Leviathan Wakes

It was so much more than I expected going in to it. Here we have a space opera that is also part horror, part detective/mystery and part comedy. I was hooked from the first line to the last word. This is a series I am GREATLY going to enjoy.

This is the first book of a truly excellent sci-fi series! It is a self-contained story for the most part, so if you don't want to commit to the whole series, you don't have to... But you should if you like this one even a little, because it just gets better.
This novel follows two main characters and swaps between perspectives every chapter. The Holden chapters are a classic adventure style, with disaster everywhere and death around every corner, while the Miller chapters are styled like a classic mystery, with a detective that obsesses over a missing persons case that he suspects is more than it seems. The contrasting genre styles give the book a really neat feel, and with the sci-fi back-drop of a very believable future in which we have colonized Mars and a few asteroids and moons, the whole reading experience is just very fun and unique.
The characters are well-crafted, the main characters being a mix of classic archetypes (righteous hero, obsessed detective) and unique flaws, and the side characters have tons of potential which they develop in the further books. The plot is extremely original and the “villain” can send chills down your spine. And like any sci-fi book, the real-world social implications are very relevant to today. I held back on giving a perfect score because the story was fairly linear for my taste and I wanted more from the side characters. However, I have given a perfect score to some of the later books in this series.

3.5 stars! I love the writing, in fact, I love the prose more than I love the plot, which I thought was rather conventional and pedestrian. Still, the writers really know how to make you BE in their universe, and they really deserve top marks for that.

Quiet good, something is missing, no idea what though.

Even though this is technically a science fiction humans reaching for the stars story, the genre takes the back seat. Don't get me wrong. The Sci-fi is good and handled in a very normal fashion as if its part of life. However, what James does is manages to do is build a beautiful story around two points of view, which in the end is the human aspect making this book rise above the ordinary. There is also a well handled romance with a dead girl which I don't think has ever been done better. All in all very satisfying read. Highly recommended

I didn't enjoy this book much - I guess it's a score of 2.5. I can't quite put my finger on what has put me off it; other folk have enjoyed it immensely. I found the writing style somewhat old fashioned and cumbersome, and the dialogue stilted. It is a space opera but it put me in mind of 1950's space opera. The plot was okay but I did not engage with any of the main characters

This has just moved to the No.1 spot of my alltime favourite books!

Leviathan Wakes is a good book that could easily veer into being a really good book depending on how you look at it.

Goodreads doesn't do the half-star thing, so I'll say that I'm giving this 3 1/2 in heart, but four because three seems cruel. There were a ton of things that this book did right and left me feeling pretty good, while other parts were frustrating and a bit obnoxious.

Holden and Miller, our two protagonists, feel eerily similar throughout most of the book. In fact, at times it is hard to tell them apart other than their different ideals and world views. In the chapters where they were together I'd find myself wondering which character I was really reading because they felt so similar. Thankfully as the book wore on they really differentiated from each other, so that was somewhat forgivable.

I loved the premise and all, but I was pretty thrown off when “vomit zombies” entered the equation. I was ready to stop reading altogether if they were to throw away a great premise and solid characters for a space zombie book, but thankfully it was reined in and didn't lament too much on the walking undead. That's usually a sign of an (or in this case two) aware author.

Looking forward to reading further into the series.

Well crap. Figured I'd check out Leviathan Wakes given the TV adaptation coming this spring. Now I have to read the entire damn, George R.R. Martin length, Expanse saga. It's a rip-roaring, space opera lovechild of Firefly, Alien and the Maltese Falcon.

On one hand you've got Jim Holden, ice mining junior officer made leader by default when all but a few members of his crew are obliterated. On the other you've got Joe “space fedora” Miller as your classic noir detective well past his best by date. The two will converge on a solar system-wide conspiracy that could threaten the lives of billions.

Space battles, rapacious corporate interests, alien goo, vomit zombies and fiction's largest Chekov gun. I had so much fun reading this I'm almost afraid of how disappointed I'm going to probably end up being over the TV show.

Finishing 2014 on a high note. This book is great space opera, with a few surprising twists and two very different main characters in a well written, lived-in, gritty world. Sign me up for the sequels!

This is as hard as I go with sci-fi. I thought all of the future physics got explained without bogging down the story.

Heads up, the novel stops at 51% of the kindle edition. The rest is extras. That actually lessened some of the impact of the story's climax for me since I was under the mistaken impression that it was further setup for the rest of the novel.

This is one great science fiction book. Thrilling from the first page to the last. Although it is really great, it just lacks this final bit to make it an ultimate awesome book. Looking forward to read the next one from this series.

