Over the last few weeks we’ve shared our picks for best books of 2011. Starting today, we’ll be sharing our 12 best bets for good reading in 2012. We’ll share one title a day through Christmas, and we invite you to jump in and comment with your own suggestions throughout the rest of the month. Today’s 2012 Best Bet is Caliban’s War by James S.A. Corey.
The Expanse series is already off to a good start with Leviathan Wakes (it was one of my choices for the best books of 2011), a book that none other than George R.R. Martin praised as a “kick-ass space opera”. The sequel, Caliban’s War, promises to build on the terrifying revelations of Leviathan Wakes:
We are not alone.
The alien protomolecule is clear evidence of an intelligence beyond human reckoning. No one knows what exactly is being built on Venus, but whatever it is, it is vast, powerful, and terrifying.
When a creature of unknown origin and seemingly impossible physiology attacks soldiers on Ganymede, the fragile balance of power in the Solar System shatters. Now, the race is on to discover if the protomolecule has escaped Venus, or if someone is building an army of super-soldiers.
Jim Holden is the center of it all. In spite of everything, he’s still the best man for the job to find out what happened on Ganymede. Either way, the protomolecule is loose and Holden must find a way to stop it before war engulfs the entire system.
I’m a sucker for near-future science fiction, and Leviathan Wakes‘ realistic technological limitations (no FTL drive, no blasters), terse political environment and clever genre-mixing makes it one of the best of the bunch. Waiting until June for the sequel is going to be difficult, but if the rest of our “Best Bets” are any indication I’ll have plenty of stuff to read until then.
