John Lusk reviewed Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey (The Expanse, #1)
This entire series rocks
5 stars
I loved this entire series. Page-turners, every one. WAY better than the TV series.
audio cd
Published Aug. 6, 2019 by Blackstone Pub, Hachette Book Group.
When Captain Jim Holden's ice miner stumbles across a derelict, abandoned ship, he uncovers a secret that threatens to throw the entire system into war. Attacked by a stealth ship belonging to the Mars fleet, Holden must find a way to uncover the motives behind the attack, stop a war and find the truth behind a vast conspiracy that threatens the entire human race.
I loved this entire series. Page-turners, every one. WAY better than the TV series.
I don't know why but I was expecting a fast action-paced space opera. But I thought it had too many political discussions and background and a lack of action. I enjoyed the world-building, though! It seems like this world can be expanded and explored to create amazing stories. I like noir-style detective stories but detective Miller was not my favorite character. The highlight is Rocinante's crew dynamics. I loved the mix of Earthlings, Martians and Belters. It is interesting to imagine that as humankind explores the universe there will be new languages, mixed cultures and different body types.
**UPDATE: I had originally given this book a 3 star rating mainly because I didn't like the pace (or I was in a bad mood) but after I saw The Expanse TV series I changed my mind about the book. Is that possible? So now it is a 4 star!
So I started reading this book 1 year ago...
I remember very vaguely that it kind of bored me; the vocabulary was complicated, the author uses some technical words I don't understand, and it generally didn't entertain me...
However, the idea of an interplanetary society that's set up in this novel, is very fascinating, additionally with the perspectives of 2 different, opposite characters, is also a very interesting way of telling a story.
Ultimately, I would give it a 3/5
This book was massive in scope and the author pulled it off with full marks. Incredibly well done story. I will absolutely read the next in the series.
Um, here's a thought, but don't read it unless you've already read the book, okay:
I feel kinda horrible to say it, but I was kinda glad when Miller got killed off. Not that I wasn't sad; he was one of my favorite characters, and I really loved how he developed over the course of the novel. It's just like this: if I'm going to stick around for a what, nine-book series, I want to see that the authors aren't afraid of change. Too many books I've read are afraid to let anything happen because they want their readers to keep loving the characters they first saw. (The Oz series is predominantly on my mind; every book solved the conflict with yet another magic object to the point where one of the later plots--and in my opinion one of the more interesting ones--has an evil magician steal all their magic …
Um, here's a thought, but don't read it unless you've already read the book, okay:
I feel kinda horrible to say it, but I was kinda glad when Miller got killed off. Not that I wasn't sad; he was one of my favorite characters, and I really loved how he developed over the course of the novel. It's just like this: if I'm going to stick around for a what, nine-book series, I want to see that the authors aren't afraid of change. Too many books I've read are afraid to let anything happen because they want their readers to keep loving the characters they first saw. (The Oz series is predominantly on my mind; every book solved the conflict with yet another magic object to the point where one of the later plots--and in my opinion one of the more interesting ones--has an evil magician steal all their magic stuff, so they have to work without. I mean, seriously: how can you keep a story interesting when one character has a belt that lets them do literally anything?)
Anyway, by killing Miller, the authors have convinced me that they're going to do what's right to make an interesting story, even if it hurts the reader's feelings a bit. And that's all right. In fact, I much prefer that to static characters. I don't want a bunch of novels with practically identical plots. (I'm talking to you, Sherlock Holmes and Hardy Boys.)
And to those who have read further into the series (preferably until Cibola Burn):
Yes, I realize Miller came back. My point stands; he definitely was extremely changed and arguably not even the original person at all.
Of course, I never want to be disappointed in a book I’ve chosen. Somehow, I feel especially disappointed when said book is from one of my favorite genres. This was exceedingly long in relation to the number of interesting things presented. I hope this was a daily deal (that I didn’t spend an Audible credit on it). I won’t continue with the series.
Mankind has colonized the solar system. And just like the colonies of old, those colonies and the people living and working there are being abused to extract the resources there. Within this world of growing tension, an unknown party is willingly exploiting and aggravating that tension.
Leviathan Wakes is both a mystery novel and a grand space opera. It's an engaging and well written read. A real "just one more page" book. With all the talk about going to Mars, it's also still a very relevant "near-future" story with science that's fiction, but still, it could happen.
