Leviathan Wakes: 10th Anniversary Edition

by James S. A. Corey

Hardcover, 2021

Status

Available

Call number

813.6

Publication

Orbit (2021), Edition: Special, 576 pages

Description

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.

User reviews

LibraryThing member norabelle414
Captain Holden is sent in a shuttle by his Commanding Officer to investigate a distress beacon - only to see the whole ship get vaporized as soon as the shuttle is out of range. Detective Miller, a contracted police officer on the dwarf planet Ceres, is investigating the disappearance of the
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daughter of a rich family when he's told to stop, that the investigation will be taken over by the domestic-terrorist group she belonged to. Miller refuses to stop looking for her, and his investigation eventually runs into Captain Holden, who is searching for whoever blew up his coworkers.

Half of the book is a classic space opera, updated to reflect our current understanding of physics, space travel, the solar system, etc. The other half is a noir police/detective drama, complete with an ex-wife, alcoholism, organized crime, and a 22-year-old female victim whom the 50-year-old cop is obsessed with. (Gross.) This is definitely a plot-driven story, because the two main characters are almost indistinguishable from each other. They are both bland, middle-aged white men who want to have sex with whatever young woman is closest. Yawn. I enjoyed the plot a lot and I really want to know what happens next in the series, but I don't think I can continue without some reassurance that there will be more than FIVE females in the entire solar system in the next volume.
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LibraryThing member thatpirategirl
This is a space adventure / noir mystery, and it's one of the most exciting and well-thought-out sci-fi books I've read recently. One half of the story deals with a ragtag crew of space-ice miners who get caught up in a political conflict -- this sounded boring to me but ended up being my favorite
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aspect of the first part of the book. The other half features a washed-up detective dealing with the same conflict from the slums of the asteroid belt. I found this part to be a little too by-the-book detective story, but I liked Miller and wanted to see him succeed.

All the characters are likable, even though they have that habit of always saying clever things even in situations so dire I'm surprised they're able to form a coherent sentence at all. This book was written by two separate writers using "James S.A. Corey" as a pseudonym, and sometimes it feels like they're trying to out-awesome each other. But the plot is interesting enough that it's not that much of a distraction.

The part of the story that really gripped me is introduced too late in the book to discuss without spoiling (hint: it's weird and scary). I thought the plot was going to deal mostly with war and politics and didn't anticipate being interested enough to continue the series, but after the weirdness that went down in the end I'm really excited for the next book.
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LibraryThing member rrainer
I wanted to read this book for two reasons: because it's a Hugo nominee for best novel, and I'm reading my way through all the nominees I can, and because it's described as a space opera and I've been desperately craving a good space opera, of the sort I used to read years ago. Unfortunately, it
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didn't quite satisfy the craving on the second front; while it's space opera under the broad definition, it wasn't the sort of sweeping, not-necessary-to-explain-FTL galactic empire story that I was looking for.

But the novel shouldn't be faulted for my expectations. It's a good story with some really compelling characters (once I got to know them a little) and intense conflict, which suffered from a bit too much head-hopping, in my opinion. The fact that I kept calling one of the characters a sanctimonious, self-righteous idiot and momentarily thought about throwing the book across the room is actually a compliment. I was invested. I wanted to know where it was going.

I wish I could give 3.5 stars, but ultimately I thought it was closer to 4 than 3.
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LibraryThing member majkia
Fast plot and intriguing characterization.

The future isn’t all that terrific as humanity is stuck in our own star system, not having found an FTL solution as yet.

A faint SOS beacon brings a response from a passing transport ship, and when its shuttle reaches the disabled ship, the crew watches
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in horror as a cloaked warship blows away their transport. Now stranded and hiding from this unknown enemy, they struggle to find a place to go, how to get there, and what to do then. They find some evidence that the culprits in attacking their ship are from the Mars federation. The disclosure of that evidence starts a shooting war between the Belters and Mars. Earth remains surprisingly quiescent. But how long will that last?

Two POVs which you know will mesh up eventually. Lots of action, interesting trying to piece together what the heck is going on.

