Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse, #1)

by James S.A. Corey

Snake plant and devil’s ivy—staples of first-generation air recycling—decorated the wall and freestanding columns.

He wasn’t scared. Aneurysm-inducing rage made his temples pound and his fists squeeze until his tendons hurt.

I’m the captain now

“Point defense cannons?”

“It ain’t stolen,” Alex said. “It’s legitimate salvage now.”

It also had a full-size coffeepot that could brew forty cups of coffee in less than five minutes whether the ship was in zero g or under a five-g burn. Holden said a silent prayer of thanks for bloated military budgets and pressed the brew button. He had to restrain himself from stroking the stainless steel cover while it made gentle percolating noises.

Holden punched the comm system on the wall. “Well, crew, welcome aboard the gas freighter Rocinante.” “What does that name even mean?” Naomi said after he let go of the comm button. “It means we need to go find some windmills,” Holden said over his shoulder as he headed to the lift.

just tracking her down was the nearest to a purpose in life he could find.

It was the ancient stress response of the trapped animal, the subconscious knowledge that there was literally nowhere to go that you couldn’t see from where you were already standing.

More than once he’d wandered into a brothel and left only when they threw him out with an emptied account, a sore groin, and a prostate as dry as the Sahara desert.

It was a draconian system, but it did tend to keep passengers polite. The bar was always open and the drinks were cheap.

Like tge Si ferry

“Our Lady of Sleeping Through It,” Miller said, knowing he was getting drawn into conversation but unable to stop himself. The missionary laughed.

If someone is ready to accept Christ, it doesn’t take much effort on my part to help them. If they aren’t, no amount of hectoring them does any good. So why try?”

Vice in all its commercial forms found a home in Eros, its local economy blooming like a fungus fed by the desires of Belters.

The casino level of Eros was an all-out assault on the senses. Holden hated it. “I love this place,” Amos said, grinning.

Her features showed a far-flung racial mix that was unusual even in the melting pot of the Belt. Her hands weren’t shaking. The big one had the most experience, but Miller put the woman down as having the best instincts.

With his left, he took out his hand terminal, thumbed on the backlight, and opened a blank white writing tablet. The room came into monochrome. Beside him, Holden did the same.

No flashlight ?

Fear is the mind-killer. Ha. Geek.

BA834024112

“How about Venus?” Holden said, his voice higher and tighter than he’d expected. “Nothing interesting happening on Venus.”

Forrshadowing protomolecule structure that builds ring?

“I need to make very, very sure I understand what you’re saying,” Holden said as the big one—Amos—returned and sat at his other side holding the bagel. “Are you saying that unless I let you on my ship, your friend is going to keep us here? Because that’s blackmail.” “Extortion,” Amos said. “What?” Holden said. “It’s not blackmail,” Naomi said. “That would be if he threatened to expose information we didn’t want known. If it’s just a threat, that’s extortion.”

“Ship I was on had magnetic containment drop. Automatic cutoffs failed, and the reactor kept runnin’ for almost a second. Melted the engine room. Killed five of the crew on the next deck up before they knew we had a problem, and it took them three days to carve the bodies free of the melted decking for burial. The rest of us wound up eighteen to a shelter for thirty-six days while a tug flew to get us.” “Sounds great,” Holden said. “End of it, six of ’em got married, and the rest of us never spoke to each other again,” Alex said.

Afterward, he’d been through mandatory counseling. He’d cried. He’d suffered the nightmares and the shakes and all the things that cops suffered quietly and didn’t talk about. But even then, it seemed to be happening at a distance, like he’d gotten too drunk and was watching himself throw up. It was just a physical reaction. It would pass. The important thing was he knew the answer to the question. Yes, if he needed to, he could take a life.

Hieronymus Bosch,

Loud voices, screams, the low, liquid sound of people being violently ill. The air scrubbers were failing, the air taking on a deep, pungent odor like beef broth and acid.

“I know it’s none of my business, but I really wouldn’t let her put you off. So you don’t understand sex and love and women. Just means you were born with a cock. And this girl? Naomi? She seems like she’s worth putting a little effort into it. You know?”

