Tag: space opera

Caliban’s War (The Expanse #2)

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caliban's war

Caliban’s War (The Expanse #2) by James S.A. Corey (Website, Twitter)

Genre: sci-fi

Setting: spaaaaaaaaaaaace!

I read it as a(n): paperback

Source: my own collection 

Length: 595 pp

Published by: Orbit (26 June 2012)

Her Grace’s rating: 4 out of 5 stars

 

Ganymede, Jupiter’s largest moon, is the agricultural breadbasket for the Belt and the Outer Planets. Which is weird since it’s a ball of frozen ice for the most part, with almost no atmosphere. But thanks to giant mirror arrays, people have been able to make shit grow on it so that the people who do not live on Earth, Luna, or Mars can have something to eat. That all becomes a problem when Roberta “Bobbie” Draper, a Martian Marine stationed on Ganymede, watches helplessly as her entire platoon is annihilated by a monster that rose out of nowhere. In the process of all this, the mirror arrays get damaged as well. So now there’s no food being grown on Ganymede and it’s entirely possible the Outer Planets and Belt are basically fucked. 

Bobbie gets sent to Earth to give her view on the incident and earns the attention of Chrisjen Avasarala, the Earth government assistant undersecretary to something or other. She’s in charge of all the things. She’s also a rude and crude old granny, so right away she’s one of my favorite characters. She convinces Bobbie to come work for her, which is good because it turns out crude granny needs some armed protection, especially when they fall in with Jim Holden and the crew of the Rocinante. Holden et al have torpedoed their job with Fred Johnson of the OPA and are now working for Prax Meng, the head botanist on Ganymede. Prax’s 4 year old daughter, Mei, was kidnapped just before the shit hit the fan on Ganymede and he hires Holden to help him find her.

And naturally everyone’s paths cross, uncross, and become a Gordian knot of military and political intrigue, all while trying to fight against the protomolecule monster that evolved out of the alien virus from the previous book. Good times. 

I have really been enjoying these books. I know this is only the second one in the series, but it’s an action-packed, complex story. I love the crew of the Roci from priggish, self-righteous Holden to mechanic with a shady past Amos. Avasarala is an awesome character in this story as well. She looks like a sweet old granny until she starts talking. Then she becomes wonderfully imaginative in her use of invective and she isn’t shy about dressing down anyone who isn’t doing what she wants them to do. She runs political rings around every single person ever, whether they’re from Earth or the furthest reaches of the Outer Planets. 

I like, too, that we got a hint of Amos’s history, and a small teaser of Alex’s. I am hoping those both get fleshed out more in the future books. I didn’t expect to like a character like Amos. He is huge and violent and probably a murderer. But in this book, he reminds me a lot more of Jayne Cobb than anyone who is actually a bad guy. Now he is one of my favorites from the Roci. I think it is excellent writing when I can genuinely like a character who is so morally ambiguous, because really he isn’t. He just seems like a bad guy or former bad guy but is really someone who will protect you to his last breath. 

The action in this series is visceral and exciting. It is pretty gory but it isn’t gratuitously so. I think the action sequences truly serve a purpose here rather than being tossed in for the hell of it. I really appreciate that and feel it makes the story much more effective. I am not at all opposed to violent scenes in books, but they need to serve a purpose other than just yay violence! So in that regard, too, nicely done, authors!

I have been on a mission lately to minimize, save money, cull things, and so forth. Buying more books is not a thing I am doing right now. In fact, I am culling quite a few of my books, which is not a thing I tend to do. So naturally I went out and bought my own copies of the first three in this series. I am pretty sure I’ll be buying myself the whole series; I have the first three and the next two are on order. This series has undermined my determination to have an orderly home library and to stay inside my budget. Neat!

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Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse #1)

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leviathan wakesLeviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey (Website, Twitter)

Genre: sci-fi

Setting: spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace!

I read it as a(n): paperback

Source: public library 

Length: 572 pp

Published by: Orbit (2 June 2011)

Her Grace’s rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

In the future, humans have colonized the solar system but we’re not cool enough yet to have warp drive or be able to get out of the solar system. Instead, we have a complex system with the inner planets of Earth, Mars, and Earth’s moon Luna, living in relative safety and security. Then there are the Belters, the people who have lived and worked in the asteroid belt for generations. Belters are taller, lighter, tough folks used to living in microgravity. Economy is based on selling air to space stations and colonized asteroids, foodstuffs to the Belt, water mined from Saturn’s rings and other asteroids. Mars and Earth have a tense political and military relationship. Most of the inner worlds ignore the Belt. And now there’s a young woman missing in the Belt who may or may not be the center of a terrible secret that has the power to kill billions.

Detective Miller is assigned to search for Julie Mao. Jim Holden is the executive officer of an ice miner. Their paths cross in some truly weird ways as they track Julie and this awful new evidence of extraterrestrial life all over the Belt and back. The ship Holden is from gets blown away to prevent them from telling the truth. Miller gets canned to prevent him from finding Julie. Everyone really likes to shoot first and ask questions later. 

