Cibola Burn by James S.A. CoreyJacket Blurb: The gates have opened the way to thousands of habitable planets, and the land rush has begun. Settlers stream out from humanity's home planets in a vast, poorly controlled flood, landing on a new world. Among them, the Rocinante, haunted by the vast, posthuman network of the protomolecule as they investigate what destroyed the great intergalactic society that built the gates and the protomolecule.
But Holden and his crew must also contend with the growing tensions between the settlers and the company which owns the official claim to the planet. Both sides will stop at nothing to defend what's theirs, but soon a terrible disease strikes and only Holden - with help from the ghostly Detective Miller - can find the cure.
Read for February's sci fi book group.
I enjoyed this to a point, then it started to become overly drawn out, so I fully admit I skipped about 200 pages and read the climatic and somewhat exciting conclusion.
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Premise of the book is a group of refugees/settlers from Ganymede have gone through the slow zone to the planets that reside beyond, and have settled one they have dubbed Ilus. The exploratory/scientific ship that follows to establish a scientific base take exception to the settlers "running amok" on the "pristine" planet and well, the two group come to explosions, blows and murder.
Enter Jim Holden and his merry crew at the behest of Avasarala. Jim is supposed to be mediator between the two groups, and is walking into a hopeless situation full of anger, strife, and antagonism. Which is his forte if you recall the first three books, except this time he seems to spend most of his time wringing his hands and wagging fingers telling the Scientific crew and the settlers to behave or he'll get very very angry. And, after a while, when things have gone from shit to really shitty, thanks to the protomolecule known as Miller, there is a third party in the mix - the planet itself.
I thought this installment bogged down when the planet started attacking the people - there is the green eye fungus, and the death slugs, and the winds and floods. We have calamity after calamity, the situation devolving into greater hopelessness, despair below and angst above, and at some point I just hit the "...get on with it already!" attitude. And so I did by skipping 200 pages.
And was happier for it.
Don't get me wrong, I really liked the ending. All sorts of possibilities were left open and I can't wait to get back to all my favorite characters. It was getting to the ending that was the issue.
Recommended if you've read the first three in the series.
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