Great read!
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LibraryThing member JasonMehmel
This book is a ride, and if the rest of the series follows suit, I can see why it’s been so popular.

I had been looking forward to this book and series for a while… and so I did my best not to find out anything about the story or setting beforehand.

I had a vague sense this would be gritty,
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realistic sci fi. And that there was a division between those that live on Earth and Mars and those that live beyond… but that’s it.

All that is there, but packed inside is a noir detective story, a horror story, a strange Star-Trek-Star-Wars Firefly mix, (without the whimsy) and a plot that never lets you settle into a status quo for it’s characters. And to never feel as though any one particular character is safe from danger.

That last point is probably the thing I was most impressed by. Things constantly change for all the characters and it keeps you very engaged. The ‘what is going to happen next’ drive is not unlike the Sun’s gravity well, it keeps tugging you throughout the whole story no matter what.

The multiple plots converge in satisfying ways that also don’t feel telegraphed, which is particularly difficult to execute. The characters interact naturally to their extreme situations which is also part of the appeal; you grow to care about these characters and so you’re invested in their reactions to the world and to each other.

The Miller (detective) story finds a way to mix idealism and justice into a depressing and beaten-down character, and while living inside the detective mold, things are just different enough, between the setting and the plot, that it avoids feeling like we’re just watching a detective trope play out.

The Holden (ship captain) story really does mix the scoundrel/working class hero vibe of Star Wars and Firefly and the idealism of Star Trek… which again needs to be commended as that idealism could have seemed naive. Instead it comes across as the only response that Holden is capable of in a world of grey choices… which is frankly inspiring.

I’ve been hankering for (and writing) some ‘hard’ sci-fi where I try to keep the science as authentic as possible. I’ll admit I was looking for that here, and though they make some solid gestures in that direction, it also doesn’t hold onto it too tight. At first I felt disappointed, but it’s not a failing of the book; it’s not trying to get the science right and failing. It’s pretty clear that their tone demands an element of realism, but only an element. What’s mixed in there is horror and space-opera as well, and those demands flex against pure scientific modes.

The only quibbles I have with the book are around rhythm and and it’s prose. A few times the writing will reach for a moment of pathos or drama in it’s description in ways that the rest of the story and writing can’t match, so they don’t land. And the rhythm of it’s plot, driving forward as it is, means that some of the major moments pass by a little too quickly, including the end. Considering how much time we’ve spent with these characters (it’s a long book), I would have appreciated at certain moments, including the end, a chance for both the characters and readers to catch their breath and take in everything that’s happened up to that point.
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LibraryThing member quondame
This is a pretty good space opera, provided you don't question the Martian navy's existence -it is just stated that is is smaller but better quality than earth's. But where would a planet struggling to terraform get the resources and personnel? The technology maybe, but that does not translate to
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warships and marines. In this volume that is a small issue when the real threat is the alien pseudomolecule and it's enablers, but further along in the series it is the problem and it still never makes any sense.
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LibraryThing member richardderus
Rating: 2.5* of five

The Book Description: Humanity has colonized the solar system - Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt and beyond - but the stars are still out of our reach.

Jim Holden is XO of an ice miner making runs from the rings of Saturn to the mining stations of the Belt. When he and his crew
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stumble upon a derelict ship, The Scopuli, they find themselves in possession of a secret they never wanted. A secret that someone is willing to kill for - and kill on a scale unfathomable to Jim and his crew. War is brewing in the system unless he can find out who left the ship and why.

Detective Miller is looking for a girl. One girl in a system of billions, but her parents have money and money talks. When the trail leads him to The Scopuli and rebel sympathizer Holden, he realizes that this girl may be the key to everything.

Holden and Miller must thread the needle between the Earth government, the Outer Planet revolutionaries, and secretive corporations - and the odds are against them. But out in the Belt, the rules are different, and one small ship can change the fate of the universe.

My Review: Exactly half-way to a five-star world-beating yodel-worthy space opera. An extremely interesting choice of time to explore, sort of late Green Mars-to-early-Blue Mars time. A choice group of characters, the standard Hero's Journey plot, and away we go!