I really enjoyed this book, especially the core concept. It made you want to read on and on to find out who and why. The two main characters are well written making them very relatable and the chapter structure meant you always wanted to get back to the other one.

What started as a 5 star book ended as a 4 star book but I'm still looking forward to reading the next in the series. Hopefully there will be some more answers!

Pretty solid start to a sci-fi series under the name S.A. Corey, which is a pseudonym for collaboration between Daniel Abraham (The Long Price Quartet, Dagger and Coin) and Ty Jenks (George R.R. Martin's assistant). If you require “hard” sci-fi in the sense that the science is accurate, look elsewhere – that's not what they're aiming for. Personally I don't care about that.

Enjoyed this a good bit. A little slow to get started – at 50 pages it takes off.

Executive Summary: This book started off really strong, but fell off a little for me somewhere in the middle, but was still enjoyable from start to finish. It feels sort of like a cross between Deeps Space 9 and Firefly.

Audio book: This is the first book I've listened to read by Jefferson Mays. He does an alright job, but nothing special. He doesn't really do voices or accents that I remember. He speaks clearly and is easy to understand with decent inflection.

Full Review
I started this book thinking I might have found my first five star book of the year, but the story takes a turn in the middle that sort of dropped things down a level for me.

That doesn't mean I didn't continue to enjoy it, but it pushed the story in a direction that I didn't like as much as where it started.

This one has been on my list for awhile, and in fact I've had the ebook for over a year now. I ended up using the whispersync discount to get the audiobook for fairly cheap from audible because it just didn't seem like I was going to get to reading it anytime soon.

I'm glad I did. I really seem to enjoy space opera, or I guess I'm supposed to call this Solar Opera I think. Right Tamahome?

Anyways, I'm not much of a hard sci-fi person, despite having an engineering background. You won't get explanations as to how stuff works here.

What you will get is some cool technology that feels to me like it could only be a few decades or maybe a century off. You get some pretty good characters thrown into impossible situation with a sci-fi setting.

Deep Space Nine is probably my favorite sci-fi series of all time. You have politics and war. Long story arcs with cool characters, and man do I love the Defiant. And what self respecting sci-fi geek doesn't love Firefly?

I feel like you get a little of both here. The belters are living on the edge of space being exploited by the “Inners” from Earth and Mars. Then you have Holden and his crew working as sort of free lances on their “salvaged” bad ass ship.

The story moves along at a quick pace. You get just enough depth to the main characters to drive the story. I'm not as attached to any of them as I have been in other series, but I enjoy following them around.

My only real complaint was the form the “bad guys” take here. I sort of wish they had found a different way to pose a threat for the characters to face. It's too hard for me to explain without spoilers, so I'll just leave it at that.

Despite being the first book of a series, it does end in a pretty good place that would let someone walk away from it, but left me still wanting more. I immediately jumped into the sequel and am eager to see where things go from here.

It is not very often I can find a sci fi book I enjoy. This one almost lost me with its technological babble, but digging through I found that Holden's character intrigued me. His general attitude and beliefs I rarely see in characters now. He was always trying to do the right thing and trusting in the human race to see the lesser evil in the information he provided, but as humans we always chose the path to war and conflict. He went from what seemed to be a man who simply slept around not caring about the world and his shitty job to a well respected individual with a crew he grew to love and trust with his life multiple times. Miller was the less interesting of the two main characters/view points (the chapters alternated between Holden and Miller) but watching his degradation from cop to slightly crazy (completely crazy?) human being was worth the read. He was sort of the stereotypical drunken divorced man searching for a new meaning in his life. The end with Eros through me for a loop though and the descriptions of the alien life forms were deeply disturbing and loved it! They set my teeth on edge and made me want to shudder. Can't wait to read the next one!

Just read the whole series (and all the short stories.) Really great near-term, solar-system-only Space Opera. Weird alienness and familiar human politics and great characters that I actually cared about. I want the series to go on and on.

I had a lot of trouble putting it down.

Loved it. A must read for people who liked the Mass Effect novels (the first three)

Post cyber punk refererend naar de oude space opera meesters, zei Dirk De Bock, en meer dan dat heb ik niet nodig.

Knippe de poeze, zei mijn Kindle, en de eerste twee boeken stonden er.

En jawel: ik vond het helemaal in orde, dat eerste deel van de Expanse-reeks. Science Fiction zoals in de goede oude tijd: geen literatuur (‘t is noir en horror en space opera), absoluut geen harde SF (hoe werkt X? “it works... well” zegt de auteur in een interview achteraan), ook niet echt vreselijk vernieuwende dingen of zo (allemaal al gezien, zelfs), maar wel enorm wijs.

