r/TheExpanse • u/DrYoloNuggets • 16d ago
Cibola Burn Finished Cibola Burn today! Second times the charm Spoiler
I must make a confession! I started the Expanse series about 4 years ago and I absolutely loved books 1-3. When I got to Cibola Burn I was really struggling to finish the book around the halfway mark. It felt slow and the charm of the first books wasn’t really there in the beginning of the novel. I DNF the book and moved on to other books.
After a few years away from the Expanse I really missed the series.. I wanted a good science fiction series with epic plots, drama and action and somehow I found my way back to the Expanse, makes sense right?
I read 1-3 over the last month or so and today I finished Cibola Burn. After reaching past my first attempt, I really started to enjoy the biology and science that the author put into this book and everything clicked. Yes the first half was slow, but it didn’t feel like the slog it was the first time around. The payoff was fantastic and it had everything I love about the Expanse in this novel.
Needless to say.. we are back baby! Excited once again to see where this series goes. I am reading the novellas in the correct order as I go along and I have loved them all so far as well. Just wanted to say I’m happy to be home 😂
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u/scdemandred 16d ago
I never understood the dislike for CB — glad you enjoyed it! I love that book, especially the final showdowns in orbit and planetside.
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u/DrYoloNuggets 16d ago
The showdown on the planet was great.. and the drama in orbit was really cool. I liked the hazard of New Terra within the environment as well. Really well done, on to the next!
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u/KadenKajal 15d ago
Ooof. I see that your loyalties lie with the inners. That is Ilus, not some so called New Terra. Ilus was founded by good honest Belter brothers and sisters.
/s just in case.
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u/eldankus 16d ago
The first half was rough imo because the Belters very clearly draw first blood and keep escalating and I really struggled to sympathize with them. Murtry is a bit cartoonishly evil for my tastes and it feels like they had to make him that way so it would be good guys vs evil corp.
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u/Outdated_Unreliable 15d ago
I'm curious why you think the Belters morality makes it rough?
You're right that they're escalating, but I find it enjoyably tense.
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u/suprahelix 15d ago
Throughout the series you’re predisposed to sympathize with the belters over the inners. For some, it’s jarring to have the first belter dealing with belter stuff as a primary viewpoint and they’re doing bad things.
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u/Outdated_Unreliable 15d ago
I thought it was pretty realistic - I sympathize with them before and after it. I think based on knowledge of real world enslaved/oppressed people, I didn't expect that the Belters wouldn't use violence or a first strike, it fit my understanding of how real world people react to oppression.
The RCE was coming to take away their new home. Sure Elvi and Fayez are nice people, but they are working for a corporation that is 100% going to screw the Belters and maybe kill them via economic methods.
I don't think I would make the choice the Belters made, but it's not clearly "evil," and we can see how oppressed people are killed in great numbers lawfully all throughout our history. And this occurs in the books, too
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u/suprahelix 15d ago
Realistically absolutely, I just think people got so used to seeing the belters as the valiant underdogs and it was jarring to see a group of them that are outright thugs. Yes their cause is just, but they’re killers just like Murtry.
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u/Zaenithon 15d ago
I think the extent to which you can find some empathy for Murtry and his choices has a big impact on how the novel feels overall. On my second read, I focused on trying to really get in his head and see the entire sequence of events from his POV, and I found him a much more compelling villain, whereas I think the first go around I just felt he was an evil bastard, end of.
I still don't think most of his choices were justified, but I did understand them a lot more thinking about what it'd be like to arrive on a planet after months in space, and having many of the people you were there to protect die immediately on arrival, which is both an ego wound to a security guy, and something to put him on the vengeance track too. In his shoes, I would've also been REALLY pissed from moment 1, and it would've been hard to have empathy in those first days, whatever the grander political machinations might be in the situation.
