more of both of them as we go on with the series! Now I wish you all Happy Reading and many more wonderful books to come!!! Dec 22, Lindsey Rey rated it it was amazing Shelves: In this second installment, we're still following events I already know more or less from the show. After billions of years of being in the Solar system, unable to do what it came here to do, the protomolecule is working hard on finishing its job now, whatever that job is.
We meet a few new players in this second installment, most notably Avasarala and Bobbie. These two allow us glimpses at E In this second installment, we're still following events I already know more or less from the show. These two allow us glimpses at Earth and the political crisis the events from book 1 have sparked throughout the Solar system.
Caliban's War
Avasarala, while being a politician, is actually a good person, swearing so much that any sailor would blush, but ultimately caring deeply about the future. Therefore, she wants to get the people behind Eros as much as Bobbie, who loses her entire platoon to a new version of a protomolecule-human hybrid and swears revenge. Then, there is also Prax, a botanist and father of Mei - a child with a rare immune disease.
- ~ Drinking beer and reading books.
- .
- The Great Spanking Anthology: Sampler: 10 erotic spanking stories.
- Las Ranas.
- La Batalla de los Arapiles (Spanish Edition).
- Le Livre des Mères et des Enfants, Tome II (French Edition).
While trying to get his daughter back and figuring out who took her and why, he meets Holden and his crew, and they agree to help him. After some juggling of bureaucratic idiots, Avasarala and Bobbie team up and eventually also meet the crew of the Rocinante, bringing together all four POVs and giving the reader epic space battles and creepy space stations to explore and fight in.
But let's not forget the old players from book one, because they will factor into the events here as well. Yes, my favourite characters were definitely "grandma" Avasarala and Bobbie, but also the entire environment of the book. I love the future the two authors are bringing to life here as well as the technology - most notably in this book the Martian Marine armor Bobbie wears.
I must say that I'm actually surprised at the number of events I liked better on the show such as view spoiler [basically everything involving Cotyar, who was wholly underdeveloped here in the book, or everything to do with the political intrigue involving the struggle for dominance between Avasarala and Errinwright hide spoiler ].
Both elements seem far better developed and thought through on the show. Thus, one could say that the show and the books compliment and complete each other, which is actually quite nice. Now, I've more or less reached the point where I don't know what's gonna happen have to catch up on the show but there are also only 3 seasons of it and the book events are progressing farther so it will be interesting to see how I think and feel about people and events from now on. View all 9 comments. Avasarala and Bobbi are great! They get to be a lot stronger than the show.
Love the firefly led into the next book. Oct 19, Gary rated it really liked it. The second novel in The Expanse series finds Holden and the crew of the Rocinante trying to stop further attempts to weaponize the protomolecule, with a little help from a Martian marine, a belt-born botanist, and a UN power broker.
As exciting and action packed as the first book, and nearly as good. The ending, while spectacular, doesn't quite pack the emotional punch of its predecessor. View all 3 comments. I am buddy reading this series with my boyfriend — which is something we have not done before but which is enhancing my enjoyment of this series immensely. This book starts some time after the events of the first book — and the structure mirrors that one a bit too closely I found. In the prologue we I am buddy reading this series with my boyfriend — which is something we have not done before but which is enhancing my enjoyment of this series immensely.
In the prologue we are introduced to a chronically ill girl who is abducted, serving as one of the main characters main motivation. What worked best for me where those newly introduced characters, especially the two women. She is wonderfully drawn in a superhuman way which I just adored. I also loved Chrisjen Avasarala — an aging beaurocrat with a knack for the game of intelligence.
I love that her abrasive nature is counterbalanced by her lovely relationship to her husband. But, Holden still annoys me to no end and his tendency to act before thinking acknowledged in the text as a flaw drove me up the walls. I also found the story to be meandering and antagonists ill-defined. I do hope this will change over the course of the next books, because I am so intrigued to see where this goes next.
You can find this review and other thoughts on books on my blog. View all 4 comments. Jun 23, Becky rated it really liked it Shelves: Way back in I listened to the audiobook of Leviathan Wakes, and loved it. And then I picked up a nasty case of "Series Blah" which left me in this emotional hinterland between wanting to continue the series because I really loved the first book, and dreading to read it because either it wouldn't live up to my expectations, or it would be so awesome that I would need more and there was no more to be had, at the time.
Now I have read it I have to say that my last point that it would be so awesome that I'd feel like I need to continue immediately was right on the money. That last paragraph was a doozie.
Caliban's War - Wikipedia
I don't know how to spell that and every version is apparently wrong to my spell-check. In other words, it was crazy. This book can't just end like that! Perhaps it's one of those things that some people are able to predict from time to time. I'm generally bad at that - so when I say a book is predictable, it's gotta be pretty damn predictable. THIS last paragraph's revelation hit me like an Earthbound toiletseat to the cranium. I totally did not see it coming and would not even think that this was a thing that could happen, so I wasn't even listening for the incoming whistling sound.
Also, thank you to Dead Like Me for alerting me to the dangers of falling lavatory apparatus. I feel like I was right to wait at least until Abaddon's Gate was out to read this, because had I been forced to end like that and then have a wait ahead of me, things mighta got ugly-like. Also, I'd like to add that it's nice to be reading a series that doesn't have multi-year waits in between books. Not namin' no names Regarding my other dreaded possibility, that it wouldn't live up to my expectation This is also a little bit true, for a couple reasons.
