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4.49 AVERAGE
4.49 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
emotional
informative
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
What an amazing ending, literally had me tearing up. I'm so attached to the main 4
adventurous
dark
emotional
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Although I found the last few books of the series to be on the weaker end, this does a good job, on the whole, of wrapping things up. I started writing this review and then sort of felt rather unmotivated to try to sum things up. I guess I'm glad I waited, because two important things resurfaced for me.
The first is a moment that amplifies something that seriously annoyed me a few books back (the first book with the rocks being thrown at earth): in that book, you have Naomi's experience of anti-Belter sentiment (the book's stand-in for racism, of course) filtered entirely through Holden's eyes, so you have your Heroic White Guy Learning An Important Lesson About Prejudice And Discrimination. Worse, you have Naomi being the one to shore up our wounded soldier's psyche after one of his fathers functionally drops an N bomb in front of her.
Here, you have a situation that would be laughable in its cluelessness if it were not so infuriating: You have the confrontation in the Freehold system where Trejo will generously not destroy the planet and all its inhabitants if Naomi simply hands over Teresa. Teresa thinks this is a no-brainer (possibly because she has been nurtured by fascists to have no brain at all): Her life is not worth the hundreds of thousands in the system. Naomi has a very dramatic, extended THINK (one can practically hear the percussion-heavy score trying to drum up some tension), and only then does it dawn on her that this . . . . why THIS is an abuser's tactic! She cannot POSSIBLY trade Teresa for the lives of the Freeholders, for lo! This shifts blame on to her and bathes him in the glorious light of mercy if she caves.
My dudes. My. Dudes. Every woman you know understands ALL OF THIS so deep in her bones that it feels like her embryonic form knew it from the blastular stage onward. CERTAINLY THE WOMAN WHO HAD A CHILD WITH MARCO INAROS KNOWS THIS. (As does Camina Drummer, bee tee dubs.) This is not a discovery for the women of this or any other galaxy or universe. Now, do you want to have a conversation where HOLDEN is tortured by the choice and so confused and torn and UPSET and Naomi is like, "Hey dum dum. You're cute and all, but why don't you sit this one out, because you are in over your soft little head?" Because that conversation is believable and compelling.
And the other thing is Elvi. So . . . the series is messing with me a bit here, and I fully admit that. Lyndie Greenfield was really great as the character, so I was prepped to be interested. I <i>was</i> interested throughout <i>Cibola Burn</i>, and in fact, I was impressed with the relative subtlety with which they handled the way her privilege manifests: She is genuinely, blinkingly surprised that the colonists won't simply roll over for the corporation she works for because everything they are doing is LEGAL and how actually dare those scabby colonists . . . Of course, she doesn't think of them as "scabby colonists," and she has some genuine "Oh, shit . . . " wake-up calls related to Murtry, but it is IN her to not interrogate how moral/ethical something is if is slathered over in legality.
BUT . . . the Elvi of the Laconia arc? What the actual hell, man? Okay, yes. Maybe somebody with those pro-respectability tendencies responds to fascism (or fails to respond) with some good, old-fashioned proactive compliance. And sure, I guess she gets to have her hissy fit that Holden threw her under the fascist bus or whatever, but sweet fancy Jeebus—the character is far beyond despicable and well into horrifying long before Amos has "the talk" with her about experimenting on Cara and Xan (to say nothing of the nameless "Catalyst") . . . for what? Because she thinks she is going to suddenly understand the entire "library" left behind and . . . then what? She's basically been out there scientifically masturbating and producing no useful information and even if she HAD found something potentially useful, it goes right into the hands of Cuckoo McSociopathPants who thinks that the way you find out if an entity can be reasoned with is by bombing the fuck out of it. No thank you. The conversation with Amos was absolutely bizarre, and I really don't know what they're trying to say through this character's arc.
But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln . . .
No, seriously. I did like this one overall, and I certainly very much liked the series and I'm sad it's over (except for the short story collection, which I'm waiting on from the library). And all of <i>that</i> said, I do think the TV series is, on balance, better than the books on several grounds.
First, although the hopscotching, limited POV chapters "works" in the books on the whole, there are a number of weird choices they make throughout, and it means some characters are simply underdeveloped in a way that the series can address through combination, consolidation, and actors fleshing out roles. The series also does a much better job with political intrigue and pacing. I love Bobbie in both the books and the TV series, but the TV series handles how she winds up working for/with Avasarala in a much more compelling way than the books do, for example, and the intrigue with the Underscretary General of the UN is weirdly back-burnered in the books. Similarly, Drummer and Ashford in the TV series simply work much, much better than Bull (a one-book character and a pretty dumb one at that) and the piecemeal Pa/Drummer that we get in the books. And, of course, Jared Harris really makes something out of nothing in his portrayal of Anderson Dawes.
The TV series also doesn't keep going to the well the way the books do. Murtry is more than enough exposure to the sociopath who finds an outlet in putting on a uniform. Tanaka is very much not necessary, as it is more or less exactly the same story. The super-dumb guy (Singh?) who's put in charge of Medina station is also more or less Marco 2.0 in terms of being in over his head, being overly concerned with theater, and having no practical plan for . . . well . . . anything.
