John Sullivan rated Leviathan Wakes: 4 stars
Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey (The Expanse, #1)
Humanity has colonized the solar system—Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt and beyond—but the stars are still out of our …
In a standalone novel, Jack Vance follows the exploits of his main character, Ghyl Tarvoke, as he struggles against the indignities of a seemingly cloistered and provincial society, only to discover that societal corruption goes deeper than anyone could have expected. This was my first exposure to Vance, and I appreciated all of the fascinating societal details that he includes in this novel. The narrative style was simplistic, though: All action takes place through the eyes of a single character, and there are no real secondary subplots to speak of. Every chapter involves the same basic protagonist. From that standpoint, the book itself is not terribly daring or inventive. The invention here comes from Vance's use of a parable to carry off what basically amounts to a Marxist critique of capitalist labor exploitation, though couched in a science fiction narrative. So, where the book's characters are largely two-dimensional, the book …
