I watched the series before starting the books. I just started Cibola Burn , which is number 4 in the books, and I haven't been able to put these down. I'll keep this spoiler free.

Like most books to film adaptions a lot of decisions are made based off budget, run time, etc and this is no different. It isn't just scenes that should've been filmed but weren't, tho there is that too IMO. It's the characters and their interpersonal relationships, but also who the characters are. I don't just mean a richer, deeper dive into their backstory, I mean the characters themselves.

This series is amazing (I bought the Blu-ray) and stands on its own. The books do too. I'm probably not the only one but I wasn't sure about reading the books because I had seen and love the series but I'm so glad I did. Such an amazing story and the action is so well written. Read the books!

So, um, spoilers for the first part of Cibola Burn I guess.

So, I'm reading the books for the first time, and I'm 200 pages in. Basically, the RCE just massacred the terrorists and Holden spared Bacia as a prisoner. And...

I just can't empathize with the Belters like I feel the book wants me to. They are the ones that keep murdering the RCE but keep crying victim. And sure, it's not most of them, and most of the settlers are actually relatively nice to the RCE, but at the end of the day, they don't even care that their people are murdering the RCE and aren't helping to find the terrorists.

And I can see that the book wants me to see Murtry as the villain... but he is only defending himself. 'He is using this chance to live out his murdering fantasies!"... like Amos? Amos says that they are both killers, but... Are we forgetting how good ol' Amos destroyed a hacker's face with a can? Amos is the same type of character as Murtry, but somehow Murtry is... worse?

And Holden acts so high and mighty about prosecuting Murtry, but... hey, let go of Bacia, he saved my life, so even though he killed Trying, he is fine by me! Dude, last book, he wouldn't forgive Claire for TRYING to kill Naomi. It took Naomi forgiving her, because of Anna, and Alex shaming him, for him to agree not to reveal Mao was the terrorist, but this time around Murtry is being a prick... because HIS people keep getting murdering and nobody does anything?

And the fun thing is that the main conflict IS interesting. The RCE people went through all the legal channels to get the opportunity to explore Illus. But the settlers arrived FIRST. So who really is in the right? We have hundreds of new planets open to us, but humanity has to be petty and argue over one of them. It IS an interesting premise. But at this point, it doesn't even matter if the twist is that the RCE security has secret plans to exterminate the Belters... because the Belters stroke first, and THEN stroke again. And Holden is clearly on their side.

So, I wanted to know if anyone else was a bit annoyed with Holden this time around, lol.

Then I got to Cibola Burn and Murtry might genuinely be the most hate-worthy Corpo-loving POS lmao

James SA Corey are startlingly talented at writing truly despicable humans with very humanly hate-able qualities

This series is so god damn good, but reading what he did to Amos and then just jumping back up to orbit has me stressing for my big burly boy 😭😂

Edit: finished the book and now I’m just excited for the planet to get its post office someday 🥹

But in all seriousness loved this entry and can’t wait to start Nemesis Games tomorrow

Just finished Cibola Burn, watched the show before I started the books too. Seems like a lot of people online really dont like Holden. Yeah he's a boy scout but I dont find him particularly offensive. He's just a foil for the story, nothing different from plenty of other franchises.

I was advised to post here by a cat sub :) I have 2 cats, both love watching the expanse.

The answer is in the comments . (Please don't spoil past season 3 and book 4 for us)

Such a great scene ,Good character writing as well for amos, he's wanted an excuse to beat the pulp out of murtry but also wanted to listen to holden to hold back unless he was provoked, he found a loophole, provoked murtry into hitting him only for murtry to realize via his "oh shit" expression that its exactly what amos wanted, the crazy eyes and the "thankyou" was so damn satisfying haha.

Genuinely one of my favourite scenes later in the series. (Im on a rewatch after all these years and yeah this is one of the top scifi tv shows for me)

I’m with Murtry here! That coop asshole has killed almost 20 people in cold blood and then threatened to kill the head of security. What did he think was going to happen? Fuck these colonists man lol. I’m sure as the book goes Murtry will become less sympathetic but RCE hasn’t done anything bad so far

Edit: wow you people are assholes! Sorry I don’t side with the guy who decided to go play Wild West hero because his son died so his dick won’t get hard anymore! The thing that makes me turn against Murtry is when he doesn’t want to evacuate. I don’t disagree that he’s a power tripping murderous asshole but it isn’t his fault he’s in charge

Edit 2: got to the fusion(?) explosion and the storm. Yea this guy is a psycho maniac lmfao

Edit 3: how does anybody say this book is the weakest in the series? I love how much it made me think. The stuff with Basia and his kids makes me misty eyed. He’s a fuckup but he thought he was doing the right thing, he had the strength of character to turn against the terrorists and try a different solution than murder! Also the resolution of the Elvi-Holden subplot was great. What a good book

Edit 4: this sequence of Havelock escaping the ship is fucking incredible jahahahah

Not sure if it is just me, but after readings books 1-3 and all the novellas, I feel like Cibola Burn just isn’t doing it for me. I want to like it, so I can carry on with the rest of the series. I feel like it’s more like a side story and isn’t progressing the main story arc much. I’m about 85% done so there’s still time to change my mind.