Only we don't so much. We stall out on characterization...flat-ish, unsurprising...we hop around in PoV terms until I feel like a flea on a chihuahua that ate some coffee beans and is more manic than usual. We keep events hurtling along, far too many of them in fact, and we mangle our hands in the machinery of alienness.

We did too much, ate too much, played too rough. Our tummy hurts now, and we need a nap.

Plus? I hate the ending so much I want to send the editor a nastygram. THIS COULD HAVE AND SHOULD HAVE BEEN FIXED. It's not for the author to do, this is a collaboration and that means sometimes a referee is needed. This was one of them. No way would I read the next book! And that's sad, because I really really like The Expanse and its cool politics and people.
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LibraryThing member BenjaminHahn
What a super fun space opera! I haven't seen the Expanse but I certainly want to now. Leviathan Wakes was great and very quick to read. The story has an awesome gritty space truckers feel to half of it. I kept imaging the oil rig crew from the movie Abyss. The other half is crime-noir detective but
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on an asteroid space station. Lot's of gray, lot's of corruption and politics. Best of all, the science was plausible and lent the story another level of verisimilitude. The plot gets progressively complex and there are even some laugh out loud winks to classic sci-fi and horror that I won't spoil here.

Speaking of subtle winks, my copy of the book had an interesting interview in the back and I was surprised to find out that James S. A. Corey is a pen name for two different writers Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck. These two folks are part of the New Mexico Critical Mass Writers Group based in Albuquerque, NM. This writers' group includes George R.R. Martin and S.M. Stirling who I happen to read a lot of. It's fun for me to think about how those conversations look. It's easy for consumers of fiction to forget all the work and refinement that goes into a well crafted story. For every minute it takes for me to read one chapter of good fiction, I need to remember that days and days went into creating it. Even more so for graphic novels.

Anyway, a fun little series that I look forward to following. Ugh, another series that I am hooked on and it's a show which I know I'm going to have to watch. Gotta find more time in my week.
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LibraryThing member Zeke_Chase
Rating: 5.4 / 10

This book is getting a lot of hype – George R. R. Martin sings it praise – so I had to check it out. The general consensus is that this book is space opera at its finest, but where too many space operas get bogged down in endless descriptions of the spacecraft or minor
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scientific details (or completely botching the science), this one sails above them by actually having character depth, and a story that moves. I have to like it just for that.

Now, don't get me wrong, this is pure unadulterated pulp sci-fi. There's no great introspection on the human condition or dire warnings of things to come (although the explanation of Holden's parentage is fairly interesting). This is just good, cheap, summer fling pulp. It's about as deep trickling stream in the dry season.

Which is not to say that it's bad. But.... I began to read this when I was sick, looking for a distraction and something I could feel free to zone out on. When I got about 80 or so pages in, my plate suddenly filled up, and I found myself with a stack of to-read books a mile high, all important research with deadlines. There was many a time I contemplated putting this book down for a few months.

But the nonstop action kept me coming back. Once you're familiar with the characters, every chapter leaves you eager to read more.

James S. A. Corey is a collaboration between Daniel James Abraham and Ty Corey Franck (with the middle initials taken from Abraham's daughters). Franck, as far as I'm aware, is not a previously published author, though he was the genesis for this novel through worldbuilding he'd put into a rollplaying game. Abraham is an established author, though I've never read anything of his.

The story follows two principle viewpoint characters in alternating chapters – James Holden (written by one of the James Corey duo) and Detective Miller (written by the other). The year is not specified, but humanity has expanded to Mars, the Belt, the Jovian moons and has science and mining stations in the Saturnian system – and interstellar Mormons are preparing for the first interstellar launch to fulfil their religious Manifest Destiny. It details the beginning of an interplanetary war between the three powers of the system – Earth, Mars and the Belt – all the while strange happenstance about with stealth ships and kidnap jobs, private contractors and an infectant from the moon Phoebe. As it's written in part as a mystery, I won't spoil anymore.

My main problem with this book is the prose. It's entirely lifeless – well, not entirely, but very close. The characters were obvious cliches, but I didn't mind that. The alternating POV chapters worked really well. The story was about 90% as riveting as I could want. The pacing wasn't all that well established, weeks or months going by in one chapter and then shifting to hours in the next without transition.

Overall, I enjoyed this book, and I'm definitely curious to see where the next book is going to take it.
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LibraryThing member rivkat
Humanity has colonized Mars and the Belt, and those have started to chafe against Earth’s rule. When a not-so-great ice hauler’s crew stumbles across a mystery, and a not-so-great cop on Ceres starts chasing a missing persons case harder than his bosses want, the results spiral out towards
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system-wide war. But that’s just a sideshow as humanity faces an even bigger threat. Space opera, good and chewy, with enjoyable worldbuilding even if having two redeemable loser men as your central characters (each with unbending but conflicting moral codes) seems like overkill. Abraham/Corey clearly took a lot of the crew’s ethos from Firefly, and generally that’s to the story’s good, though this version of the “if I don’t come back, you come get me”/“what, and risk my ship?” exchange lacks the Whedon spark.
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LibraryThing member Shrike58
Set in a Human future where an over-populated Earth has forced the colonization of the rest of the Solar System, the question is who the hell would provoke a system-wide war that could be lethal for the whole of Humanity. What I'm not talking about is the secret at the center of this whole
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conflict; let's just say that it reminds me of a certain novel by Greg Bear.

The real novelty here is that the main point-of-view characters are both men who, at the start of the story, are past their prime in terms of having failed to attain their potential and who have fallen into a comfortable mediocrity when events upend their respective lives, and unwanted heroism beckons. These characters incarnate a social debate between the private cop for whom you're either in or out of the corporate embrace (and for whom the consolations of private life failed), and the space crewman who believes that there is still a public arena where meaningful debate and action can exist.
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LibraryThing member knownever
Read it. It is very very funny. There are plot twists that you don't see coming and I'd say about 85% of them are not cliche or far fetched at all. It also has a very interesting horror element that makes flying around in space ships much more engaging than usual. People have been loving the "vomit
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zombies," but they're actually one of the less funny and mind blowing elements. I wish it wasn't so long and that there weren't like two more 500 page books hanging over my head to read, but the characters are engaging and the space battles actually manage to be comprehensible, not to mention tense and exciting. I do wish we'd had more of the "big mechanic" Amos than the whingeing suicidal cop Miller, but that is my literary cross to bear. liking minor characters better than the boring, hetero protagonists.
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LibraryThing member DoingDewey
Typically classed as a space opera, Leviathan Wakes has a little bit of everything – action, horror, mystery, and of course science fiction. We alternate between two perspective, one a shuttle captain drawn into the mystery surrounding a deserted ship sending out a distress signal and the other a
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cop searching for a missing girl who we know was on the now deserted ship. This shuttle eventually leads them both to a secret some people are willing to “kill on an unfathomable scale for” – even if that means engineering a war.

The first sentence of the book caught my attention and the writing was sometimes as good as I expected based on that first sentence. However, the book did include a lot of different sorts of action and some parts were better done than others. The creepy bits were very creepy and well done. The mystery was my favorite part of the whole story and is what mostly kept me reading. I wish a little more of the book had focused on the political aspects, actually. The action parts weren’t so good. A lot of the dialogue on this ship reminded me, as other reviewers have noted, of Firefly (the TV show) but it wasn’t quite as good written as it would be on TV. The same was true of some of the ship battles; I just wanted to be able to see them! There was occasionally some gory violence, presented matter-of-factly and not too graphically but I think that made it all the more jarring. And as I mentioned in my review of Flight From Berlin, strong violence is not my thing.

Everything from the complex decisions faced by characters to the combat were written convincingly (although obviously my evaluation of the combat is strictly based on video games and other books) and I thought both were high points. Also, I’ve noticed in this book and other books I’ve read recently for the Sword and Laser group on goodreads, that many good sci-fi books ask an interesting moral question. In Hyperion, it would probably be a complex question about what religion mean to people. In Tigana, it was considering the importance of memory. And in Leviathan Wakes, a big theme is the importance of knowledge and how and when it’s shared with the masses. I wonder if that’s true of other genres as well; I’ll have to pay attention Anyway, I think I liked that aspect of each of these book and it made for a more compelling narrative.

So, other than the mixed feelings about the different types of story included here, I think the only thing that kept me from liking this book a lot more were the two main characters. Both were men but even more than that neither acted in a way I could relate to most of the time. Overall, this was a pretty epic space opera which left lots of interesting and unanswered questions, so I’ll most likely be reading the sequel.
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LibraryThing member Alexander_Crom
Levithan Wakes is a powerful Science Fiction novel wich belongs among the high prestige as the works of H.P. Lovecraft and Orson Scott Card. This smart and inovative novel creates a universe so unbelievably self focused and bizarre it can only be our own.

Levithan Wakes sets the stage for the
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greatest space mystery of our time in a fully colonized solar system, branching from mars to the outer asteroid belt.

“...Solomon Epstein had built his little modified fusion drive, popped it on the back of his three-man yacht, and turned it on. With a good scope, you could still see his ship going at a marginal percentage of the speed of light, heading out into the big empty. The best, longest funeral in the history of mankind. Fortunately, he’d left the plans on his home computer. The Epstein Drive hadn't given humanity the stars, but it had delivered the planets.”

This amazing novel is both witty and serious, containing dark philosophical undertones. The story follows two Perspective characters, an XO of an ice hauler traveling between Saturn and the belt, Holden, and a detective on the asteroid Ceres, Miller. These two characters convey two entirely different views of concepts relevant to us even today such as, freedom of information vs. protection and law vs. what needs to be done.

Through these characters we see humanity begin to unravel as the long standing racism and ethnocentric of the various humans begin to burst. In this truly epic operatic the readers will really start to question what is right and wrong and what it really means to be human.
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LibraryThing member srearley
I am trying to read all of the Hugo nominees, and while I had a bit of trouble getting in to this one, I'm glad I stuck with it. It's a space opera, but it didn't get bogged down too badly in describing technology -- it described enough to be interesting, but not so much that I started skimming out
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of boredom. Some of it was a little too contrived or coincidental, but not enough that it stopped me from enjoying it.

Not an all time favorite, but definitely enjoyed reading it.
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LibraryThing member bksgoddess
Humans have conquered Mars and the belt, but the stars are still beyond our reach. When XO Holden is sent to explore the ruin of the ship Scopuli, he sets in motion events that reach back to Mars and Earth. Detective Miller is looking for a lost girl. Together they attempt to find out just what or
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who is behind the events, preferably before total war breaks out.
The book is a little slow in starting, but really picks up when the two protagonists are brought together. The chapters alternate between these two very different characters.
This book is the start of a trilogy, but feels complete in its own right. I'm definitely looking forward to Mr. Corey's future works.
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LibraryThing member erinster
I really enjoyed most of this book, for a long list of reasons (most of the characters were POCs and women, there was a lot of thought put into this futuristic society, it felt really real, the plot was cool, etc). My main criticisms are that it dragged a lot in the middle -- I really think this
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could've been cut down by a few hundred pages. I'm also not sure what I think of the character of Miller. Holden IMO was the much stronger character, and I never felt like we had a really strong grasp of who Miller was, which is disappointing considering the book is 50% from his POV. That said, this book reminded me why I love scifi.
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LibraryThing member JenneB
Grimy, blue-collar space opera where the female characters are actually people, and the ending is an actual ending and not just a "Hey guys! Read the sequel!"? Sign me up!
LibraryThing member eviljosh
This is a good pseudo-hard sci-fi book. It dodges some questions (how do those ship drives work, anyways?) but maintains a good deal of realism that many space operas ignore (acceleration is slow and painful, radiation is a constant threat, etc.).

