Crossing the Expanse: A Discussion of Caliban’s War

Hey there, dear Chicers! I hope you’re staying healthy, safe, and sane out there. My sister and brother-in-law are both nurses, so thank you to everyone who’s following the CDC guidelines to help curb the spread of COVID-19. Also, if you or one of your family members is an essential worker, thank you and them, too, for keeping the world turning.

Okay! Back to the subject at hand: My Resolution Project for this year was to reread the Expanse series in its entirety in preparation/anticipation for the final book, for which the release date should be announced sooner rather than later. So, whether you’re looking for a refresher, are as big of a fangirl/boy as I am, or — for some very strange reason — only want to read the last book and yet still know what happened before, then I’m here for you.

Now, let’s continue Crossing the Expanse…

Caliban’s War (2013)
Written by: James S.A. Corey
Genre: Science Fiction
Pages: 594 (series page count: 1,202)
Series: The Expanse #2
Publisher: Orbit

Premise:

We are not alone.

On Ganymede, breadbasket of the outer planets, a Martian marine watches as her platoon is slaughtered by a monstrous supersoldier. On Earth, a high-level politician struggles to prevent interplanetary war from reigniting. And on Venus, an alien protomolecule has overrun the planet, wreaking massive, mysterious changes and threatening to spread out into the solar system.

In the vast wilderness of space, James Holden and the crew of the Rocinante have been keeping the peace for the Outer Planets Alliance (OPA). When they agree to help a scientist search war-torn Ganymede for a missing child, the future of humanity rests on whether a single ship can prevent an alien invasion that may have already begun…

SPOILERS APLENTY

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Point(s) of View: Mei Meng, Bobbie Draper, James Holden, Praxidike “Prax” Meng, Chrisjen Avasarala

Caliban’s War is set about eighteen months after Leviathan Wakes, and most of the action takes place on Ganymede. Basically, the weird stuff that’s happening on Venus — giant, fragile constructs rising out of the gaseous cloud cover of the planet — has everyone on edge, which means that Earth, Mars, and the OPA are still on the brink of war. Most importantly, this book introduces two of my favorite characters in the entire series: the shrewd politician Chrisjen Avasarala and the Martian marine Bobbie Draper. Heck, I’m going to go ahead and say that they’re two of my favorite characters of all time. Why? All in good time, dear Chicers. All in good time.

Side note: I love the titles of the books, and they’ve clearly been well thought out by the authors. As for this book, Caliban — as you might already know — is a character in Shakespeare’s The Tempest. He’s the son of a witch, half-human and half-monster, and he’s treated very poorly by Prospero, but only because of his own monstrous acts. He’s a fell, wretched creature who craves both power and a master.

But, back to Corey’s novel. The prologue is told through the POV of Mei, a four-year-old girl who lives on Ganymede. Not to sound like a total jerk, but I don’t love child narrators, so I was relieved to discover that Mei only features in the first few pages. In those first few pages, Mei’s “mother” has come to pick her up from school. This is a big surprise for Mei, since her mother left Ganymede after her parents’ marriage ended. Turns out, the woman waiting for Mei isn’t her mother, but she’s accompanied by Doctor Strickland, Mei’s pediatrician and a man she knows very well. So, Mei goes with them, calmed by their promise that they’re bringing her to her mother. Instead, they bring her to a holding area, where some familiar children also wait. Within this holding area is a smaller room, where Strickland leaves Mei with her fake mommy, whom he refers to as “Umea.”

Umea is an asshole. She’s been carrying a painting that Mei made at school, an image of a “space monster.” When the girl complains that the picture is for her real mom, Umea asks Mei if she likes space monsters. Then she takes the child to see one, and the prologue ends with Mei screaming at the sight.

How’s that for a start? Oh, but the fun’s only beginning. The first POV after Mei is that of Gunnery Sergeant Roberta “Bobbie” Draper of the Martian Marine Corps. She and several other marines are guarding one of the massive greenhouse domes on Ganymede. In the distance, guarding another, identical greenhouse are United Nations marines. End of the day, it’s a strategically important station, and neither Mars nor Earth are willing to leave and/or cede it to the other. In addition to the ground pounders, both governments have warships in orbit, ready to take things to the next level at a moment’s notice.

But, things have yet to escalate, so Bobbie and her fellow marines have little more to do than spy on their UN counterparts, giving them nicknames based on the markings on their super-cool tactical weapon armor. (The Martians wear the same sort of armor — Bobbie’s is still painted Mars red, that’s how short a time she’s been on Ganymede.) Regardless, Bobbie knows what they’re doing is make-work, but she takes it as seriously as we’ll come to learn she takes most things.