If you've seen the television series based on the books, the books are still very much worth a read. The story and characters are slightly different, which makes both interesting enough to experience on their own.
I've been wanting to read this series ever since I read The Dagger and the Coin series by Daniel Abrahams, one of two authors behind the name James S.A. Corey. I watched the first four episodes of the show and decided I needed to read the source first. Took me a while but here I am.
I'm a bit disappointed because the series came with so much praise, and at least the first book hasn't earned all this praise yet. The worldbuilding and setting are amazing. I really like to imagine this SF universe that is focused on different powers in our solar system. The two major powers of the inner planets Earth and Mars, opposing the rougher faction of the Belters, the Outer Planet Alliance, with their own lingo, physique and attitude to life. And in comes a life-threatening event that causes a solar system-wide war as diversion.
However, …
I've been wanting to read this series ever since I read The Dagger and the Coin series by Daniel Abrahams, one of two authors behind the name James S.A. Corey. I watched the first four episodes of the show and decided I needed to read the source first. Took me a while but here I am.
I'm a bit disappointed because the series came with so much praise, and at least the first book hasn't earned all this praise yet. The worldbuilding and setting are amazing. I really like to imagine this SF universe that is focused on different powers in our solar system. The two major powers of the inner planets Earth and Mars, opposing the rougher faction of the Belters, the Outer Planet Alliance, with their own lingo, physique and attitude to life. And in comes a life-threatening event that causes a solar system-wide war as diversion.
However, what held this book back for me was the narrow PoVs. You just get two of them. There's Miller, a cop on Ceres, who gets charged with finding Juliette Mao, and Holden, the captain whose ship gets destroyed and who basically starts the war by announcing the destruction of his ship. Those two end up together eventually and find out where Julie Mao is, and save Earth from destruction. But Miller's chapters showed a broken and interesting character, whereas Holden mostly went on my nerves. He's a righteous, holier-than-thou character, who turned out to be super-needy and weird about relationships. I for one would have been happier if Naomi hadn't started a relationship with this needy dude, but whatever. I thought she was cooler as an independent, opinionated XO.
I would have loved to see more diversity in the PoVs. Someone at Protogen, someone else in the Belt, Mars, Earth, anything. Those two points of view were too self-contained somehow.
Of course, I need to continue now, because the threat was just stopped, not destroyed, and it was delightfully weird and fascinating. I just hope Holden becomes more interesting. He strongly reminded me of Geder Palliako from Dagger and the Coin somehow. Only that Geder was more interesting.
Anyhow, 3 to 3.5 stars.
Goes much further than the TV show if like me you didn't find this until it was on Syfy
Well paced and looking forward to the others
Great? No. A fun read.
This book had been on my to-read list for quite some time, but the recent announcement regarding it's conversion to a TV show spurred my need to read this. Now that I have, I'm wondering why it took me this long.
The story moves at a good pace with a "can't put it down" feel. The characters are fantastic and really left me missing them after I finished the book. Leviathan Wakes is not in the category of hard science, but the authors do a reasonable job of keeping things in a realistic perspective and have built a solar system wide economy that is completely believable. This is good old fashioned Space Opera the way it should be and I am really looking forward to seeing this made into a TV series.
This book had been on my to-read list for quite some time, but the recent announcement regarding it's conversion to a TV show spurred my need to read this. Now that I have, I'm wondering why it took me this long.
The story moves at a good pace with a "can't put it down" feel. The characters are fantastic and really left me missing them after I finished the book. Leviathan Wakes is not in the category of hard science, but the authors do a reasonable job of keeping things in a realistic perspective and have built a solar system wide economy that is completely believable. This is good old fashioned Space Opera the way it should be and I am really looking forward to seeing this made into a TV series.
Surprised and happy I read this one. The authors do a great job of keeping you in the story even when they are setting up something on the side. It's like the made a point to actively keep the reader engaged, which is weird--I know--as you'd think all books do that. Many books tell a story, this one keeps you focused while telling.
I'm going to steal this review, as it basically sums up how I feel:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/562881283
..."All in all, a disappointing read. Adequate, and certainly not bad, but certainly not as good as I'd hoped for. I'm mildly interested in what happens next, but don't feel a burning need to buy the rest of the series."