Review: Cibola Burn (The Expanse #4)
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2 stars. Wow. This really didn’t do it for me. Here’s why:
1. The female characters (again - just like the other books). Elvi starts out with so much promise - a kickass, brilliant female scientist? I’m in. And what does she do, immediately? She falls in love with Holden. GAG. She does play her part, in the end, but her trajectory smelled weird to me.
2. Holden. I really can’t stand the golden hero boy. Every time another character makes fun of him it’s an attempt for the authors to act self-aware but it all falls flat. Holden is who he is: who (many) male readers want to be.
3. The entire plot consists of things going wrong. I loved the constant disasters in the first three books because it kept the pages turning and gave us some heart pounding, high stakes action sequences. But here it gets EXHAUSTING. Give us a win! Quit pushing these characters to outlandish limits! When things go THAT wrong, it just feels lucky when they go right again. I personally enjoy reading about problem solving, not luck.
4. Murtry. The Expanse series features some truly great antagonists, often complicated ones (love), but this one just has a cartoon villain. Murtry’s entire character felt FORCED. It’s like they wrote him into the story, realized he didn’t come across as bad enough, and subsequently made the other characters think “I hate that guy” a lot to fix it. FORCED. I don’t have sympathy for him or anything - he was super psychopathic - but I’m so confused about why he had to be Evil with an uppercase e. Why did he go after Holden? He just felt ... unneeded. Bland. There to give Amos someone to crack his knuckles at.
5. Same old themes. Humans are stupid, bonk me on the head with it why don’t ya?
Alas, because the weather’s nice and I’m feeling generous, I will point out a few things I loved:
1. MILLER. My fave. My adorable, confused, cryptic alien babe.
2. Death slugs.
I will absolutely continue with this series because I swore to myself and my husband that I would, but I’m a little burned out. Don't worry, I'll get there.