This routine shift is, of course, the time when everything goes pear-shaped. It starts with shots fired over at the UN outpost. They’re not shooting at the Martians, but Bobbie’s superior still calls her and her squad in until they can figure out what’s happening over there. Problem is, when they reach the outpost, they find the UN marines charging it, and her entire platoon, standing in a firing line, ready to meet them. Bobbie never really expected Earth and Mars to engage in an all-out battle, but it seems to be happening, and she joins her platoon.

Then the Martians’ comms go out. And the charging line of UN marines? It’s only seven soldiers, less than a third of the troops at their outpost. Also, they aren’t firing, and rather than moving in formation, they’re running in a ragged group. Bobbie, now operating with a full-on case of the heebie-jeebies, uses the display on her suit to scan the area behind the UN marines. And what does she find?

A real-life space monster! No environment suit, skin covered in large black scales, a monstrously oversize head that’s covered in protruding growths, and hands too large for its body and too long for their width. Oh, and at one point, it sprouts an extra set of limbs from its midsection. Kind of like Stitch does in Lilo & Stitch. You know, if Stitch was horrifying nightmare-fuel instead of an adorable scamp.

Fun fact: By the way, Lilo & Stitch is easily in my top three favorite Disney movies. Take Pixar out of the mix, and it’s number one, no question.

At any rate, that’s when the other penny drops. The UN marines aren’t attacking; they’re retreating, fleeing the…thing that’s chasing them. And as they near, the shit hits the fan. The thing tears the UN troops apart, tossing them apart like paper dolls, and then it heads for the Martians, who obviously open fire on it only to find their bullets not so much hitting the monster as going through it. Not to mention, the wounds close almost as soon as they’re created. This nearly unstoppable death machine decimates the Martian marines with the same careless destruction. It’s about to take out Bobbie, whose been thrown off to the side in the course of the battle, when some sort of giant bomb takes it out. Bobbie’s suit protects her from the blast, the impact-absorbing gel in her suit going rigid to hold her in place.

The last thing she sees before she passes out are flashes in the sky above. The UN and Martian warships have decided to join in on the fun, and Bobbie, her radio still out, is powerless to explain, powerless to stop them from starting the war in earnest.

This includes shooting down a few satellites, which destroy the Ganymede greenhouses, setting off a cascade failure within the station. But we’ll get back to that.

We join Holden and his skeleton crew/family aboard the Rocinante. Earther Jim Holden is still serving as captain, with Belter Naomi Nagata as his XO/lover, Martian pilot Alex Kamal, and Earther engineer/heavy man Amos Burton. (You know, now that I think of it, “ohana” could be the watchword for the crew of the Rocinante. As I’m sure you remember, ohana means family. Which means no one gets left behind. Or forgotten.) Anyway, aside from a broken coffee machine, the crew of the Roci are doing all right. They’ve been working for the OPA since the whole Eros Incident, and their newest assignment is to bring aid to the people on Ganymede, who aren’t doing so hot.

Everyone on Ganymede is having a hard time, but we’re given a front-row view of the badness through Praxidike Meng. He’s better known as Prax, a botanist and the father of Mei, who’s been missing since all hell broke loose between Earth and Mars. His life has become a never-ending loop, with him traveling from hospitals to body repositories and back to his apartment, looking for his daughter. Like everyone on Ganymede, he’s starving, but unlike most others, his background in science allows him to see that the station has gone beyond the tipping point, sliding quietly from salvageable to lost cause due to a phenomenon known as “cascade failure.” (Being a horrible science student — seriously, I almost flunked Rocks for Jocks in college — I understood this concept, but I didn’t know it had a name until reading Caliban’s War.)

Prax catches a break, however, when he runs into Holden during a food riot at the Ganymede port. Holden and Amos agree to help Prax find his daughter, and they begin prowling around in some of the unused tunnels on the moon. Prax is familiar with these tunnels because a) he’s spent his whole life on Ganymede, and b) he spent most of his adolescence looking for hidden places to grow and/or smoke pot. See? Belters are just like us! This is also what led to Prax’s interest in botany. Huh-huh.

(BTW, that laugh is meant to be read in the voice of Butthead. Wanna feel super-duper old? Or young, I guess. Beavis and Butthead first aired 27 years ago. You’re welcome.)

