Cibola Burn (Corey)

Cibola Burn
by James S. A. Corey (2014)

(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.)

I read this nearly a month ago, or at least it seems that way. Once again, I watched the show first which might've made this book go by a little faster. That said, there were enough differences between them.

For starters, most of the book takes place on and above the planet Ilus or New Terra, depending upon who's talking. Any of the shows subplots that take place in the Sol system are absent here. There is also some rewriting of settlers.

Belters and Outer Planets people (such as refugees from Ganymede) managed to get through the Ring and settled on an inhospitable planet that has a lot of lithium, which they are mining to sell to hire lawyers to stake their claim to "Ilus". They've already been there for a while when a UN/Mars backed team of scientists, backed by corporate interests, come in to claim the planet. Some of the Belters already there decide to blow up a landing pad (which they built for the UN group) to prevent them from landing. Unfortuantely, it's too late and the shuttle is already descending. The shuttle takes damage so it can't lift back up into space. It crashes, killing many people, including the new Governor. This basically leaves Murtry, the head of corporate security, which is basically running the ship, in charge on the planet.

Conflict ensues. James Holden and his crew are sent to mediate. Unfortunately, he brought Miller along (along with a piece of the protomolecule on his ship), and the planet starts to wake up. There's an explosion on the far side of the planet which causes high winds and a tsunami. Everyone makes it into one of the ancient structures, and everyone, for the moment, helps each other.

This all falls apart as everyone but Holden starts going blind, and they discover slugs that are deadly to touch. Miller appears to tell Holden that they need to shut the entire planet off. Murtry wants to protect his company's interests, even if it kills him. The original pioneers didn't last long, but they opened the frontiers for everyone else. Basically, he's nuts.

Miller realizes that there's stuff on the planet that he can't see, so it must belong to whatever killed the beings that made the protomolecule, so he can use that to shut down the planet.

When the book's over we discover that there's a problem with Mars. Now that there are new words to be explored, there's no reason to live underground on Mars while it takes a century to terraform.

I'll give it a few months and then I'll request the next book. I've already started the series, and I imagine that some of the stuff from this season of The Expanse will happen in the next book.