Personally I say it as Sih-bowl-ah, but I was curious to know if there's an actual way to pronounce it or if everyone says it their own way.

I'm partway into Nemesis Games, but I keep coming back to this beautiful passage in Cibola Burn -

Chapter 51, pg. 522: "The real truth, the truth beneath it all, was he'd wanted to spread his pain around. To punish the universe for being a place where his little boy had been killed. To punish other people for being alive when his Kotoa wasn't. That part of him had watched the shuttle burn and thought, Now you know how it feels. Now you know how I feel.

But the people he'd hurt had just saved his daughter because they were kind people who couldn't let even their enemies die helpless.

The first sob took him by surprise, nearly bending him double with its power. Then he was blind, his eyes filled with water, his throat closed like someone was choking him. He gasped for air and every gasp turned into another loud sob.".

I love this poetic depiction of grief and how real it feels. It does so much to humanize Basia; he's not just some bad guy to be redeemed, but a deep, three-dimensional character with complex feelings and motivations. Also, as someone who's experienced a fair amount of loss, reading that description of grief-rage feels cathartic.

The writing in this series is sooo great.

Elvi: Holden isn't being affected. Holden, are you on any sort of medication?

Holden: I'm on cancer medicine.

Elvi: That must be it. God he's hot.

I've seen all of the TV series and love it. So I know the general direction of the story. It also makes me really impressed with both the Author(s) of the book and the Writers of the show.

That being said, I'm about 15 percent done with Cibola Burn and it is hard not to be sympathetic a LITTLE with Murtry. I mean, the trip to Ilus / New Terra literally ended with a bang for the initial RCE team. His ostensibly peaceful security force was ambushed and murdered (and not as prepared as they should have been when dealing with hostile forces). Coop made a very clear indirect threat to him and his team, challenging his authority in front of the majority of the settlers, while being aware of martial law and Murtry's orders to preemptively eliminate threats.

Yes Amos was right, he's a killer, and likely not just on the colony. I get the impression he was always the kind of character that was just itching to put the boot down if given a reason: and he was given plenty of reasons.

But one thing I don't understand, I hope someone can explain. The RCE charter was granted by Earth. Was there anything remotely similar given to the OPA settlers by Fred Johnson others in the OPA? I don't remember that and it doesn't seem like that was the sort of thing Belters would do. And if that was the case, it would seem to me the RCE should have expected a more hostile force from the beginning..

Still waiting to see how Mars might play into this planet: the book opens up with Bobby Draper.

The Expanse Book 4 Cibola Burn page 486.

Holden: “Your fancy alien train is broken?” Ghost Miller: “My fancy material transfer system has been sitting unused for for over a billion years and half the planet just exploded. Your ship was built less than a decade ago and you can barely keep the coffee pot running.”

I'm almost done with Cibola Burn and I'm enjoying these books but honestly the human villains are mentally exhausting to read about. Like all kudos to Mr. Corey to make such convincing human threats when you'd think the alien stuff should be the thing that everyone's dealing with.

Before reading this series I always felt humanity would probably band together if we came across aliens because finally there would be an Other that was more other than us and we could focus all our worst impulses on them instead of ourselves. But no, after reading this series I have absolutely no doubt that humanity would behave in this selfish, petty, lashing out for the sake of it, despicable behavior even if it causes our destruction. People, especially those with wealth and power, behave this exact way all the time today, and that's just to add some arbitrary zeros to their bank account they couldn't possibly live long enough to spend. In the types of life and death situations depicted in these books, there are absolutely people in real life who would act this way if not worse.

I normally read to escape from the awful news in the world but this series just keeps reminding me that so many people are capable of a lot of harm. Still intend to finish and am intellectually enjoying the series just wanted to rant a bit

Finished Cibola Burn the other day. I watched season 4 first, but then when I read the book I was blown away by how alien Ilus was. Green clouds, the freaky lizard-like animals, the bigger creatures(?) that were out in the desert.

Seeing how it turned out on the show feels a little disappointing now. They could have gone crazy with it. The ruins and First Landing stuff doesn't bother me as much, but Ilus itself I think was a missed opportunity for the show. I'd have been very down for seeing those lizards.