Twee personages: Holden, bijna pathologisch idealistisch, en Miller, een gedesillusioneerde politieagent (en, uiteindelijk, ex-politieagent) nemen elk om beurten een hoofdstuk voor hun rekening.

Holden's schip (een water-transporteur) komt een schip op drift tegen, ze gaan op onderzoek, en op ene paar man na wordt de hele bemanning opgeblazen. Door een schip dat lijkt van Mars te komen. En Holden maakt dat meteen kond aan het hele zonnestelsel – waarmee hij zo ongeveer meteen een oorlog doet beginnen.

De situatie is een geloofwaardig paar eeuw in de toekomst: de mensheid heeft Mars gekoloniseerd en is daar aan het terraformen, en verder zijn er honderden kleine en grote kolonies, op de grote manen en op asteroïden.

Het is ruwweg Aarde en/of Mars versus de anderen: mensen die geboren zijn waar er een open hemel is en echte zwaartekracht versus mensen die geboren zijn op stations met lage zwaartekracht.

Miller is een agent op Ceres. Hij krijgt een semi-officiële opdracht om een rijke dochter van mensen op Aarde te zoeken en terug te halen. Kidnappen, dus. Hoe meer hij te weten komt over het meisje, hoe meer hij er zich in verliest. En vastbijt. En dan blijkt hij uit te komen bij Jim Holden.

Avontuur! Schietpartijen en achtervolgingen! Aliens! Hoera!

I was substantially disappointed by this book, especially after [a:Daniel Abraham 134 Daniel Abraham http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1207149629p2/134.jpg]'s excellent [b:An Autumn War 2443516 An Autumn War (Long Price Quartet, #3) Daniel Abraham http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1312047269s/2443516.jpg 2450710]. I came to this book via Abraham, and in fact bought it more for the ‘free' copy of his solo book ([b:The Dragon's Path 8752885 The Dragon's Path (The Dagger and the Coin, #1) Daniel Abraham http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1292362307s/8752885.jpg 13626110]) than for Leviathan Wakes. (Good decision - the Abraham book is better).The opening was solid, and this was certainly a competently written book, but to my mind, it lacked a lot of heart. I never really got interested in most of the characters. Two key characters are Holden, a ship captain, and Miller, an ex-detective. Holden and his crew work reasonably well as characters, though they never drew a sustained interest. Miller, on the other hand, I found weak - he develops an obsession that I thought was pretty thinly supported, and yet is central to the plot.The environment and politics were interesting and credible, and I'd have been happy to see more of them. And the book does end up with a good mystery, but it's nothing we haven't seen before.Technically, there are some flaws. The authors don't claim it to be hard SF, but even soft SF needs to get current science right. There are two definitions of ‘anaerobic' offered here, and they're both wrong. (1. bacteria that aren't airborne; 2. bacteria that die in high oxygen). Even allowing for the first as “character ignorance” (rather than “author ignorance”), it's hard to see how this got into the finished book.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.

Loved every page of this book

Full review, as always, over at the SFF Book Review.

This was fun. In fact, I couldn't say it better than Annalee Newitz did over at io9 - this is a Hollywood blockbuster in book format. It was just as much fun, there was action, there is quippy banter between space ship crew members, an ex-cop who is going a little insane (and who was my favorite character overall) and of course a big conspiracy to unravel.

If you don't mind reading 500 pages really fast, if you like space opera and... well, fun, then pick this up. It's a good read.

7/10

Leviathan Wakes was a solid four star rating for me. Non-stop action from the very first page, great characters revolving around a fun and exciting plot. I actually won this book on the Goodreads Book Giveaway, so I was so stoked to receive it in the mail! Honestly, I was actually doubting that those book giveaways were real for a sec...but I was wrong to doubt! So, sign up for those books that you are interested in. Anyways, I digress. This book definitely did not disappoint. The only thing that I had a slight problem with was the size of the book. It was just physically hard for me to fit in my purse, so I had to wait to get home to read this one. Might be best if you get the e-book version of this, or if you don't mind the size, then the paperback is fine too since it's not a heavy book (the cover art is pretty cool).

Bottom line: Definitely would recommend this to my friends, especially those who enjoyed watching Firefly/Serenity. I'm really excited to pick up the second book in The Expanse Series (Caliban's War)!

I enjoyed this book. I listened to it as an audible book and it was narrated very well. I am looking forward to the next book.