Book Review: Caliban's War - James S. A. Corey
Book Review Sci Fi · 5 comments · 250 words
After finding the first Expanse book mildly interesting, I was badgered into reading the sequel.
It isn't good.
The first book made for some interesting "engineering" sci-if. What would it take to travel at excess g-force? What are the practical implications of living on a low-gravity moon? That kind of thing. But it was let down by being a mish-mash of recycled plots - big evil corporations, vomit zombies, hard-bitten alcoholic detectives. Yawn.
The sequel is, basically, Mass Effect without the charm. It's just trope after clichéd trope. The authors have belatedly realised that women exist. So we get Private Vasquez from Aliens and a sweary-comedy-grandma to even out the gender balance. We get taken on a series of self-contained levels. Find the thing, walk through the corridor, shoot the baddies, have some forced banter with your team-mates, exit. Repeat. You've played this game a hundred times before.
The political machinations are a child's view of what grown-ups do. The characters rarely do anything unexpected. Oh, and the cliff-hanger at the end is totally unearned.
I'm not trying to be contrarian. This is sci-fi which would have been stale 50 years ago. There's so much brilliant original sci-fi out there - tackling big ideas in new and unexpected ways - go read that instead.
| Verdict |
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- Read on Amazon Kindle
- Audiobook and ePub from Kobo
- Paper book from Hive
- Listen on Audible
- Author's homepage
- Publisher's details
- Borrow from your local library
- ISBN: 9780748122974
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