It’s in one of these tunnels that they discover a secret lab, and when Prax accidentally begins a shootout with the guards, another monster is unleashed. Amos and Holden find remnants of the protomolecule (yay!), and Prax discovers the body of one of Mei’s friends, who was also being treated by good ol’ Doctor Strickland for the same immunodeficiency that Mei has. But, Mei is nowhere to be found, suggesting that she’s been taken off the station. Amid the growing chaos on Ganymede, Holden, Amos, and Prax haul ass back to the port and just manage to escape the dying moon on the Roci.

Meanwhile, Bobbie Draper is rescued from the surface of Ganymede and all patched up, but it takes her a while to regain fully lucidity. Once she does, she’s informed that her entire platoon was lost, and the UN and the MCRN have been fighting like cats and dogs, which has resulted in at least five billion dollars worth of property damage for Mars, and the loss of three thousand lives, military and civilian.

Bobbie’s given about five minutes to process all of this before she’s being questioned about what happened down on the surface. They’re finally able to extract the video footage from her suit (it’s an older model, hence the delay), but before she can watch it with them, she passes out again. When she reawakens, she’s feeling better. That is, until she finds out she’s headed for Earth. To which she responds, “Whuh?!”

On Earth, Chrisjen Avasarala is sitting in on a UN military meeting at the Hague, now UN HQ. She bears the opaque title of “assistant to the undersecretary of executive administration,” and in a room full of dark uniforms and suits, she stands out both in her orange sari and as the only woman. For a while, she lets the men talk about the skirmish with the MCRN and whether or not they should agree to a meeting with Martian officials, observing them and noting aspects of their personalities while casually eating pistachios from her purse. When she finally speaks, it’s to recommend they take the meeting with Mars. From there, the discussion shifts from “if” to “how” they’re going to meet with Mars, and Avasarala, her part done, leaves the logistics to the boys, returning to her office to deal with the many other issues on her plate. #bossbitch

Avasarala is a tiny, older Indian woman with a mind like a steel trap and the mouth of a drunken sailor on leave, and I love her. Did I mention that she also refers to the secretary general, the elected leader of the UN, as a bobble-head both behind his back and to his face? Lord Varys (aka, The Spider from Game of Thrones) has nothing on Avasarala, who wields her prodigious intellect and endless font of intel as a scalpel or a sledgehammer depending on her opposition. Oh, and she has a lovely, gentle poet for a husband, and she dotes on her granddaughters, who have her wrapped around their little fingers.

Bobbie and Avasarala meet during the aforementioned peace talks between Earth and Mars. Basically, no one wants to listen to Bobbie about the monster on Ganymede, and when she presses the subject, she’s dismissed from her position. Avasarala, both believing Bobbie and liking the cut of her jib, hires her as an additional assistant. Which proves to be the best idea ever when Bobbie discovers that Avasarala’s head assistant has betrayed her. From there, it’s only a hop, skip, and a jump for Avasarala to decide that her UN superiors are trying to get rid of her because they were responsible for the monster attack on Ganymede. Taking Bobbie along as a bodyguard, Avasarala leaves Earth on a slow-moving yacht, their cover story being that they’re leaving on a relief mission to Ganymede.

The yacht is lent to them by Jules-Pierre Mao, father of Julie Mao and co-founder of Mao-Kwiskowski Mercantile, major supplier of Protogen. In a short scene earlier in the book, Avasarala meets with Mao in her office and asks him outright if he and/or his company had anything to do with Protogen. With a fair amount of arrogance and bluster, he says no. Avasarala, in her wonderful way, tells him on the way out that she isn’t someone to fuck with, a warning that Mao clearly does not take to heart.

With Prax on board, the Roci is headed back to Tycho Station, aka OPA HQ, when they discover a stowaway in their cargo hold. Surprise! It’s the monster they let loose on Ganymede! Good times. They manage to bait the thing with a bit of radioactive material, which, if you recall, the protomolecule thrives on, and then toasting it to a crisp with the ship’s exhaust. Holden, thinking that Fred Johnson holds the only other sample of the protomolecule, gets all up in Johnson’s face when the Roci reaches Tycho. This goes over like a fart in church, and Johnson fires Holden and his crew. Oops.

The Roci was damaged in its encounter with the monster, and now that they’re off the OPA payroll, they’re a little short on cash for repairs. But, when they help Prax shoot and distribute a video asking for help in finding his little girl, money and information floods in, allowing them to repair the ship and pointing them toward a base on Io.

