Cibola Burn is an interesting look at the new age of exploration occasioned by the opening of the ring gates, and the inevitable conflict and massive social shifts it produces. I appreciated the ongoing detail of the world-building and the fact that the new focus characters all go through significant and interesting arcs. But I felt like this book had significant pacing issues due to a lot of repetitive exposition, which made it feel like one of those movies you think should be over about three times but nevertheless just keeps on going. One of the examples of this that irritated me the most was the constant reiteration of Elvi's

Spoiler

feelings for Holden during the first 2/3 of the book. It's not that I don't think her feelings are plausible, but we could've filled in the blanks for ourselves at some points during her interactions with Holden

. Elvi is a really cool character and I love her passion for science and experiencing their new alien world, but it made me remember all the cringey male-gaze-ness of the first few books and think that the authors are still pretty hit and miss in their writing about women.