Review: Cibola Burn by James S.A. Corey

If you liked the first few books in The Expanse series, you’ll like this one too.

The reason it has 4 stars rather than 5 is that the characters in this one felt flat. One of the things I loved about the previous few books was that there was nuance. Some of the good guys did bad things. Some of the bad guys did it for good reasons. It wasn’t always clear what was the right thing to do. Everyone was flawed. In fact, that’s the central premise of this series: rather than the utopian future of Star Trek, we get an imperfect, gritty, and imperfect future because humans are imperfect.

In this book, the heroes are all beautiful, strong, and morally perfect and the bad guys are all ugly, assholes, and utterly evil. There are a few great moments of moral ambiguity, but for the most part, it’s too simplistic.

Rating: 4 stars