Cibola Burn is an audiobook by James S. A. Corey, narrated by Jefferson Mays. The unabridged Audible edition runs 20 hrs 7 mins.
Publisher’s Summary
With over 10 million copies sold, The Expanse has become one of the biggest science fiction phenomenons of the decade.
The fourth book in the New York Times bestselling Expanse series, Cibola Burn sees the crew of the Rocinante on a new frontier, as the rush to colonize the new planets threatens to outrun law and order and give way to war and chaos. Now a Prime Original series.
Enter a new frontier …
“An empty apartment, a missing family, that’s creepy. But this is like finding a military base with no one on it. Fighters and tanks idling on the runway with no drivers. This is bad juju. Something wrong happened here. What you should do is tell everyone to leave.”
The gates have opened the way to a thousand new worlds and the rush to colonize has begun. Settlers looking for a new life stream out from humanity’s home planets. Ilus, the first human colony on this vast new frontier, is being born in blood and fire. Independent settlers stand against the overwhelming power of a corporate colony ship with only their determination, courage, and the skills learned in the long wars of home. Innocent scientists are slaughtered as they try to survey a new and alien world. The struggle on Ilus threatens to spread all the way back to Earth.
James Holden and the crew of his one small ship are sent to make peace in the midst of war and sense in the midst of chaos. But the more he looks at it, the more Holden thinks the mission was meant to fail. And the whispers of a dead man remind him that the great galactic civilization that once stood on this land is gone. And that something killed it.
“Interplanetary adventure the way it ought to be written.” —George R. R. Martin
Hugo Award Winner for Best Series
The Expanse
Leviathan Wakes
Caliban’s War
Abaddon’s Gate
Cibola Burn
Nemesis Games
Babylon’s Ashes
Persepolis Rising
Tiamat’s Wrath
Leviathan Falls
Memory’s Legion
The Expanse Short Fiction
Drive
The Butcher of Anderson Station
Gods of Risk
The Churn
The Vital Abyss
Strange Dogs
Auberon
The Sins of Our Fathers
Audiobook Details
- Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
- Length: 20 hrs 7 mins
- Publisher: Orbit
- Release year: 2014
- Audible category: Science Fiction & Fantasy / Science Fiction / Adventure
Listener Ratings
Cibola Burn holds an average listener rating of 4.7/5 from 27018 Audible ratings.
On Audible, ratings for this title break down into narration performance and story separately:
- Performance (narration): 4.6/5
- Story: 4.7/5
- 5-star ratings: 74% of all ratings
What Audible Listeners Are Saying
4/5 stars — “Book has been renarrated by Jefferson Mays-Thanks!”
Previous narrator made me angry and depressed. Had to switch to reading. New narration by Jefferson Mays made me cry with relief. UPDATE 3/30/2017 — Yesterday I got an update email from Amazon saying that the audio narration has been updated:"""Dear Audible Listener, We are contacting you because you have reviewed the title “Cibola Burn” by James S. A. Coery. The original recording has now been replaced with a new performance by Jefferson Mays. If you own this audiobook, simply re-download it from your library to access the new recording."""
I downloaded the new narration and rejoiced in the sweet tones and characterizations we have all come to enjoy from Jefferson Mays. I almost cried. Although I am 2/3 of the way through the book, I am happy to listen to the rest via audio now because of this.
OLD REVIEW CONCERNING PREVIOUS NARRATION:
This review pertains to (mostly) the audio narration which is the worst audio narration I’ve listened to for any book in my life. I’m about 30% through this book at this point. The first three books have great audio narration and I was really looking forward to listening to this one. Where and why Amazon/Audible decided to hire this brainless and belligerent narrator is beyond me. Firstly, the narrator obviously hadn’t listened to the previous narrator’s reads of the previous books to provide any sense of continuity. Secondly, this narrator tries to ‘act’ the characters and does a really poor job. Unfortunately, he reads this book like it is a dime store Western/Romance novel. All the men have western cowboyish accents and all the women are read as either breathy or breathless voices. It is beyond distracting. And, even worse, this new dumb narrator’s acting interpretation of Christian Avasarala is a out of breath woman on the verge of hysterics rather than the appropriate biting cynical political genius with an Indian accent. Those characters he deems not of the cowboy or helpless woman type of voice he gives either a super poor australian accent or some mixture of transylvanian/slavic (seriously sounds like a bad Dracula voice for someone with a middle eastern name). Even more unfortunate is that he has decided to provide an American Indian accent to the ghostly character of Miller. WTH!!!
So, if you enjoy cheap western novels and want a book of the expanse series read to you in this way, you will have no problem with this book. If you’ve listened to the narration from the previous books and expect the same ‘feel’ of narration, skip it for this one. You’ll go stark raving mad. There is hope however, for the subsequent novel narration as it reverts back to the first narrator. From wiki: This narrator’s name is Erik Davies (you should be fired) and is only for Cibola Burn and the novellas Gods of Risk and The Churn. All the others are the narrator Jefferson Mays.
Dear Amazon/Audible: If you switch narrators in a series, your quality control (I’m sure you have none) needs to require that the new narrator provide narration continuity. I wish I could get my money back for the audio purchase of this book. Please hire Jefferson Mays to record narration for Cibola Burn, Gods of Risk, and The Churn to replace the TERRIBLE narration of Erik Davies. Erik Davies should only be hired to record narration for awful cheap dime store Western novels. If the authors are reading this and have any pull, ask Amazon/Audible to fix this. You almost lost me as a reader.
As far as the novel goes, it is a slow starter and more boring and world building type of novel than the first three. So go into it with that in mind. Maybe by the end something cool will happen but I’m not there yet.
I got pulled into reading/listening to the novels by watching the TV series. Has been totally worth my time until I encountered this exceptionally poor narration.
— fandel69, Audible listener
4/5 stars — “Decent read”
Feels like a transition book. They are moving from the solar system and broaden into a larger universe. Hopefully book 5 delves more into the political battles of the inner planents.— Anthony B. Vranish, Audible listener
5/5 stars — “tv vs books”
The series is amazing. even with a female empowered interpretation that hollywood puts out, they still make sure to hit all the main points each book. This book for me was 10x better than the season, which did a great job at portraying everything. The book just goes that much further. Havlocks character is amazing in this and the book is from his perspective ~30% of the time. can’t wait to read nemesis games— Yubaiten, Audible listener
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