Leviathan Wakes

Paperback, 592 pages

Published Oct. 2, 2017 by Orbit.

ISBN:
9780316515993

View on OpenLibrary

4 stars (158 reviews)

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.

16 editions

Excellent start of a great series.

5 stars

I started this series because I loved the TV show and wanted to experience the world more after it ended. I loved the writing style of the book, the writers do a good hard SF world without going in very long descriptions of the world, weaving the SF details in the world elegantly.

I'm impressed how close the show stuck to the book, but I also enjoy the differences, already looking forward to the next book that introduces two of my favourite characters from the show.

A review from Goodreads

4 stars

I don't know why but I was expecting a fast action-paced space opera. But I thought it had too many political discussions and background and a lack of action. I enjoyed the world-building, though! It seems like this world can be expanded and explored to create amazing stories. I like noir-style detective stories but detective Miller was not my favorite character. The highlight is Rocinante's crew dynamics. I loved the mix of Earthlings, Martians and Belters. It is interesting to imagine that as humankind explores the universe there will be new languages, mixed cultures and different body types.

**UPDATE: I had originally given this book a 3 star rating mainly because I didn't like the pace (or I was in a bad mood) but after I saw The Expanse TV series I changed my mind about the book. Is that possible? So now it is a 4 star!

Review of 'Leviathan Wakes' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

So I started reading this book 1 year ago...
I remember very vaguely that it kind of bored me; the vocabulary was complicated, the author uses some technical words I don't understand, and it generally didn't entertain me...
However, the idea of an interplanetary society that's set up in this novel, is very fascinating, additionally with the perspectives of 2 different, opposite characters, is also a very interesting way of telling a story.

Ultimately, I would give it a 3/5

Review of 'Leviathan Wakes' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Um, here's a thought, but don't read it unless you've already read the book, okay:

I feel kinda horrible to say it, but I was kinda glad when Miller got killed off. Not that I wasn't sad; he was one of my favorite characters, and I really loved how he developed over the course of the novel. It's just like this: if I'm going to stick around for a what, nine-book series, I want to see that the authors aren't afraid of change. Too many books I've read are afraid to let anything happen because they want their readers to keep loving the characters they first saw. (The Oz series is predominantly on my mind; every book solved the conflict with yet another magic object to the point where one of the later plots--and in my opinion one of the more interesting ones--has an evil magician steal all their magic …

Review of 'Leviathan Wakes' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

J’ai eu le temps de regarder les trois premières saisons de The Expanse avant de commencer à lire les romans dont la série a été adaptée. Pourtant, les premiers tomes m’attendent sur mon Kindle depuis que j’ai terminé la première saison. J’ai enfin pris la peine de me plonger dans le premier volume, intitulé Leviathan Wakes.

Il faut d’abord préciser que James S.A. Corey est un pseudonyme : derrière ce nom de plume se cachent en réalité deux auteurs, Daniel Abraham et Ty Franck, qui ont entrepris ensemble l’écriture de cette grande saga de science-fiction baptisée The Expanse.

L’action se déroule dans un futur plus ou moins proche : suffisamment proche pour que l’environnement nous soit familier, avec la Terre, Mars, la ceinture d’astéroïdes, bref notre système solaire ; mais suffisamment éloigné dans le futur pour que la science-fiction soit bien présente : l’humanité a colonisé le système solaire et …

Review of 'Leviathan Wakes' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

I was kind of split about Leviathan Wakes. I think it is one of the few cases wjere I like the TV adaptation better then the book. I really like the main plot of this story, but for Leviathan Wakes compared to the first 1-and-a-bit season of The Expanse the TV show, the latter seems so much more elegant and well done. The writing here is a bit ham-fisted, the characters are two-dimensional and the narration is a bit clumsy. The script writers of the TV show have made a lot of good calls when it comes to altering the story to trade gore for suspense, and they did absolutely right in introducing Chrisjen Avasarala much earlier in the story - the character gallery in the book is too narrow, and the story line too linear, it feels a bit claustrophobic.

This is not to say I dislike the book. …

Review of 'Leviathan Wakes' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

It's very good, reasonably hard SF (i.e. it tries to avoid space opera tropes such as artificial gravity, etc.).

After watching the Netflix series, I was curious about the original. The TV show is curiously close at recreating individual scenes very faithfully from the book, but simultaneously strays far from the characterizations of the cast, peppering the show with somewhat unnecessary tension that's also not in the source material.

Overall, I prefer the book. It does a much better job at keeping the plot on track, the characters relatable, and the reveal is far more intriguing than the TV show lets through.

The first season covers about half of this first book, but either invents a new plot line, or lifts it from a later book (I don't know yet).

Stick to the books, then watch the TV show for the visuals.

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