Science Fiction Aficionados discussion

June continues SFA's read of James S.A. Corey's projected 9-book Expanse series with the fourth book: Cibola Burn. The novel was published in 2014.

"James Corey" is the pen name of Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck.

"Cibola" is one of the fabled "Seven Cities of Gold" of Spanish legend. It is also a city and high school in Arizona as well as the name of a 1966 episode of the television series Daniel Boone. I assume the title of the novel refers to the tragic loss of that very special episode, which - along with many other episodes of classic tv - occurred during the infamous burning of the Los Angeles TV Archive's entire back collection of adventure tv serials, by a disgruntled and mentally deranged ex-employee of the Archive who still remains at large.

I finished today. I'm doing this series as audiobooks and this installment had a different narrator and I did not like a lot of his voices, especially what he used for Amos. But, I thought this installment was better than the last one. I even found Holden to be less of a jerk! I can't remember if the earlier books had "intervals" like this one. I really didn't like them here, although I think much of that was the narrator. Do you think Miller will be back? I was excited when the opening scene had Bobbie, thinking she'd be a major character but that did not happen. It does look like she may be back soon though. I thought the female microbiologist's character (who basically took the roll the female minister had in #3) was poorly developed compared to the support characters introduced in earlier versions, such as Bobbie. It was interesting to have Miller's old partner return, but that was another character I did not think was particularly well-developed.

I'm am so behind, life is getting in the way. I hope I can start this book next week.

I didn't like this as much as I liked the previous books. I initially had a hard time getting into the story and new characters. I also finished Nemesis Games and liked that one better. I don't know if everyone is aware of this, but there is a new book coming out in this series in November. Something to look forward to.

I'm just starting and this book has me thinking about the tv series Star Gate. Where are the gate builders? Has the proto-molecule replaced the Gould (however one spells it).

I am over halfway through this book. I liked the first two novels better, because I liked the view that the human race's physical limits of the expansion of our solar system. Now the series is like most other science fiction books, traveling the galaxy and explore new worlds. I hope book 5 will be better. Still this book is not a bad read and the writing is good.

But still... I have more reading to go.

Mickey wrote: "I am over halfway through this book. I liked the first two novels better, because I liked the view that the human race's physical limits of the expansion of our solar system. Now the series is like..."

I thought book 5 was much better - can't wait for the discussion and can't believe it is the last one written to date.

The book was a good read. Perhaps I am just not into lengthy series.