Reviews with content warning for Alcoholism - Leviathan Wakes

Miller was and still continues to be my favorite character from this series. Next to Amos, but this book isn't about him. I was originally introduced to the expanse through Sci-fi's TV series and am reading the books because I enjoyed the show. From what I have heard from others, the books' have so much more depth. After reading this one, so far I agree. Book matches season one, but gives a lot more insight.

Set in the future, after humanity has improved space travel and made it all the way out to a few of the moons of Saturn - The story flips back and forth, chapter by chapter, between James Holden of the ice hauler ship (the Canterbury), and Josephus Miller who is a detective stationed on Ceres (an asteroid rigged to support human life). Disaster happens and you as a reader are able to experience the after effects from two point of views. The optimist and a realist.

I really enjoyed the layers this story has. It could be classified as a number of things - horror, space odyssey, love story, etc. It has a lot, but does it well with great characters and an intriguing story.

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adventurous dark lighthearted mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Leviathan Wakes - The Expanse Book One by James SA Corey

5/5 loved every moment.

Sci-fi has been a massive part of my life for as long as I can remember. So far, The Expanse is seeming like the perfect compilation of all the the best parts of science fiction - and there’s just enough real-world physics to keep me from nearly screaming every time I turn a page because there’s no possible way what’s happening is feasible under the conditions.

I have a love hate relationship with multi-pov books bc I always find I like one character way more than the other, and only really enjoy their chapters, but I think it’s used really well here. It’s third person closed (focused on a specific character’s experiences and only uses info that character has at the time) and alternates focus between the two main characters each chapter. I found the split-focus did a really good job setting up the novel, as I wasn’t entirely sure what kind of world I was going into. It worked with one characters story line setting up the politics of it all, and the other the action, until they met up in the middle - at the same point those two parts of the story collided

- a war broke out.

It also worked to really build the conflict between the characters throughout the story - both “good guys” but with very different ideals and opinions about humanity’s nature - and gave the relationship much more depth and meaning.

Unless I’m going to be incredibly nit-picky and pull out specific sentence structure I would have changed - I have not one complaint.

I’ve started the series on recommendation by my English teacher, and it’s actually kinda surprising that he got my style perfectly right based of just a couple conversations about specific books and teaching me.

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

So the first thing you need to know about this book is that it feels like 2 books happening at the same time. The book moves between two narratives, the space opera and the futuristic noir. For the space opera, we're in the head of the idealistic (Some might say naive) Jim Holder, th leader of the surviving crew of the Canterbury. The noir follows Miller, a nihilistic cop who has seen better days who was assigned to find a missing girl, Julie Mao.

Sometimes the book gave me whiplash from the tones from the two POVs but in a good way. The book is very much a slow burn, which isn't my style but it does give you enough room to understand both characters and their very flawed and at times, tragic thinking. And while the book does have some old-school sci-fi feels, it does a good job of setting up some toxic "romantic" tropes in the genres and then calling both characters out for them.

Also, if you're worried about finishing the book but not feeling compelled to continue with the series, don't worry. It does answer the questions contained in the book while setting up a much bigger and more dangerous world for our characters.

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