Reviews with content warning for Police brutality - Leviathan Wakes

A strong start by the authors coming to symbolise modern sci-fi. The Expanse has it all: complex characters, moral quandries, political intriques, class warfare, intriguing sci-fi concepts... I hope the rest of the series is as good!

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bookdreamer's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Sci-fi is not my genera. I have a hard time understanding the detail and finer points of stories with a lot of moving pieces, and this book is all over the solar system. As the mystery dragged on in the first half I was feeling it was more of a two or three star read, but the second half and ending made it a four star. I almost cried at the end, I was not expecting to love these characters but I'm still thinking about them after setting the book down over a day ago.

It's not light reading. There was a lot of information and switching between two perspectives that forced me to pay attention to what was going on between the lines and making sure I was following the plot. I'm still confused as to how (view spoiler) but you don't really have to understand to move on in the plot. I get how it ended, anyways. The blend of genres was interesting: noir, mystery, military, political, and of course, sci-fi. The books were written because James Corey wanted to write about the gap where humanity has explored the solar system, but not quite yet expanded outside of that. This is the push that moves them forward.

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blakethebookeater's review

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adventurous fast-paced

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

4.0

https://youtu.be/5qZ6UKSyTqw

This is a reread for me! And it was just as good the second time around. Read this because I'm hosting an Expanse readalong this year in prep for the final book coming this fall! The live show discussion for this book is linked above and you can follow the Twitter account @ReadTheExpanse for more information/announcements!

So this book follows two main plots: Joseph Miller is searching for the missing Julie Mao, and James Holden and the crew of the Rocinante are...just constantly on the run. Eventually their two narrative intersect and then this book finishes off with quite an explosive finale!

Now I do think I was inclined to like this book more because I do already have a knowledge of where these characters go from here and seeing how their arcs started out was just a joy. I will have to say that this novel doesn't quite focus on character, and moreso focuses on plot, but that is a-ok because the plot really needs to be focused on. A LOT happens.

The Expanse takes place in a future where we have three main factions: Earth, Mars (technologically superior), and the Belt (basically everyone else living on various space stations). An event at the beginning of the novel sparks a solar-system-wide war and Holden and his crew race to discover the cause/stop it and Miller's mystery might have something to do with it as well.

I highly recommend this book is you're a fan of science fiction, and recommend the series as a whole. Because as crazy as this one is, it only gets crazier and more epic.

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s_p_a_r_k_s's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

I'm not exaggerating when I say this is some of the best science fiction ever written. The worldbuilding is probably the best in sci-fi, bar none. There's mystery and political intrigue and space battles galore. And while both viewpoint characters in this book are straight white men, the rest of the cast is extremely diverse, and more diverse viewpoint characters are brought in as the series continues. Really, the only weakness is that the characters, while instantly lovable, are a little cliched in this installment. (Fortunately, the writers get better about this in future books, adding nuance and complexity to create some of my favorite characters in all of sci-fi.) Even so, it's easy to fall in love with the space family the main characters build, even as you're tearing through the pages to figure out what in the universe is going on -- and the answer to the mystery only makes things even crazier! Cannot recommend enough!

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, and Gore

Moderate: Blood, Cursing, Genocide, Hate crime, Murder, Police brutality, Suicidal thoughts, and Violence

Minor: Confinement, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Excrement, Sexual content, and Sexual violence

While there's no racism, sexism, or homophobia, the story deals with the systemic oppression of people living in the Asteroid Belt (most of whom are people of color), with blunt parallels drawn to modern day racism and imperialism. The oppression can be graphic, and side characters express bigoted thoughts towards residents of the Belt with high frequency. As an action-adventure story set in a Solar System on the brink of war, there are frequent gun battles, as well as space battles between spaceships. Main characters die with little to no warning in these sequences. Usually these deaths aren't excessively gory, but

one main character has his head blown off by a rail gun, which is described in graphic detail

. One main character is a police officer, working for a corrupt and often brutal private police corporation. He's privately disenchanted with them, but he never speaks out against their practices. He also develops romantic feelings for a much-younger adult woman he's never met, which even he himself views as sad and pathetic.

When she dies, he beings experiencing suicidal thoughts, ultimately culminating in him sacrificing himself to save the rest of the main characters.

Another main character is a survivor of child sexual abuse. His trauma is only briefly alluded to in this book, but whenever it is mentioned in the series it is handled with great care and sensitivity.

While it's not discussed in this book at all, another major character is a domestic abuse survivor. This is dealt with sensitively but in great detail in future books, including her briefly being kidnapped by her abusive ex before escaping again, so if this is a trigger for you it may be a good idea to avoid the series altogether.

An alien virus is unleashed on a Belter space station by an amoral Earth-based megacorporation, an act the characters themselves refer to as genocide. Both viewpoint characters are caught up in the assault, and witness the virus's horrifying effects first-hand.

There is some serious body horror in this sequence, as well as other scenes where

the virus

makes an appearance. Main characters can and do fall prey to it. The prologue opens with a minor character being held prisoner in a small, confined space for an extended period of time. There's some matter-of-fact discussion of her bodily functions during this time. She escapes halfway through the prologue.

featherbrain's review against another edition

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adventurous dark fast-paced

1.0

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iviarelle's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense slow-paced

Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

2020

In hindsight, I like this book somewhat less than I did before. It's still a promising first entry to a series, no doubt, and there's a lot to be done with the intrigue and mysteries it sets up... but there are also a lot of little problems that add up to a much less enjoyable experience when I start looking a little deeper.

Maybe the best example of this is that the way the story treats rape is downright insensitive, to understate it vastly. At one point, Miller assumes that Julie must have been raped, because she suddenly starts taking a martial arts class, and gets really good at it quickly. The story never indicates in any way that he's wrong about this assumption; on the contrary, Miller's "hunches" are proven right time and time again. In Holden's case, at one point he thinks about how he's drunk and Naomi's drunk and he would hate himself in the morning for taking advantage but he should go for it, ask her to sleep with him. Later, their first sexual encounter begins while she's been drinking and he hasn't. The word rape isn't ever brought up in conjunction with this, possibly because the writers only viewed rape as a violent act by a stranger, as so many people (particularly, people who are under significantly less threat of being raped) do. Maybe she'd be okay with it in the morning (as she was in the latter instance) and maybe she wouldn't, but... the very fact that Holden's thoughts admit that sleeping with someone drunk would be "taking advantage" shows that at some level, he and the writers know it would be rape... and yet they do it later anyway, not just with no consequences, but with the actual reward of starting a relationship with her.

And I can't go without mentioning the extraordinarily shitty cops in the story. Miller more or less considers himself accountable only to his superiors, not any real sort of law. He has his own moral code and his own definition of justice and will carry those out no matter what orders he's been given or by whom. And the worst part is that, again, he's shown to be right to do so by the story. That's... not a good look.

It's a little frustrating, because it was so recently that I first read this book, I feel like I should have looked a little closer all this time. I think the later books do less of this sort of thing? But I can no longer be sure, and that's frustrating to me.

=====

2017

This was a pretty good book. The science felt solid (except for the acceleration giving ships gravity thing, I never felt like that was quite as well explained as everything else, why should acceleration forward give gravity downward?), the characters were all given depth, none of the men were particularly rewarded for toxic masculinity. I could've done with a few more women in major, active roles in the narrative, especially who don't end up love interests, but it was generally enjoyable. When I want another hard science fiction fix, I'll likely turn to the next book in the series.

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