Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse, #1) in Fantasy-Faction.com

Jan 08, 2011 Liviu rated it it was amazing

Shelves: genre-sf, 2011_release_read, read_2011, t_notable_books_2011

Superlative series debut from the duo Abraham/Franck writing under one pen name; after the excellent The Dragon Path, D. Abraham helps deliver a great hard-sf/solar system adventure with the best world building in its category I've seen in a while and on par with Paul McAuley Quiet War duology. While a lacking the ensemble voice of that superb series and focusing on alternate POV chapters from the two main characters, the novel features a lot of other memorable characters too, though the two mai Superlative series debut from the duo Abraham/Franck writing under one pen name; after the excellent The Dragon Path, D. Abraham helps deliver a great hard-sf/solar system adventure with the best world building in its category I've seen in a while and on par with Paul McAuley Quiet War duology. While a lacking the ensemble voice of that superb series and focusing on alternate POV chapters from the two main characters, the novel features a lot of other memorable characters too, though the two main heroes are clearly the stars.

In a future several centuries ahead with the Solar System led by an an uneasy coalition between 30 billion UN Earth and upstart but with better toys Congressional Mars Republic, the Belt is a varied place under various corporate governance agreements while the native Belters are starting to diverge physically from humanity as well as resent the heavy taxes the Coalition imposes, while the partly underground OPA (Outer Planets Alliance) is actively working for some form of autonomy/independence. Racism flourishes with "inners" tending to suffer accidents in the Belt mini-states whenever out of reach of local authorities, while for some on earth, the Belters are good for mass murder experiments in the name of progress or race - here race being humanity as seen on Earth - that could make even the horrible 20th century ones pale

A bureaucratic and corporate world on the inner planets and a freewheeling one in the Belt with tensions simmering all the time is brought to a boiling point by a sequence of events that feature heavily one of our heroes, former UN space officer James Holden, an earnest and righteous man whose motto is that everything will be better if everything is known - not unlike recent newsworthy personages and of course with the same end result, though in this case his "leaks" - at large broadcasts - involve considerably more momentous events he witnessed; canned from the UN space force for insubordination, Holden found a place as XO on a huge water-hauler that brings ice-comets from the moons of Saturn to the Belt, especially to Ceres one of the core city-states there with a population of some 7 million, one million of which being transients from the thousands of ships that pass by daily; on such a routine haul, a distress signal requires assistance and despite the old captain misgivings - regarding costs and delays, the inter solar law is strict and XO Holden is strict too, if humans are in danger, they need rescue; he leads a five person team there and what he finds starts changing the big picture forever...

On Ceres, Belter cop Miller is passing through a rough time in his mid-forties after a bitter divorce and hitting the bottle, being relegated from hotshot star to the one "senior detective" - technically the Ceres cops are the security arm of the corporation governing Ceres which is Earth based, but practically they are the law on Ceres - for disposable partners (like Earth native Havelock who even after 2 years on Ceres is seen as subhuman by most of his colleagues) or s..y jobs that need to be seen as looked at like finding the headstrong daughter of one of the inner family corporations that are shareholder in Ceres, Julie Mao who moved across "lines" to the Belt and the OPa side; though of course Miller does not know he is the "dump on" guy, so he earnestly tries to make Havelock a true partner and as welcome as possible, while also slowly getting to investigate Julie and becoming engrossed by her revealed personality so deciding to find her at all costs; to start though Miller has a problem, the low level mafia guys on Ceres have been disappearing and while for his boss Capt Shaddid, that's not unwelcome, fro Miller it is wearisome since there always will be someone new to take their place...

And so it starts and it goes on for a long while the novel being one i really did not want to end; great, great characters, action scenes, mysteries, an excellent ending that promises more though being a great stopping point since it offers a complete package too, Leviathan Wakes is as good as sf gets without ftl...

An A++ an a top 2011 novel, the sequel is a huge asap ...more

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Jan 02, 2015 Kevin Xu rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I thought this book and series is really over hyped. Really, they had to take the Zombie into space, really?

10 likes · Like · see review

Feb 02, 2014 Maryam rated it really liked it

Shelves: science-fiction, scifi-fantasy-2016, favorite2016

I'm usually not into more than 500 pages books but this was one of the exceptions. It is a very well written book with an interesting story , likable characters and everything for me fitted in place.
A very good Space Opera. ...more

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Apr 11, 2017 Scott Marlowe added it · review of another edition

2022-01-19 - I'm going to give this a second chance. I've been watching the series on Amazon (started watching it on SciFi, then they canceled it, then it got picked up by Amazon but I didn't have a Prime subscription at the time) and it's so good I really feel I need to read the series too.

My loan on this one is about to expire but it's also not really grabbing me. Kind of confusing and I'm not really sure what's going on either. Guess if I kept reading, I might find out, but there's that libra ...more

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Jan 04, 2018 Nicholas Taylor rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Loved this book. I started with watching season one of the show, but am happy that I picked up the books. I enjoyed the characters in this book. Changing POV from Miller and Holden was a great way to illustrate what was going on in the world and see them from outside prospectives. If you are looking for a solid read I'd recommend this book. ...more

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Oct 11, 2019 Benni rated it it was amazing

Here's a series where I think the book and the tv show really work together to enhance the overall story (or alternate versions of the story), and you get so much more by consuming both! The show showed us more about Ceres and Belter life, but the book is clearer in terms of the "conspiracy" and of course gave us more on Holden's and Miller's perspectives.

Nitpick: When Holden's and Miller's stories collide, those back-and-forth chapters seem a little more pointless...

But, all in all, I am lovin ...more

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May 16, 2011 Adam Shaeffer rated it it was amazing

A space opera with noir and horror elements woven throughout. It was a great deal of fun to read and I look forward to the future volumes of The Expanse. Well-drawn characters with very different takes on the world make the two PoVs engaging and entertaining. Daniel Abraham has officially moved into the "I will read whatever he writes" camp. ...more

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