Better–worse is kind of silly. Different incarnations of the same story in different formats are different, and that's okay. I enjoyed the books, I just think the TV series gave the authors another shot at the story, and that second shot was more successful.
The first is a moment that amplifies something that seriously annoyed me a few books back (the first book with the rocks being thrown at earth): in that book, you have Naomi's experience of anti-Belter sentiment (the book's stand-in for racism, of course) filtered entirely through Holden's eyes, so you have your Heroic White Guy Learning An Important Lesson About Prejudice And Discrimination. Worse, you have Naomi being the one to shore up our wounded soldier's psyche after one of his fathers functionally drops an N bomb in front of her.
Here, you have a situation that would be laughable in its cluelessness if it were not so infuriating: You have the confrontation in the Freehold system where Trejo will generously not destroy the planet and all its inhabitants if Naomi simply hands over Teresa. Teresa thinks this is a no-brainer (possibly because she has been nurtured by fascists to have no brain at all): Her life is not worth the hundreds of thousands in the system. Naomi has a very dramatic, extended THINK (one can practically hear the percussion-heavy score trying to drum up some tension), and only then does it dawn on her that this . . . . why THIS is an abuser's tactic! She cannot POSSIBLY trade Teresa for the lives of the Freeholders, for lo! This shifts blame on to her and bathes him in the glorious light of mercy if she caves.
My dudes. My. Dudes. Every woman you know understands ALL OF THIS so deep in her bones that it feels like her embryonic form knew it from the blastular stage onward. CERTAINLY THE WOMAN WHO HAD A CHILD WITH MARCO INAROS KNOWS THIS. (As does Camina Drummer, bee tee dubs.) This is not a discovery for the women of this or any other galaxy or universe. Now, do you want to have a conversation where HOLDEN is tortured by the choice and so confused and torn and UPSET and Naomi is like, "Hey dum dum. You're cute and all, but why don't you sit this one out, because you are in over your soft little head?" Because that conversation is believable and compelling.
And the other thing is Elvi. So . . . the series is messing with me a bit here, and I fully admit that. Lyndie Greenfield was really great as the character, so I was prepped to be interested. I <i>was</i> interested throughout <i>Cibola Burn</i>, and in fact, I was impressed with the relative subtlety with which they handled the way her privilege manifests: She is genuinely, blinkingly surprised that the colonists won't simply roll over for the corporation she works for because everything they are doing is LEGAL and how actually dare those scabby colonists . . . Of course, she doesn't think of them as "scabby colonists," and she has some genuine "Oh, shit . . . " wake-up calls related to Murtry, but it is IN her to not interrogate how moral/ethical something is if is slathered over in legality.
BUT . . . the Elvi of the Laconia arc? What the actual hell, man? Okay, yes. Maybe somebody with those pro-respectability tendencies responds to fascism (or fails to respond) with some good, old-fashioned proactive compliance. And sure, I guess she gets to have her hissy fit that Holden threw her under the fascist bus or whatever, but sweet fancy Jeebus—the character is far beyond despicable and well into horrifying long before Amos has "the talk" with her about experimenting on Cara and Xan (to say nothing of the nameless "Catalyst") . . . for what? Because she thinks she is going to suddenly understand the entire "library" left behind and . . . then what? She's basically been out there scientifically masturbating and producing no useful information and even if she HAD found something potentially useful, it goes right into the hands of Cuckoo McSociopathPants who thinks that the way you find out if an entity can be reasoned with is by bombing the fuck out of it. No thank you. The conversation with Amos was absolutely bizarre, and I really don't know what they're trying to say through this character's arc.
But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln . . .
No, seriously. I did like this one overall, and I certainly very much liked the series and I'm sad it's over (except for the short story collection, which I'm waiting on from the library). And all of <i>that</i> said, I do think the TV series is, on balance, better than the books on several grounds.
First, although the hopscotching, limited POV chapters "works" in the books on the whole, there are a number of weird choices they make throughout, and it means some characters are simply underdeveloped in a way that the series can address through combination, consolidation, and actors fleshing out roles. The series also does a much better job with political intrigue and pacing. I love Bobbie in both the books and the TV series, but the TV series handles how she winds up working for/with Avasarala in a much more compelling way than the books do, for example, and the intrigue with the Underscretary General of the UN is weirdly back-burnered in the books. Similarly, Drummer and Ashford in the TV series simply work much, much better than Bull (a one-book character and a pretty dumb one at that) and the piecemeal Pa/Drummer that we get in the books. And, of course, Jared Harris really makes something out of nothing in his portrayal of Anderson Dawes.
The TV series also doesn't keep going to the well the way the books do. Murtry is more than enough exposure to the sociopath who finds an outlet in putting on a uniform. Tanaka is very much not necessary, as it is more or less exactly the same story. The super-dumb guy (Singh?) who's put in charge of Medina station is also more or less Marco 2.0 in terms of being in over his head, being overly concerned with theater, and having no practical plan for . . . well . . . anything.
Better–worse is kind of silly. Different incarnations of the same story in different formats are different, and that's okay. I enjoyed the books, I just think the TV series gave the authors another shot at the story, and that second shot was more successful.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Sexism, Torture, Toxic relationship, Grief, Medical trauma, Murder, Gaslighting, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism
Moderate: Child abuse, Drug abuse, Genocide
adventurous
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes