Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse, 1)

Original review here

This was a series I frequently saw compared with some of the all time classics of Science Fiction, such as Asimov’s Foundation or Herbert’s Dune. So I really wanted to give them a go for a while.

I have to admit the book was completely different to my expectations, but not in a bad way.

When I think of grandiose space opera classics, I kind of imagine humans expanding throughout the universe, faster than light travel and cosmical events we can’t comprehend, and technology advancements beyond compare. Of course these concepts are used in widely different ways in the genre.

In a lot of classic and modern works of science fiction, the style is usually filled with minimalist architecture, brand new tech, shiny spaceships and sterile, practical interiors.

In The Expanse’s Leviathan Wakes features Humanity expanding just in the Solar System, with more grimy and lived-in ships and stations, decades old future technology and patched up space stations overpopulated with humans, trying to survive another day. Of course, I think it’s pretty similar to the style of the Rebel Alliance from the Star Wars universe, during the original movies, and the Nostromo of the original Alien. There are some more technologically advanced structures and ships in the book but the overall look of the world is that of “a future with a past,” as George Lucas would say.1

Humans are split into three main factions, Earth, Mars and the Belt, the latter refers to people living beyond the Asteroid belt in space stations and moons, and there’s a certain tension and dynamic between them. Earth is the OG, overpopulated and with older military technology, used to gravity and such. Mars has more technological advancements, since they are still making the planet habitable and need to be on the vanguard, but they are less numbers too. The Belt is conformed by a bunch of stations and satellites, some more fancy than others, constantly farming resources both space, asteroids and such. There are pirates, there are workers, people are taller, adapted to lower gravity, and there are lots of other details and nuances, and of course, space racism.

The story follows two characters and two different plotlines, interchanging every chapter. One of them is detective Joe Miller, living in a station in the Belt, the other is James Holden, the second in command of a spaceship. As the story progresses the protagonists end up involved in lots of events unfolding one after the other, eventually crossing paths, uncovering a huge conspiracy with implications that will completely revolutionize how humans see the Universe, and pretty much have to save Human civilization by the end.

Honestly, I don’t even want to say much more than that, maybe it sounds kind of standard sci-fi fanfare, but really, the story is just too good, there is are detective noir style investigations, there are space battles, there are cosmic horror elements and of some other classic science fiction tropes. There is not as much hard sci-fi explanations as I thought there would be, it is a pretty digestable adventure that borrows from a lot of genres, and sci-fi just happens to be there.

This is an absolute page turner, chapters are short and end at the perfect spot that would made me go “I can read another one” again and again. It was a pretty fast paced book that still handled multiple plotlines with grace, and the characters had lots of great moments and developments. The last 12 or so chapters were impossible to put down for me and many in the book club.

Even if this book is the start of a series, the finale ends really well, you can leave it alone and while not every question will be answered for obvious reasons, there’s definitely a lot to enjoy if you only want to read this one. But I plan to keep going.

I encountered the TV show, The Expanse, before discovering it was originally a book series. I'm glad I experienced the two formats in that order. Reading the book was in some way a replay of the TV show, since I pictured and heard the actors as I read.

If you haven't come across either, Leviathan Wakes is the first in a monumental space opera series, set centuries in the future, where humans have colonized most of the solar system, where Mars is a space-faring power that exists in an uneasy and unstable tension with an overcrowded Earth, and where the "Belters" (the inhabitants of the asteroid belt and the moons of the outer planets, are resentful at how they're taken for granted and exploited by the two planets.

A powerful corporation's attempts to weaponize an alien organism destabilizes an already unstable solar system.

This massive canvas is the backdrop for following a rag-tag crew that have commandeered a salvaged top-notch Martian military vessel. This gives the book its personal touch. The novel is has an excellent balance of the personal and the political/military.

The book has the advantage of going into more depth about the characters' motivations than the TV series could, clarifying some aspects of the show that struck me as rather random.

This is an excellent read, and I've already started on Caliban's War, the second in the series.