Book Review: "Cibola Burn" by James S.A. Corey

*As always, beware of spoilers!*

4/5 stars

Cibola Burn is the fourth book in "The Expanse" series, and it is another romping, fast-paced adventure!

Humanity has come to the first planet on the other side of the "Ring," the alien gateway now home to an orbiting human outpost known as Medina Station. There are thousands of potentially habitable worlds out there, but Cibola Burn takes readers to the planet Ilus (or New Terra). Refugees fleeing from the disaster on Ganymede have settled here to make a new home. New start, new home, all that. They christen their new settlement "First Landing."

However, according to the United Nations (UN) and Royal Charter Energy (RCE), an Earth-based corporation looking to capitalize on Ilus's significant lithium deposits, the refugees are illegally squatting. RCE has a UN charter that basically gave it the whole planet for exploration and exploitation. 

When RCE sent personnel to the planet's surface to set up an RCE outpost and get operations up and running, their landing pad is blown up, taking out the shuttle with it. Turns out some disgruntled among First Landing residents wanted to prevent RCE from establishing a presence on the planet. 

Those who survived the RCE shuttle crash end up coming to First Landing for refuge. 

It doesn't take too long for things to go further south though. The RCE security chief among the landing party, Murtry, suspects intentional sabotage and terrorism. He forcefully takes control of First Landing. It started with shooting a First Landing citizen in front of a huge crowd of townspeople. Not a great start. Screams the opposite of "We come in peace."

It is announced that a mediator has been sent and is on the way. 

Who is this mediator being sent in?

You guessed, it Holden. Sent by Avasarala, my favorite potty-mouthed UN bigwig. 

Poor guy and the crew of the Rocinante. They always are getting tossed into veritable powder kegs. (But I suppose there wouldn't be a book series then, I guess.) Not to mention that Captain Holden has no diplomatic credentials or experience whatsoever. (I wondered why Avasarala would do that rather than sending in a professional, but it is explained in the epilogue. No spoilers. She's sometimes quite the mad political scientist!)

Murtry proves to be a ruthless, callous jerk (putting it very, very mildly). For being leader of the security on the ground, he was good at throwing gasoline on the fire if he thought he was upholding the charter and protecting RCE assets. He treats Holden with contempt and schemes to take away any of the power granted to him as mediator. 

For a test case on humanity settling its first extrasolar planet, things are not going well. 

Now here comes a bigger powder-keg. 

Something on the other side of Ilus, underneath the ocean, blew. Equivalent to the meteor that killed the dinosaurs on Earth, but the impact coming from underwater. 

Those who came to Ilus saw massive alien ruins elsewhere, hinting at prior inhabitants. Remember that alien civilization we learned about in the last book, the one that was inexplicably snuffed out? Their ruins. And apparently their big nuclear reactors went boom. This kicks up quite the storm and after that, a lingering darkness from the extensive cloud cover. 

This catastrophe starts to bring people together in the way that crises tend to do. Realizing First Landing buildings are definitely not going to hold up to hurricane force winds, their only options are the alien ruins on First Landing's outskirts. They take what they can and hunker down.

Meanwhile, up in space, the massive explosion appears to have woken up the orbital planetary defenses. (At least some of the moons orbiting Ilus are Death Stars unto themselves.) As the Ring did when people got too close to it too quickly, these defense systems knock out everyone's fusion reactors: RCE's, the Rocinante's, and that of the colonists' lithium freighter. With nothing to provide the energy needed to keep all the ships in stable orbits, the three ships drift closer to the atmosphere and fiery death. The clock's ticking and everyone's scrambling.

Cibola Burn really shows what happens when the Rocinante's crew is split between space and Ilus. 

They are stronger together, but circumstances separate them and test them all to their limits. It was quite interesting to watch the space and Ilus crews work together to stave off certain death and really grow from the experience. 

Back on Ilus, Holden is cursing the planet and Avasarala for sending him there in the first place. Understandable, considering that even though they survived the storm, Ilus continues to throw curveballs. Including death slugs that secret a potent, deadly neurotoxin and a parasitic Ilus organism that has colonized the eyes of people and is rendering them slowly but surely blind. 

Holden, as ever, summarizes the situation quite elegantly: 

"Apocalyptic explosions, dead reactors, terrorists, mass murder, death slugs, and now a blindness plague. This is a terrible planet. We should not have come here."

I felt bad that I laughed as much as I did at that part. 

So it's a race against time for those on the ground and in space alike. Can they pull together and survive against the odds? Or are the odds just too much to overcome this time?

Happy reading!

--BookOwl