Cibola Burn continues James Corey's experiment with new POV characters every novel, which means there's a chance that the new ones are boring. Additionally, the author decides to take an isolated colony plotline that's been done a thousand times by other science-fiction writers, and stretch out hundred pages of plot into five. The result is a slog through chapters of filler where nothing happens, people monologue and threaten but never act, and you find yourself wondering how you were ever entertained by these novels.

Let's start with the characters: they're shallow and one-dimensional. Prax had two qualities and they've been split into Basia and Elvi. The former is only a husband who is afraid for his children, full-stop. If he's going to say something, it's about saving his children. Similiarly, Elvi is only a scientist so wrapped in their own work that she'd probably forget to breathe. Her internal monologuing compares everything to biomes and resource competition. It's what a non-scientist thinks a scientist acts like. This is combined with a cringe-inducing subplot where most of her character growth comes from a literal climax.

Next: many readers complain that Cibola Burn feels like filler. That's because of the plot. First, it's unimaginative. You could pull up an Age of Sail shipwreck story with the same basic plotline: shipwrecked humans at conflict on an isolated island. Add to that a flat and empty plain as your setting, and then provide our characters with nothing to do.

Our POV characters never take the initiative to resolve any of the problems they're faced with (with the exception of Basia's first chapter). Things just 'happen' and our characters respond to external stimulae. Even Jim Holden arrives at humanity's first extra-solar colony to solve internecine conflict, but has no plan other than "sit down and talk to people in a cafeteria." The real main character is Murtry, whose actions drive much of the plot but is not a POV.

In the past, whatever its faults, I was entertained by the Expanse. This time, I'm skimming pages looking for the plot. There's nothing redeeming here. Read the last chapter as the prologue to Book 5.

Not recommended.