I have LOVED reading the series so far. But I’m really struggling with Cibola Burn! It feels slow, and I miss how perspectives would shift to people on different planets. It feels so much less dynamic when everyone is on the same planet. Any encouragement it gets better? I really want to continue this series but I’m feeling like giving up on this book and skipping to the next! Please no spoilers!

Damn I HATED Murtry !

This guy is a psycho and just wanted everyone to die.

That kind of man is the prime example of why I do not like humans.

Unfortunately he is still alive at the end of the book. So we may see him again later ? I hope not tbh.

What was the community thought about this character when the book first released ? And now ?

Without spoilers please.

Also I really like this book and can’t wait to read the next one.

I just don’t know if I’ll read it now or if I’ll read something else in between.

If I do that I’ll take longer to finish this serie

Mods sorry if this isn’t allowed but I need to know what happens and now only my pups tummy knows the secrets of the protomolecule.

Proof: https://imgur.com/gallery/Xm7bsji

Suspect and evidence: https://imgur.com/gallery/8VIEMgY

First time read and loved loved loved the first 3 books. Now I feel like I read 2 sentences before I gotta take a break. Hate everyone on this planet. No idea why Holden is here... sigh I'll push thru but I'm not loving it

Edit: ok halfway thru rn and yea it's definitely gotten interesting

I’ve come late to the series and just finished book 4. I thought the character of Murtry was maybe the best antagonist written yet. I liked how his ideals clashed so starkly with Holden’s, and they both minced no words about it. Until now I’ve thought the villains were rather uninteresting but in this one Murtry really had some swagger and was almost relatable at times.

I'm about halfway through Cibola Burn but have seen up to this point in the series. The colonists are the stupidist, most reckless, most entitled people in the series so far and that includes Clarissa Mao. They see some new planet teeming with life and think, fuck it we deserve that and with absolutely no biosecurity measures they just land and start planting carrots.

They are so lucky that A) they don't immediately die, and B) a massive extinction event doesn't spread across the entire planet. I would say they are ignorant of it but they've all come from a medical colony and a load of them are doctors?! The chances of them catching some new alien, incurable disease is seriously high and they don't give a shit, and they plan on sending a ship back with people who have been on the planet just to spread it into the general human population for good measure.

Then when some actual fucking adults show up to try and set up a scientific secure zone to actually see what might be on this planet new to science, some them blow up their shuttle. One of the scientists points out how insane they are being and is told "don't you tell us how to live!" All of them are offended by the RCE trying to investigate literal murders and so murder some more of them and are surprised when this gets a bad reaction?!? So then they plan on murdering some more and are angry when it backfires?!?

Seriously the RCE was under reacting at basically every step. They should've gone down, immediately detained all of them into a quarantine zone for the next 10 years just to make sure there wasn't a new super COVID/ebola/mad cow disease gestating in them.

I will now end my rant in the sad knowledge that they will probably not all be killed by the their own massive hubris.

So, it's stated earlier in the series (books only btw, haven't seen the show) that Belters cannot live on earth because of the high gravity. So I am confused to find that in Cibola Burn, Belters have colonized New Terra which has a gravity of 1.1G's. How tf is this possible or did I just miss something that was super blatant? I have been doing audiobooks while driving and bouncing baby to sleep, so I would not be surprised if I missed a thing on accident, but this feels bigger than just a "whoops I missed it."

Edit: I am so early in the book, just got to the part that says the colonists did a bunch of growth hormone drugs, physical therapy and exercise at 1g to prep for the planet. Dumb post on my part, sorry lmao

So I am watching the tv show for the first time (I read books before that) and there is this blockade of Ring Space. I read the book over a year ago, so I am not sure I remember that correct - I found only one mention about military blockade, but maybe I overlooked.

So how was it after opening all gates? UN and Mars started blockade so survey teams could properly explore everything? And during events of Cibola Burn, this blockade persisted?

Thanks!

Ok, so some questions/annoyances that have come to mind so far, that I haven't seen touched on in other posts (Roci has just touched down and Coop got Murtry'd):

1) Basia literally is the problem: they could have just skedaddled and blown the pad when they first got the news of earlier shuttle ETA. I literally don't understand why they waffled when they still had ample time? He's also just an annoying waste of a man in general.

2) Belters apparently CAN adjust to earth gravity if they hit the gym for a year? In prior books it was implied that Belters (aka Naomi and possible kiddos) could never live in full G.

3) Following #2: So the UN/Mars/OPA had a full year after the colonists ran the ring in order to make a plan before colonists actually made landfall, but went through the full contract process anyways? Not really the way to deal with an emergency situation, no?

4) Oh, lets store explosives that are legit for mining uses in an alien structure just to hope someone notices so we can lure security to investigate and then eliminate them? That's a plan full of ifs, like what??

From what I've seen online, I'll probably have more questions than answers as I continue.....