Review: Caliban's War

Caliban's War by James S.A. Corey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm going to start with a side tangent. There's a section of the book where it is obvious that one, or both, of the author(s) is venting a social/political opinion. It comes off as uninformed and makes the typical white American mistake of assuming that if poor people were given money that they would become lazy so quickly they would open a quantum singularity. But I'm not pointing it out because I disagree with it, I'm pointing it out because it's obvious when a writer starts ax-grinding. Writers always think they're so clever and think we don't notice when their personal opinions leak onto the page. I doubt any authors are reading this, but I'm here to tell you something important: WE KNOW. It's obvious. Reading the entire library of Heinlein might have made me extra sensitive to this, but 99% of the people who have already read 'Caliban's War' know exactly which chapter I'm talking about.

Using ax-grinding to point out ax-grinding aside, I rather enjoyed this book. If you read and liked the first Expanse novel, 'Leviathan Wakes', you'll be happy to hear it's more of the same. Good pacing, intelligent plot and characters, and remains to its core belief of being a sci-fi adventure story. Its flaws are a little more apparent in this volume, but nothing that subtracts from the overall experience.

Caliban can be enjoyed mostly on its own as much of the story is self-contained. Which, to ax grind a little more, is one hundred percent how book series should be written. It's okay to connect books with related events and characters, but I've waded through so much garbage where literally nothing happens in the entire first novel because it's all set up for the second and/or third. This is especially true in the bane of modern literature, the trilogy. That isn't the case here as much of the novel succeeds of its lone merits. I don't recommend reading Caliban without first reading Wakes, but you can and still enjoy yourself.

Perhaps the biggest problem with Caliban, and perhaps the Expanse series in general, is a lack of logical motivation from the villains. They just seem to be a bunch of mad scientists who do terrible things with science because they're mad. I call it Gargamel Syndrome. We don't know why he's trying to capture the smurfs, only that it doesn't really matter to the story because he never succeeds. There never seems to be an endgame for the Expanse villains beyond avoiding getting caught even though they do things so brazen they're obviously going to get caught. Their motives don't seem to matter because they don't succeed (spoiler?). The book, at the end, even asks why but doesn't seem to care enough to allow an answer. They might be saving it for a later book, but right now it's more of a mild annoyance.

Bottom line, at least for now, is that the Expanse novels are enjoyable. Usually, I require more than that, but I think the books do enough to set its tone so you know what you're in for. Something smart, fun, and can easily recommend. And that's what I'll do here. It's fun while it lasts, but expect to donate it when KonMari comes to your house.

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