I love the paranoid feeling this book instills. The
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world building on that score is really phenomenal. The solar system is a tiny mote in the "galactic biosphere" and humanity is such a new, young race that the elder races (if they still exist) may not even bother to worry about doing it harm.

If you're stuck on a planet at the bottom of a gravity well, you have all the air and water you could need, but you're *stuck* on a sitting target. A couple of rocks tossed in your general direction could destroy your entire infrastructure and kill off all your population centers.

If you're on a little asteroid station or free floating space station in the belt, you're always on the verge of death with your air and resources spilling through the thin skin of your station into space. But you're not stuck in a well, infinitely vulnerable to any attack.

If you're human, you're dealing with leftovers from an elder race that were sent our way billions of years ago. You're wondering what the purpose of that technology is, and whether your species can survive the encounter.

Overall, a great book, and one which I recommend highly.
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LibraryThing member JeremyPreacher
By the end of this book, I liked it well enough, I suppose, although space opera is never really going to be my thing. But good gods, it took a long damned time to get to the end of the book. The pacing is glacial.

There are two main threads, one of them spacecop-noir and the other one basically
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Firefly. The noir one is depressing, slow, tedious, and doesn't really pay off enough to justify the endless length. The other one is... well, it's Firefly pastiche, and particularly blatant at that. Neither of the main characters are all that sympathetic - one's an amoral drunk, the other's an idiot.

That said, the actual plot isn't bad, and is reasonably twisty. It sets up what could very well be a better-paced sequel. But I am not surprised at all that everyone I talked to at Worldcon said "yeah... I didn't finish that one."
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LibraryThing member stefferoo
Great read, and nothing like I expected. The only negative for me is that it was a bit slow to take off, but the payoff is worth it. Like a roller coaster ride, the ramp up is long, but around the halfway point things really start to take off.

After that, there are some ups and downs...but mostly
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ups. This book had more than I bargained for. While it's sci-fi, there's also a bit of mystery, some thriller, and even some horror thrown in. That's all I'll say about that last part, because I don't want to spoil the story.

I look forward to Caliban's War (Expanse #2). Daniel Abraham is probably the more experienced half of James S.A. Corey, and the writing does somewhat reflect that. But the point-of-view written by Ty Franck isn't bad either, and I look forward to seeing what he can do in the next installment.
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LibraryThing member nmele
At times, this large novel reminded me of C.J. Cherryh--questions of politics and character, mostly, but also an at times heated tone to the writing--and often it references Larry Niven (the Belters in Corey's book seem taken straight from Niven) which can be a little disconcerting because the
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alien virus-created zombies jar with the hard science approach of the latter's Known Space stories and the focus on human cultures and relationships in the former's work. It was an enjoyable read which, once I accepted the doomsday ex machina and a few other throwaway plot devices (normal people brainwashed into sociopaths, for example), plays fair with the logic of its universe.
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LibraryThing member Versor
Hmm.

This was a difficult book to like, at times. I have no taste for gore/horror storylines, so the aptly named "vomit zombies" were unappealing to me. An intriguing, albeit not unprecedented, take on the shambling menace. This was the crux of the entire book (and, it would seem, the groundwork for
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the entire series, however long that shall be), so it was pervasive. I didn't hate it, but I didn't particularly enjoy it.

Worse, the profanity. More pervasive than the zombies. I get that many people don't find a story "real" or "genuine" if the characters aren't cursing up a storm when things go sideways. I disagree. I think it's entirely plausible to avoid modern curses altogether; you can use alternatives ("frell," "rutting," "gorram," and others come to mind) or you can have characters that simply don't curse every other word. Such people do exist, after all.

I did not care for the notable presence of sexuality, but I will point out that the sexuality in this book was remarkably less blatant and graphic than it is in many modern science fiction. I suppose "pulp fiction" may be the term for selling books to the lowest common denominator, and "Leviathan Wakes" was not (quite) pulp fiction.