This novel is, in a nutshell, a fucking awesome space opera. I have been on a big sci-fi binge lately anyway, but I am not sure how I missed this series before. I saw that there is a show based on the books and I had the thought to watch it. But books are always better so I figured I’d try it. If I was bored with the books, I planned just to watch the show. Instead, I blew through this doorstopper in just a couple days. Now I’m on the second book and almost finished with it. 

Anyway. The characters are maybe a tad stereotypical. A depressed, down on his luck detective. An unruly XO who sympathies with rebels. A girl from a rich family who gives it all up for her political views. Lots of stereotypes. But at the same time, they were well developed and very different. I enjoyed getting to know them and see how they intersected with one another’s stories. I loved the idea of basically two kinds of humans in conflict with each other in the solar system rather than humans vs aliens. 

I also loved the culture of the Belt. They have their own patois and even though I’m usually really good at figuring things out on context, even I had a hard time understanding what some of the true Belters were saying. I thought it added a layer of complexity and grit to the story overall. I loved that the Belters all really did live in the asteroid belt, that they develop differently because they don’t live in a gravity well like on Earth. The stations were vividly described to the point where I could see the crowds of people on Ceres Station, hear the hiss of air circulators, feel the way the gravity changed in relation to how close you were to the center of the spin. It was just a really fun read. I doubt the show can live up to it, though I still plan to watch it once I read all the books first. 

Star Trek Discovery: The Enterprise War

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Discovery The Enterprise WarThe Enterprise War by John Jackson Miller (Website, Twitter)

Genre: sci-fi

Setting: spaaaaaaaaaace! 

I read it as a(n): paperback

Source: my own collection

Length: 420 pp

Published by: Gallery Books (30 July 2019)

Her Grace’s rating: 4 out of 5 stars

So you know how season two of Discovery says the Enterprise was ordered to sit out far away during the Klingon War? This story fills in what they were doing during that time. 

Christopher Pike and the crew of Enterprise are on a year-long mission to the Pergamum nebula, a dense cloud of plasma that wreaks havoc on the ship. While exploring, they encounter a ship called Boundless, which is run by a crew kidnapped from various species and forced to work together in the Boundless’s war against the Rengru. The crew of Enterprise is on a survey of a nearby icy moon when they are attacked. Enterprise is damaged and Pike orders an emergency saucer separation, leaving the stardrive damaged in space and the saucer spinning out of control to who knows where. The survey crews, thought to have been killed in the Boundless’s attack, are conscripted into military duty against the Rengru. Pike and Number One have to reunite their ship and then figure out how to reunite their scattered crew before they become victims of a war that is not their own.

This was a really fun Trek novel. Some of the novels lately, across all the various series, have been a little slow. This one read like an old fashioned Star Trek episode. Lots of exploring, plenty of humor, and Battles in SpaaaaaceTM. The way the Rengru were described made me think they were space-capable pillbugs. Kinda icky and with too many legs. The crew of Boundless and all her sister ships is like the Breen, one cohesive nation made up of disparate species. 

At its heart, this novel was an essential Star Trek story – the crew overcoming obstacles, learning new things, and helping others to attain peace and understanding. The chief engineer, who is decidedly not Scotty, is a genius on paper but an absolute moron in practice, so they’re kind of screwed when the ship gets wrecked. The commander of the Boundless has been fighting a war that she inherited from her forebears and they no longer know why. 

My only quibble is that the ending was a little too tidy, but it was just untidy enough to be acceptable. I also tend to vacillate between being super lenient and super picky about my Star Trek books; sometimes I expect them to be of the highest caliber and have complex plots dealing with a shitload of ethical issues, and sometimes I just want to be entertained by characters I know and love. This fell somewhere in the middle of that. 

Enthusiastically recommended!

Favorite part/ lines:

  • I LOLed at how stupid Baladon’s crew was. For example, “You are all equally incompetent. You function together as parts of a machine that does absolutely nothing. When the end comes, I will be able to say with pride: each crewmember aboard brought me to it.” Several on the bridge erupted in self-congratulatory cheers. 
  • “Need more torpedoes.” 
  • (After a nasty battle) Raden’s eyes opened a fraction. Woozy, he does Pike and mumbled, “Did…I leave…a mark?” “Your head will be fine,” Pike said. “We’ll get you help.” “I mean…did I leave one…on the bulkhead?”
  • “We don’t even tell our own people, because it’s too horrible. The Rengru inject feeding tube into the backs of their victims’ necks – and devour their brains. Then they implant their young in the empty skulls!” “Wouldn’t it make more sense if they implanted the young first and let them devour the brains?” Pike looked around to his crew. “I mean, I’ve heard some scary monster stories in my day, and what really sells them is logic. … Now, Vulcans – you’d think they’d be great at writing horror.”