Eight days later, the message came. The cargo ship Guy Molinari had arrived, full up with OPA soldiers.

the Guy Molinari screamed the Roci’s innocence to anyone who would listen,

“Went clean through us, Cap,” Amos said. “Galley and the machine shop. Got yellows on the board, but nothing that’ll kill us.” Nothing that’ll kill us sounded good, but Holden felt a pang for his coffeemaker.

“Let me get this straight,” he said. “You’ll give me all the kingdoms of the Earth if I just bow down and do one act of worship for you?” Dresden cocked his head. “I don’t know the reference.”

Jesus being tempted in the desert by Satan.

“The ones that don’t kill you don’t count.”

“Naomi’s a good person,” Amos said. “I like her, you know? Like my kid sister, only smart and I’d do her if she let me. You know?”

“Stars are better off without us,” he said, but too softly for anyone but Julie to hear.

From a crash couch, one of the OPA techs called out a string of obscenities remarkable more for inventiveness than actual rancor.

He’d been a cop for too long, and the idea of trying to reconnect to humanity again filled him with the presentiment of exhaustion.

Hieronymus Bosch

“Well,” she replied, tapping on her keypad. “Heating Eros up didn’t move it. So I assume that means it was waste heat from whatever it was they actually did.” “And that means?” “That entropy still exists. That they can’t convert mass to energy with perfect efficiency. That their machines or processes or whatever they use to move seven thousand trillion kilos of rock wastes some energy. About a two-gigaton bomb’s worth of it.” “Ah.” “You couldn’t move Eros two hundred kilometers with a two-gigaton bomb,” Amos said with a snort. “No, you couldn’t,” Naomi replied. “This is just the leftovers. Heat by-product. Their efficiency is still off the charts, but it isn’t perfect. Which means the laws of physics still hold. Which means it isn’t magic.”

There was alien life in the universe, and he was riding on it like a tick on a dog. Eros Station had moved of its own free will and by mechanisms he couldn’t begin to imagine. He didn’t know how many years it had been since he’d been overwhelmed by awe. He’d forgotten the feeling.

Earth had been so focused on her own problems that she’d ignored her far-flung children, except when asking for her share of their labors. Mars had bent her entire population to the task of remaking the planet, changing its red face to green. Trying to make a new Earth to end their reliance on the old. And the Belt had become the slums of the solar system. Everyone too busy trying to survive to spend any time creating something new.

Till human voices wake us, he thought, without quite being able to recall where the phrase came from.

Full circle. He’d come full circle. Once, in a different life, he’d taken on the task of finding her; then, when he’d failed, there’d been taking vengeance. And now he had the chance to find her again, to save her. And if he couldn’t, he was still pulling a cheap, squeaky-wheeled wagon behind him that would do for revenge.

Leviathan Wakes has two protagonists with very different worldviews, which are often in conflict. Can you describe those views and why you chose that particular conflict? You know how they say science fiction is about the future you’re writing about, but it’s also about the time you’re writing in? Holden and Miller have got two different views on the ethical use of information. That’s very much a current argument. Holden’s my holy fool. He’s an idealist, a man who faces things with this very optimistic view of humanity. He believes that if you give people all of the information, they’ll do the right thing with it, because people are naturally good. Miller is a cynic and a nihilist. He looks at the dissemination of information as a game you play. He doesn’t have faith in anyone else’s moral judgment. Control of information is how you get people to do what you want, and he doesn’t trust anyone else to make that call. I picked those two characters because they’re both right, and they’re both wrong. By having them in the same story, I can have them talk to each other. And that central disagreement is sort of underneath everything else that happens.

So how does the Epstein drive work? Very well. Efficiently.

Walter Jon Williams, who wrote the brilliant Dread Empire’s Fall space opera series,

S. M. Stirling and Victor Milan write some of the best action in the business,

Ian Tregillis is an actual as...

Melinda Snodgrass is pretty much the Yoda of letting you know when you’ve wandered to...

Where do you see the Expanse series going from here? Well, I’m contracted with Orbit for at least two more books. They are titled Caliban’s War and Dandelion Sky.

Book 3 title changed