Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels discussion

This is the thread to discuss the fourth book in the Expanse series, Cibola Burn.

I'll get back to you on that after I manage to read #3! I have had no time to even start it.

I plan to start it mid-April, after all Monthly reads are done

From here on I will join the party :)

This one was a good change of pace in the series. Less of a large scale space opera and more like what Star Trek TNG called a “bottle” story, referring to a fixed location, smaller scale story where the characters are together in “a ship in a bottle”. Season 4 of the tv series corresponds to this book, so if you’re watching before reading, the show will spoil the book.

This will be my last re-read of the series, all future volumes will be new to me. When I've read it I saw it more as a filler for the series (a nice one) because it get popularity and just as with TV shows, the authors decided to milk that cow

I'm a few chapters in! Excited to be caught up with the show.

I’m waiting on abbadons gate so I can finish the last 10%. So frustrating!

FYI: Both Abaddon's Gate and Cibola Burn are available at Open Library. Thanks to Opel Library, I managed to loan and read CB: it's great!

I liked Cibola Burn, although not unconditionally. It had many flaws, but still, nor bad at all.

As Allan said, the book has a definitely a "bottle episode" feeling, but I liked the change of pace. I was reminded a bit of the Speaker for the Dead: it, too happened on one planet, featured a person coming to keep the peace between two factions and was very different in tone and peace from the preceding book.

I find Cibola Burn quite a good read. Alas, in my opinion, it is the last book in the series worth reading. From Nemesis Games on (although I have not read Persepolis Rising and Tiamat's Wrath yet) I found that all the good ideas and concepts that made me like the first four books are completely absent and the authors instead concentrate on those aspects that I liked the least or even disliked.

I recall some discussion about Cibola Burn in this group, but I can't for the life of me remember where. Maybe sometime back in the "what are you watching?" thread. But someone made a comment about (view spoiler)[finding Murtry's violent actions more justified in one or the other renditions of the story (hide spoiler)] and I was wondering if any of you remembered saying that. In my memory, someone was saying they thought the show made him more sympathetic than the books, and I'm not sure I agree, so wanted to see if we can discuss it more.

I haven't seen the show, but I feel like (view spoiler)[Murtry's character was underdeveloped in the book. Near the end he's kind of portrayed as this unrelenting person who will not yield no matter what, even when it would be much saner to budge a bit.

This aspect could've been emphatized, and Murtry could've been a person with ironclad morality. Someone who just knows good and evil and will never compromise with what he sees as evil, no matter what the stakes are. That would've been more interesting than just making him one more power-hungry psycho, like he's mostly portrayed. (hide spoiler)]