Leviathan Wakes
I started hearing about The Expanse months ago. And then I kept hearing about it. And the more I heard, the more it sounded like something I would like. But I couldn't figure out how to watch it. The final episodes were streaming with a cable password, but there was no way to watch the first few episodes. So I broke down and bought the book.
It's actually the first in a series that will eventually have 9 books and a similar amount of novellas. The first season of the TV shows only appears to cover the first half of the first book. So I don't entirely know what's going to happen with that ultimately. But the good news is that the book is really good. So good that I went out and bought the first season of the TV show on Blu-Ray.
The story takes place in the middle future. Humanity has managed to colonize the moon and Mars and is working to terraform them. There are mining operations and way-stations in the asteroid belt and some research outposts on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. And with all this is political strife. There's an uneasy alliance between Earth and Mars while the outer planets feel oppressed and restless.
Against this backdrop a cynical cop is handed a missing girl case and the crew of an ice hauler investigates a distress call that turns out to be a trap. The two story lines take their time to converge, but they spool out a fascinating conspiracy while the two protagonists fight to prevent a war from starting.
The plot is suspenseful and thrilling and kept me hooked from the beginning. The chapters alternate between the two points of view, and the author occasionally uses this format to jump ahead a bit before backing up and explaining what happened. It's an interesting technique, and I think it worked overall.
What I really appreciated about this book, though, was the incredible and multi-dimensional world-building. Corey envisions an incredibly diverse future, and it's refreshing to see people from every walk of life represented in the future. The vernacular of the belt is a fascinating combination of English, Portuguese, and Mandarin. It can be difficult to parse at times, but it was a lot of fun to try and figure out what characters were saying when I only recognized a handful of words or even syllables.
I'm looking forward to watching the TV show and reading the rest of these books. It took a while for aliens to be hinted at, but I'm sure they'll show up eventually in a later book and I can't wait.
It's actually the first in a series that will eventually have 9 books and a similar amount of novellas. The first season of the TV shows only appears to cover the first half of the first book. So I don't entirely know what's going to happen with that ultimately. But the good news is that the book is really good. So good that I went out and bought the first season of the TV show on Blu-Ray.
The story takes place in the middle future. Humanity has managed to colonize the moon and Mars and is working to terraform them. There are mining operations and way-stations in the asteroid belt and some research outposts on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. And with all this is political strife. There's an uneasy alliance between Earth and Mars while the outer planets feel oppressed and restless.
Against this backdrop a cynical cop is handed a missing girl case and the crew of an ice hauler investigates a distress call that turns out to be a trap. The two story lines take their time to converge, but they spool out a fascinating conspiracy while the two protagonists fight to prevent a war from starting.
The plot is suspenseful and thrilling and kept me hooked from the beginning. The chapters alternate between the two points of view, and the author occasionally uses this format to jump ahead a bit before backing up and explaining what happened. It's an interesting technique, and I think it worked overall.
What I really appreciated about this book, though, was the incredible and multi-dimensional world-building. Corey envisions an incredibly diverse future, and it's refreshing to see people from every walk of life represented in the future. The vernacular of the belt is a fascinating combination of English, Portuguese, and Mandarin. It can be difficult to parse at times, but it was a lot of fun to try and figure out what characters were saying when I only recognized a handful of words or even syllables.
I'm looking forward to watching the TV show and reading the rest of these books. It took a while for aliens to be hinted at, but I'm sure they'll show up eventually in a later book and I can't wait.
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