Caliban's War (Expanse, #2)

by James S. A. Corey

For someone who didn't intend to wreck the solar system's fragile balance of power, Jim Holden did a pretty good job of it. While Earth and Mars have stopped shooting each other, the core alliance is shattered. The outer planets and the Belt are uncertain in their new—possibly temporary—autonomy. Then, on one of Jupiter's moons, a single super-soldier attacks, slaughtering soldiers of Earth and Mars indiscriminately and reigniting the war. The race is on to discover whether this is the vanguard of an alien army, or if the danger lies closer to home.

• ISBN10: 1841499900
• ISBN13: 9781841499901
• Publish Date: 7 June 2012 (first published 1 January 2012)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 6 August 2013
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Orbit
• Format: Paperback (UK Trade)
• Pages: 608
• Language: English

Reviews

"He'd read accounts of extravehicular euphoria, but the experience was unlike anything he'd imagined. He was the eye of God, drinking the light of infinite stars, and he was a speck of dust on a speck of dust, clipped by his mag boots to the body of a ship unthinkably more powerful than himself, and unimportant to the face of the abyss."

I liked this book SO much more than Leviathan Wakes. The fact that it spent most of its time in character development and it still kept me engaged throughout says it all.

In this book we are introduced to another great set of characters - Bobbie, Avasarala and Prax - and follow their POVs. Three completely different people who lived completely different lives and who are incredibly fun to follow.

If you ever looked up the TV series you've probably heard they made adjustments to fit what the series was trying to do. Notably, the stuff that happens inside the Agatha King and in Io is expanded and plays out differently. I don't prefer one over the other because I think both felt right for their respective mediums.

I want to start Abaddon's Gate AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!

[adastra]

Aw man, this book ends with such a mean cliffhanger!

[clq]

Caliban's War is a great book. It has some flaws that might usually have annoyed me, but despite them I just couldn't help being thoroughly won over. I found it very enjoyable. It's the second of the main novels in the Expanse series, and the politically charged war-story set in space (which I assume is referred to as "sci-fi" for the sake of simplicity) continues. In this book the politics of the story get escalated to a globa… ehm, inter-planetary level, and, as with the first book, the political part of the book never gets confusing despite a refreshing lack of exposition. The first book did this as well, and, as with the first book, I find it to be really impressive from a story-telling point of view.

With one of the main characters in this book being a high-ranking politician, a lot of pot-shots are taken at the way politics are played out, and the absurdity it can descend into at times. The shots at politicians and the way they operate are so obvious and in your face that it occasionally borders on annoying, turning what could have been good satire into more of a comical parody. This doesn't detract from the story, but in a book centred this much around politics it felt lazier than it needed to be, and I think it could have added to the story if it took the politicians as seriously as it takes the politics.

And, to get my other complaint out of the way, there is still the now recurring problem of some major characters (Alex and Naomi in particular) essentially being extras that do and say whatever needs to be done or said to drive the story forward. In a story where the characters are otherwise so well fleshed out, and where the development of those characters play such a large part in the story, the underdeveloped characters stick out like sore thumbs. In future books in the series I hope and expect these characters to become more well-rounded, but it better happen soon.

That said, despite those annoyances, this really is a terrific book. The pacing is different from the first book, a little slower, but it didn't bother me. The book is written in a really charming way, and I just couldn't help but love all the characters. They are flawed, in some cases very flawed, but their actions always make sense from their point of view, and I always had a very good sense of what all the characters main characters were thinking. The way such a broad spectrum of politics, feeling, and context are smuggled into the head of the reader is so subtle, feels so effortless, but works so well. It's just really brilliant story-telling and it's a joy to read.

I also had the realisation during this book that it makes space-travel cool in a way that I don't think I've experienced before. Rather than the typical "they flew through space to get to where they needed to be", this story goes relatively deep into the technicalities behind space-travel, tackling, explaining, and expanding on some things that could easily, and conveniently, have been ignored, but it does it in a way which not only pleases me as a geek, but also makes it a natural and, again, effortless part of the story.

Caliban's War is a great story told in a brilliant way, and being two books into the Expanse-series I'd comfortably recommend the series to anyone. The story is complex, at times thought-provoking, but still jumps off the page and practically reads itself. But the best part is that I still think it can get better. I'm not complaining by any means, and if the rest of the books stay as good as this one I'll be thrilled, but there is space there for an extra gear, and it would be really fun to see it kick in.

[remo]

Fantástica segunda parte de la serie The Expanse, que continúa tras Leviathan Wakes. Nuevas aventuras, nuevos personajes que se unen a los que ya conocemos. Un argumento absolutamente adictivo y acción, mucha acción. Muy entretenido, muy divertido. 600 páginas que saben a poco.

[empressbrooke]

I am loving the crap out of this series. This one didn't have quite the perfect pacing as [b:Leviathan Wakes|8855321|Leviathan Wakes (Expanse, #1)|James S.A. Corey|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1411013134s/8855321.jpg|13730452] did, which dropped the enjoyment level little. It spun its wheels a bit and the plot wasn't quite as strong. However, they spread the chapters across 4 POVs this time, including two woman. In a pleasantly surprising choice, one of the women is a grey-haired Indian grandmother who is also a powerful politician who cusses a lot. Her feisty language has some cleverness to it that actually had me laughing out loud a half dozen times.