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Book Review: Leviathan Wakes - James S. A. Corey

· 8 comments · 250 words

Book cover showing some space ships.I'm really late to the party on this one! After people singing the praises of the TV show, and my brother recommending them, I finally cracked and read the first book.

It's pretty good! You probably don't need me to tell you that. But, for a book published in 2011, I was surprised at how old-fashioned it felt. It's a bog-standard police procedural. The cop's a drunk with a failed marriage and an obsession with a victim - how many times have we seen that played out? It's also pretty old-school in its choice of characters. There are a couple of female protagonists - but the story is never told from their perspective. Despite the limitless potential offered by off-world sex, everyone seems robustly heterosexual. Compared with something like "The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet" feels almost parochial.

But what elevates it is the way that everything stems from the engineering challenges faced by the inhabitants of various moons and space-stations. There's very little "quantum woo" here - just a fairly linear progression from today. It feels grimy and realistic.

Without getting too far into spoiler territory, I found the various enemies to be - again - tired tropes. Weyland-Yutani casts a long shadow, I guess.

It is enjoyable. But I'm not sure I want to go through all 8 subsequent books. There's lots of innovative sci-fi out there - but this didn't grab my attention.

Verdict
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8 thoughts on “Book Review: Leviathan Wakes - James S. A. Corey”

  4. mike says:

    I think you might enjoy the TV show more than the book. I saw the first couple of seasons of the TV show, then read this book. I haven’t read any of the other books. I have watched the rest of the TV show, which does not strictly adhere to the books. There’s a significant female protagonist in the show right from the start of the first season who I understand turns up in the books much later. The first season of the TV show has the detective in space on his quest as one of the major plot threads, but by the end of the first season the show is not about that at all. Throughout the show's run there are obvious non-hetrosexual relationships and even polyamory. Unlike Galactic Commons universe, the only scope for diversity is within humanity. And whatever that blue stuff is.
    Reply

  5. says:

    I felt more like the Halo franchise cast a (very) long shadow here, and that shadow was cast by the aspect of that franchise I dislike the most. That aside, I felt the climax featured a wildly unearned cheat. Had I not been reading a digital copy on my phone, I’d have thrown the book across the room; suffice to say I have not given any other part of this franchise the time of day since that moment.
    Reply

  6. said on ubuntu.social:

    @Edent I'm just finishing the final book. Overall I really enjoyed it, it goes to a lot of different places. It's fair to say it's quite "safe" in its tropes, but that's one of the reasons I like it (and the TV series). It's like putting on a comfortable pair of slippers and hanging out with good friends.
    Reply | Reply to original comment on ubuntu.social

  8. said on tooter.wishy.co.uk:

    @Edent I love the expanse. I find the reasonably hard scifi elements while maintaining politics, human interaction, etc really work for me. I've done 3 rewatches on the series and I'm most of the way through a second re-listen. I found the The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet had a love of great space aliens, but the overall setting was just a bit too.. soft scifi for me. It's just a bit too loose and imaginative maybe? (Even if I do love Patricia Rodriguez as a narrator)
    Reply | Reply to original comment on tooter.wishy.co.uk

What links here from around this blog?

  1. Book cover showing a space ship. Book Review: Caliban's War - James S. A. Corey

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