None of them came anywhere close to overwhelming my enjoyment of the book, but they should be mentioned nonetheless. First, I listened to Leviathan Wakes on audio, and it was great. However, I read Caliban's War on my kindle app in ebook form, and I kept getting hung up on sentences that, to me, would flow better if commas had been used in them. Secondly, I loved Miller as a character in Leviathan Wakes. He had just the right amount of brash ballbuster and Eagle Scout mixed all in together.
Crack a few reticent skulls to get shit done but try not to trample over a helpless little old lady while doing it. I felt that Caliban's War kind of suffered for his absence from it. There were attempts at filling the Miller gap - Holden picking up some Millerisms, for one, and Avasarala's character for another, and Bobbie, too.
But it just wasn't really the same. I never really felt like I saw HER as much as the her that people were expected to see. In short, I felt that the characters, while still being great, for the most part, just didn't quite hit the watermarks left from the first book. Third, the politics in this one didn't work for me as well. I liked that aspect of the first book because it was a sub-plot. It was important, but not to Holden, Miller, or me.
This time around, the politicking took center stage, and it just felt awkward. It was both too heavy handed and not explanatory enough. I am not interested in politics and power games as a general rule, so maybe this aspect would work better for someone who is, but it just didn't do much for me.
Lastly, the bookend-type 'little-girl-lost' format was a little bit much in this one. It works, technically, but it felt just a bit manipulative this time around. I think that there could have been a different thread moving the story along. All of that being said - I still pretty much loved this book. It kept me interested and wanting to know what would happen next. Even though I feel like I have very little time to read anymore, when I pick up this book, I'm right back on Ganymede Station or the Rocinante with the characters, and I love that.
I also love the scope of this series. I was telling my mom about this series during a long drive, and I mentioned that one of my favorite things about it is that it's a possible real future for us though hopefully sans-protomolecule. There's no Beam Me Up, Scotty, there's no warp drive or anything super-future-technological - there's just realistic advancements of the kind that we'd have in a couple hundred years. Maybe we'll be more advanced than The Expanse predicts, but I won't be around to see it, so for me, it's realistic enough.
I like the human aspect of the series as well. I don't necessarily think that space-based sci-fi has to have aliens, especially when so often the aliens are just different versions of us. This series actually does happen to have an 'alien', a very dangerous, very adaptive and invasive one at that, but it's still the human aspect that interests me most. How we relate to the dangers that this 'alien' poses to us View all 5 comments.
Jul 16, Algernon rated it really liked it Shelves: It's a pretty safe bet that those who liked the first Expanse book, will enjoy Caliban's War , too. I would add that new readers should start the journey with Leviathan Wakes , and not here, as this is not one of those loosely connected, self-contained, ongoing francizes like The Dresden Files or Vorkosigan Saga. The story picks up a few months after the cataclysmic events described in the debut novel, and will spoil said events for the less cautious reader.
My review also may contain spoilers It's a pretty safe bet that those who liked the first Expanse book, will enjoy Caliban's War , too. My review also may contain spoilers of this nature for anybody unfamiliar with what happened before. Daniel Abraham and Ty Frank saw they were on to a good thing with their space opera and decided to change as little as possible, to the point where some of the plot devices are recycled and used in an almost identical way as in Leviathan Wakes, instilling a strong deja-vu sentiment: The epic starts with an explosive conflict between Earth and Mars marines on Ganymede, and keeps gaining steam until a spectacular finale view spoiler [ But I thought the final battle was a rushed job after all the build up, especially Holden's foray into the protomolecule compromised spaceship hide spoiler ].
I stayed more than one night up into the early hours, unable to stop reading, going for one more chapter, for one more switch in POV, sleep forgotten - so at least I felt that the book is well written and fast paced. This is for me the equivalent of a summer blockbuster movie, and like them it makes me think of popcorn and amusement park joyrides. While not exactly blown away, I did see some potential in the series and decided to give the next book a chance just to see how the story would develop.
Minor spoilers for Leviathan Wakes can probably be inferred from the paragraphs that follow, but everything is largely spoiler free. The action this time centers around Ganymede, a major food source for the Belt colonies and one of the last remaining joint operations between Earth and Mars following a fragile truce established at the end of Leviathan Wakes. This uneasy peace is soon shattered when an alien creature appears on the moon and wipes out a contingent each of Earth and Martian marines.
As the feuding governments attempt to sort through the confusion, signs of an even larger conspiracy emerge, as do increasingly volatile reactions from the alien protomolecule gestating on surface of Venus. While I was somewhat lukewarm in my feelings about the first novel, I found this installment a bit more to my liking despite still having some reservations. Story-wise, I thought this book was pretty good.
Entertaining and action packed throughout, the book hit its stride early on and kept it pretty much throughout with the exception of two minor snags. The first of these snags was one conflict near the end getting resolved just a little too easily and the other was a tendency in the middle to use repetitive word choices per chapter only to have them just as quickly disappear. Overall though, while this might not have been the most thought provoking of novels, the story was fun and the series is beginning to get more complex as the intrigues expand the universe gets filled in as more key players begin to emerge.
As for the characters, I found them somewhat of a mixed bag.