Avasarala sees Prax’s video and learns that a UN detachment has been sent to stop the Rocinante from reaching Io. When she tries to warn them, the crew of her yacht turn on her, as she always suspected they would, so she sends Bobbie out in her good-as-new tactical armor to take control of the ship. Which, bee-tee-dubs, is easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy. With their mutiny complete, Avasarala and Bobbie board a racing pinnace called the Razorback, once property of the late Juliette Andromeda Mao. Corey does a great job of creating coincidences that seem both random and possible, and bringing together the Razorback and the Roci feels satisfying and right. As soon as Avasarala and Bobbie are aboard Julie’s former racing ship, Avasarala warns Holden about the incoming UN posse, and they haul ass for a rendezvous with the Roci.

Side note 2: My dream is for Corey to write a novella — or even a whole novel — starring Bobbie and Avasarala as detectives/partners-in crime. I realize that this is highly unlikely, but I adore the interactions between these two characters, and I cherish every moment they spend together in the series.

For all too short a time, Avasarala and Bobbie meet up with Holden and co. on the Rocinante, and when she learns his additional information on the monsters, she convinces him to let her send the intel to her remaining trusted contacts within the UN in an effort to stop things from blossoming into a full-blown war.

As the Roci nears Io, Avasarala and Bobbie convince a nearby Martian fleet to have their backs. And just as things start to heat up between the MCRN and the UN detachment, the cavalry arrives in the form of another UN fleet, this one loyal to Avasarala. Eventually, the bobble-head…ahem, the secretary-general orders the hostile admiral to stand down, resulting in a victory for the MCRN and the loyal UN faction.

Down on Io, Amos and Prax rescue Mei and several other immunodeficient children, who were being held in a facility that definitely isn’t a part of Protogen despite their experiments with the protomolecule and their base filled with sociopath scientists. Amos, a self-proclaimed sociopath himself, dispatches Doctor Strickland, Mei’s kidnapper and main captor, without a second thought. Much in the same way Miller shoots the lead scientist of Protogen back in Leviathan Wakes, the only difference being Holden’s presence in Leviathan Wakes and his absence in Caliban’s War. When Miller shoots the unarmed scientist, Holden repudiates him, banishing him from his ship and crew. What would Holden have done if he’d seen Amos shoot the unarmed scientist on Io? He isn’t there, so we’re simply left to wonder.

Before the Roci leaves Io, Bobbie, in a head-to-head battle, fights with and destroys one of the monsters, which is as awesome and emotionally satisfying as it sounds.

That done, everyone heads back to Luna to sort things out. Avasarala and Bobbie make the trip on the Rocinante, and at one point, she heads down to the machine shop to find Amos and Bobbie playing with Mei. Literally. In the zero-gravity environment, they’re tossing her around like a ball while she giggles hysterically. (Yes, it is as hella adorbs as it sounds.) Avasarala takes hold of the child and cuddles with her for a few minutes before Mei starts asking for Daddy. Amos takes her to Prax, leaving Avasarala and Bobbie alone.

Avasarala calls Bobbie out on her decision to help out on Io, guessing correctly that the former marine went down there prepared, and even hoping, to die. After asking Bobbie point-blank if she still harbors a death wish and discovering that she doesn’t, Avasarala asks her where she’s headed next. With everything that’s taken place, Bobbie’s in this metaphorical nether-zone between Earth and Mars. She doesn’t know, so Avasarala tells her to decide and let her know; whatever it is, she’ll make it happen. Bobbie insists that Avasarala doesn’t owe her anything. Avasarala’s response?

“Political favors are how I express affection” (pg. 573).

Have I mentioned how much I love Avasarala?! At any rate, she’s given a promotion that she doesn’t want but feels she has to take, Mei and Bobbie continue to heal, and when they land on Luna, Avasarala’s hubby is there waiting for her.

Holden contacts his family from Luna, asking them to come up from Earth to meet Naomi, aka The One. His Earther mom does her best to hide her prejudice against Belters, but her best isn’t anywhere near good enough. Even so, she agrees to talk to his other parents and convince them to head to Luna.

Holden also decides to have a sit-down with Jules-Pierre Mao, Julie’s father and co-founder of Mao-Kwikowski Mercantile, one of Protogen’s major suppliers. Mao has been arrested, so he doesn’t have much choice in the matter. Holden asks Mao if everything was worth it. He’s basically looking for some shred of humanity in the man, some sign of regret for the loss of his daughter and his company, for answers to questions that Mao can’t, or won’t, answer.