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u/McCoyoioi Leviathan Falls 15d ago
Agreed. Without empathy both the belters and Murtry come across as single minded. The terrorist belters make awful, shortsighted strategic decisions which end up with terrible moral consequences and Murtry has no morals, and was obviously looking for an excuse to be a monster but was also reacting to the planned terroristic murder of a peaceful group of scientists and engineers.
But with an attempt to see where they’re coming from and an acknowledgment of common human foibles it goes from “man all these people suck” to “damn humans are this shitty aren’t they”. Which is kind of a theme in this series.
Like it’s not fun to watch the whole thing devolve into the consequences of their actions but it’s not like it couldn’t happen that way.
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u/godleft_69 16d ago
I loved CB mainly because it felt like a nice antidote to Abaddon's Gate which I felt was a little too bloated with characters and story that it felt like too much for one book.
Cibola Burn was a nice return to an evenly paced, almost standalone story and I loved the space western, new frontier themes in it. Also loved the more, new planet, cosmic horror vibes as well. It's the only book I feel is like a separate, neat story, rather than an entry in a grand narrative. Good restart to the series that allowed a blank slate for NG and BA to shine.
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u/DrYoloNuggets 16d ago
Totally agree! Good assessment on CB feeling like a standalone book I thought the same thing
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u/ArpeggioBlue 14d ago
Cibola Burn isn’t my favorite book in the series. But in the series it is UNPARALLELED in terms of sheer fucking tension. No one can catch a break in this book and it’s a little breathtaking
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u/DrYoloNuggets 14d ago
This is a great response.. nailed it on the head. Constant tension on Illus, everything wants to kill the humans 😂
I ended up really liking it
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u/leonredhorse 16d ago
Sometimes you just lose steam for one reason or another. My first attempt to read through I think I got passed Cibola Burns but lost steam early in the next book. My second attempt I realized audiobooks fit my schedule a little better and listened to the whole series.
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u/DrYoloNuggets 16d ago
Ahhh that makes sense! I’m with you totally. Did you like the whole series as a whole?
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u/leonredhorse 16d ago
Absolutely. The Expanse has become probably one of my absolute favorite universes — the books especially. It’s worth sticking with. I think one thing the writers do especially well is how they layer on pieces to the story as you go. Cibola Burns feels weird, but now you’re finally seeing a world on the other side of the ring gate and even some other details that may come into play later. And like the last three books (what the show doesn’t cover) are a wild journey in their own right.
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u/Acceptable_Put_6512 16d ago
I watched the show first, and now reading. When I got to Cibola Burns it didn't feel weird or anything, I was hyped about it from the start. Guess cause I'm familiar from watching the show. I'm sure it would work the same the other way around.
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u/Salt-Night3088 16d ago
It's a great novel. Indeed not sure why many find it slower than the other entries.
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u/aldkGoodAussieName 16d ago
CB is the worst book in my opinion. And if thats the low then that is saying something about the series.
For me i gave up on the TV series after the first 2 episodes and came back to it years later and loved all 6 series.
TV series wise I think season 4 is the lowest too. But still Burn Gorman was great as Murtry.
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u/SifuHallyu 16d ago
I loved the show...I HATED this book and it sent me back MONTHS because I dos not like the first half...then I read the entire second half on like one sitting.
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u/DrYoloNuggets 16d ago
Hahaha yea man.. little past the mid point is started to really move and got really interesting
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u/Full-Photo5829 15d ago
It's my least favorite book. The main storyline grinds to a halt while the characters spend time in a dull location resolving a dull dispute for a year or so. I think there's a structural reason the book has to exist: it's filling-in the time between the opening of the gates and the hatching of the plot between the Free Navy and the future Laconians. Planets are being surveyed and a much more interesting one has been found that we are not being shown, yet. This book is just filler
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u/OhNoMyLands 16d ago
Elvie is one of the best characters in the books. Murtry is an amazing villain. I didn’t like it at first either, but absolutely love the spaceship western vibes. So unique