Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse, #1) in The Sword and Laser

Jun 02, 2012 Tom Merritt rated it it was amazing

This to me is perfect scifi. There's enough acknowledgement to reality and physics and tech, and loads of evidence that the writer(s) is(are) a geek (are geeks) that I don't feel put upon with unlikely scenarios. On the other hand it's also not a physics textbook. I like physics textbooks, especially ones with stories, but that's a different choice of reading. When I want fiction, this is what I want. Adventure, differentiated and believable characters tight writing, and mystery that pulls you t ...more

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Jun 15, 2012 Eric rated it liked it

Shelves: book-club, science-fiction

Normally I rate a book three stars if it is okay -- not bad, not great. Not in this case. This is getting the three-star treatment because there are an equal number of things about it that I loved and hated. What I loved:

The World

The author writes in the afterward:

There’s a lot of science fiction that talks about the near future. There’s a lot about great galaxy-spanning empires of the distant future. But there’s not much that talks about the part in between. The Expanse is playing on that brid

...more

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Dec 12, 2014 Brittany rated it it was amazing

Shelves: sciencefiction, favorites, space-opera

Well. My goodness.

My reaction to this book is probably best summed up with a short anecdote. My husband and I decided to take the baby to the beach for a weekend in December. It was the baby's first plane trip, first trip to the beach, and it was a ton of fun traveling with him and watching him react to things. And in the middle of the warm weather, adorable baby, and fun adventures, my husband finally asked, "WHAT are you reading?? You must like it a LOT." Which is when I realized just how abs ...more

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Aug 28, 2014 Chadwick rated it liked it

Shelves: sf

Meh. Very much meh. A fairly interesting future, peopled by tissue-thin stock characters, whipping about the outer solar system at the whim of the most ludicrous coincidences imaginable. I wouldn't have minded so much, but the character development is so poorly executed that it gives me a bit of a headache. ...more

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Jun 08, 2013 travelgirlut rated it really liked it

Re-read 2021: I remember loving this book the first time around, so I was a bit surprised to come back and read my old review. I was all set to write a new review about how it wasn't as good this time around and so on and so forth, but I think I'd still rate it the same, 3.5 rounded up for good measure. And this might seem blasphemous, but I may almost like the TV series even better. The visuals in it are much better than what my pitiful brain can come up with while reading. But between them bot ...more

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Jan 10, 2016 Serena rated it really liked it

This was an excellent horror/noir/space opera; generation spaceship also included! I like imagining how the two people who make up James S.A. Corey wrote this book (Trading chapters? LARP?) and how they do interviews--some sort of shadowing drama exercise where they say the exact same word at the same time probably.
A good quote about George R.R. Martin: "He was very complimentary. He said at one point that it was the best book about vomit zombies he'd ever read. That was nice." ...more

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