Ah, but then Avarsarala swoops in to offer Holden a job and give Mao the smack-down he so rightly deserves. She reminds him of what she said at the end of their meeting in her office, that she wasn’t someone with whom he should fuck. She tells him about her promotion, her plans to drop him down a hole so deep no one will ever see him again, and how she’ll then pull apart every single thing he ever built. And she’s going to put a TV airing a twenty-four hour news channel in his cell, so he can watch his legacy dismantled piece by piece. In her words:

“I am going to erase you” (pg. 584).

This, at last, hits Mao where he lives, bringing Holden and the reader the closure they deserve when it comes to Mao. For the moment, anyway.

After that, Prax and Mei, Bobbie, and the Roci‘s crew join Avasarala, her husband, and a bunch of other randos — politicians, military people, journalists, and various other movers and shakers — at a dinner being held at the New Hague on Luna. Everyone’s moving around, chatting to one another as they prepare to go their separate ways, when the lights dim and a moving image of a ship orbiting Venus pops up on a huge screen at one end of the hall.

The timestamp places the footage as being recorded 47 minutes earlier, and below that is the name of the ship that took the video, the Celestine. Another ship, the Merman, is sort of shifted out of the way — like how Eros jumped when the Nauvoo was headed for it — and then the vast constructions produced by the protomolecule on Venus lift through the cloud cover, converge into a wheel-shaped object, and the object hurls itself away from the sun, displacing everything in its path on its way…somewhere.

In the epilogue, Holden watches the footage over and over, unable to stop. Because he recognizes this moment as not an end but a beginning, a beginning to something unknown to humankind, a beginning to something for which no one can prepare. And he’s scared shitless.

The only thing that can pull Holden away from the footage is the sound of a man clearing his throat behind him. Holden turns to see who it is, and there he stands, in his rumpled suit and ever-present porkpie hat, a dead man swatting away a bright blue firefly…

“‘Hey,’ Detective Miller said. ‘We gotta talk'” (pg. 594).

And boom, as they say, goes the dynamite.

Again, I’m giving you the book in broad strokes, focusing on the major plot points, but as amazing as the storytelling is, I think these books truly excel in their character development and their relationships with one another. That’s hard to capture in a recap, though, so I just wanted to reiterate it.

Regardless, Caliban’s War does a great job of both escalating the stakes between the humans and, especially at the end, widening the scope of the series to an excitingly unknown degree. Plus, Avasarala and Bobbie!

Casting O’Clock

I only really have two this go-around: A&B — my beloved dynamic duo. So, let’s get started.

Chrisjen Avasarala: First off, I adore Shohreh Aghdashloo. She’s very talented, and her voice is, or should be, as iconic as Lauren Bacall’s or James Earl Jones’. That being said, I have a few issues with both her casting and her portrayal in the TV series. 1) Aghdashloo has too strong of a physical presence. I know, I know. I complained about Holden’s lack of charisma, but part of Avasarala’s power is in how small and unassuming she appears. 2) I hate that the first glimpse we get of Avasarala in the show is her attending the torture of a prisoner. Do I think Avasarala has, in the course of her career, both witnessed and ordered the torture of a captive/potential source of information? Yes and yes. But, the point at which she’s introduced in the book series, hanging out in a seedy craphole while a poor bastard screams and cries in the next room is far, far below her pay-grade. I realize that, in the TV show, it’s meant as a shorthand for how ruthless Avasarala can be, but it’s just too blunt of an instrument.

At any rate, my choice for Avasarala would be Shabana Azmi, a well-known Bollywood actress whose long and varied credits are definitely impressive, which speaks well for her skill. Also, she’s fairly unknown to American audiences, giving her the right amount of screen presence with the benefit of not being immediately recognizable as a major player. Plus, you know, Azmi’s actually Indian, whereas Aghdashloo is Iranian.

Roberta “Bobbie” Draper: Honestly, I’m pretty happy with their casting on the TV series of Frankie Adams. Look, Bobbie is a large woman — tall because she grew up in Mars’ lower gravity, and broad because she’s of Samoan descent and she works out like a fiend.

What can I say? Adams is tall, ripped, and, the cherry on the top, actually of Samoan (and New Zealand) descent. So, who am I to nay-say this bit of spot-on casting? Well done, show. You win this round.

That’s all for now! Next up: Gods of Risk (a novella featuring none other than the one, the only: Bobbie Draper!) and, if I can track it down, “The Last Flight of the Cassandra,” a short story included in The Expanse Roleplaying Game (published by Green Ronin Publishing in 2019). The next book is Abaddon’s Gate, wherein we find out what that crazy thing was that launched from Venus and how that thing is going to impact the crew of the Roci and the solar system at large.

Until then, oyedeng, dear Chicers!