The book's treatment of religion was... callous, at best. Indifferent, maybe. There was an apparent disconnect between the characters and any sort of genuine religious sense - or maybe that disconnect extends even to the authors, but I can't say for sure. But I do know that, while the book avoids the trends of other Sci-Fi (e.g., Star Trek) in claiming that religion was erased as if it were a black spot on humanity's record, it doesn't quite give it a fair shake. But I wasn't expecting much in that department, anyway.

On the other hand, there was mystery, intrigue, and tough characters. In some ways, Holden and Miller were very likable. Holden more than Miller, though, but I think it was intended that way. Miller is almost an anti-hero, someone who does good things but not necessarily for good reasons, and certainly not with an upbeat or positive attitude. His particular brand of insanity is peculiar, but not necessarily unreasonable. Holden is basically a good person, and believes that everyone is basically a good person, but he's a bit too enslaved to his own emotional well-being to be a real hero.

At any rate, I enjoyed the book, and its flow and structure allowed it to build before entering that inescapable page-turning phase. It also set up handily for future volumes, although I would not expect favorite characters to make much of an appearance. This universe doesn't revolve around Holden and Miller, after all - they just happened to be caught up in the first bunch of events. Someone else will probably be caught up in the next bunch.

Speaking of the next bunch, I may not read future volumes. The profanity, sexuality, and probability of gore/horror elements (evidently, according to the authors, a staple of their work) provide strong dissuading arguments. But it was a fun read, and I am glad that I received it from my dear wife as an anniversary present (after requesting it some months prior, of course).
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LibraryThing member publiusdb
Straddling the gulf between noir and sci-fi, with pretensions towards the epic, and a promise of dramatic, Leviathan Wakes filled a much needed hole in my reading schedule this summer—that of the best read of the season, if not the year.

Miller and Holden, each with their human qualms and quirks,
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more grey than heroic, are just as interesting as the plot they are unraveling and the events they are, however unintentionally, subject to and at the same time causing. They are unwilling actors thrust into the center of the future of intelligent life in the solar system, and they act on the small and personal, for revenge and for vengeance, for justice and for escape. Their personalities are flawed, but the flaws only make them more empathetic.

Leviatan Wakes ranges across the entire spectrum. We meet characters on every level of innocence, power, or peculiarity. From sociopathic scientists concerned with power to military commandos afraid of it, to giant engineering projects that move moons and build city size space ships aimed for generation long trips to distant stars, Leviathan Wakes is full of colorful and credible characters (from powerful megalomaniacs to bottom feeding asteroid dwellers, Mormons headed to stellar colonization, Martian marines, and families that boast several mothers, multiple fathers, but only one off-spring), exotic locations, imaginatively rendered space battles and a plot that never lets up until the final page. Oh, and Corey (which is actually the nom de plume for Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck) even comes up with a whole version of pidgin English spoken after generations of dwelling in the asteroid belt.

It’s incredibly creative, and I had a ton of fun reading it.

Leviathan Wakes fulfilled the promises it made, proving to be just as epic as the name sounds, putting just enough emphasis on the science, but never forgetting that it is, first and foremost, a story about people. In the end, it provides what every good space opera should—a sense of wonder. Not only at the vastness of space, of how big it all is, at the immense distances between planets and stars, but also at just how small, weak and amazing life is in all that vastness. It provides a backdrop for both the petty and violent politics of nations, as well as the gallant and noble acts of the individual, a place where great acts can shift the movements of nations, even civilizations.

Not one page loses focus on the story, the real struggles—human and fantastic—of the protagonists. It’s a great tale, and I can’t wait to pick up its sequel.
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LibraryThing member dgold
Properly interesting sf. The rigidity of the two PoV system can be somewhat annoying at times, but it all hangs together surprisingly well. Recommended.

Awards

Hugo Award (Nominee — Novel — 2012)
Audie Award (Finalist — Science Fiction — 2012)
Locus Award (Finalist — Science Fiction Novel — 2012)
RUSA CODES Reading List (Winner — Science Fiction — 2012)

Language

Original language

English

Original publication date

2011-06-02

Physical description

576 p.; 9.65 inches

ISBN

0316333425 / 9780316333429
Page: 1.0361 seconds