Caliban's Way (Corey)
(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)
As previously noted: I watched the first season of The Expanse when it first aired on Syfy. I have to admit, I was somewhat lost and couldn't follow a lot of lost was going on. I couldn't even understand some of what was being said. Had I thought about it, I might've deleted the timer I had set for the series. However, I forgot to, so it taped the second season, which I watched and enjoyed more. I think a third season aired on Syfy before it moved to Amazon.
Comparing the book to the show: the first season of the show did not cover the entire first book. However, it did include characters from the second book, in particular, every character on Earth. The first half of the second season, which I recently rewatched, introduces a couple of Book Two characters in the first episode, setting them up for later, or repurposing them. The person whom I would call the "main" new character of Book Two, Prax, doesn't appear until halfway through the season when Ganymede is attacked (or about to be).
In Book Two, Prax is more the driving force, in my opinion, than Martian Gunnery Sergeant Draper, who is an important character, but more supporting the action than driving it. Having the Russian reverend be a former colleague of the UN Secretary General helped the narrative and allowed the character to be added early and given sufficient backstory for when she's needed in Book Three (which, thanks to the time off from this blog, I have already read).
In Book Two, the crew of the Rocinante is running missions for Fred Johnson for a year or so after the events of Book One. Miller, the dead detective, starts appearing to Holden whenever he's alone, warning about "door and corners" and clearing the room instead of blundering in. Meanwhile, on Ganymede, the largest food plant/greenhouses beyond the Belt, a child is kidnapped by her doctor and a strange woman posing as her mother. Her father Prax is an engineer. There's an attack on Ganymede by an protomolecule engineered soldier. Earth and Mars fight. Satellite mirrors crash. The greenhouse is destroyed. The ecosystem is spiraling into chaos and won't be salvageable.
The Roci crew is trying to bring aid. Prax hires them to find his daughter, who he discovers was kidnapped from the daycare center. His daughter has a genetic condition because of the astronomy of the situation (radiation, etc.), which makes her one of the better candidates to receive the protomolecule, which is still being researched. Meanwhile, stuff is happening on Venus, and the two sets of alien tech are talking to each other.
Cutting to the chase, it was a satisfying read, using some of the threads left from the first book, and adding more that may show up again later. It was worth the wait to get it from the library, but the size of the book put me off pace to finish my book club selection!
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