Leviathan Wakes

Leviathan Wakes October 13, 2012

Will Duquette introduced me to the Expanse series via his review here.  It sounded right up my alley and turned out to be so.

So I picked up the first novel Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse) on the cheap at $1.99 for the Kindle version..

So take the character of the divorced cop Detective Miller who is a functional alcoholic who is a good enough detective but is being given lesser and lesser tasks to perform.  A cop who just does not want to let a mystery go and what starts as a simple investigation concerning a missing women and soon escalates to a life and death matter for millions of people.

Now take that character and place him on the largest asteroid in the inner solar system  Ceres and you got the basic ingredients for solid space opera.  The political situation is a common projection in the future with Mars being colonized and groups of people mining and working in the asteroid belt.  Mars and Earth are not on friendly terms and the same goes for the belters who are often caught up in the politics of both.  Now add in the idealistic XO Jim Holden of an ice freighter and escalations leading to war throughout the Solar system.

Now these story elements are nothing new but the author  James S.A. Corey (pen name) makes them work providing action and dramatic tension throughout.  Add in some big idea SF and you have a rather exciting start to this series.  I will certainly be picking up the second book in the series soon and looking for more as they come out.

There is a certain film noir element with Detective Miller that adds to the enjoyment.  To a small degree it reminds me of Red Planet Noir by D.B. Grady which as the title suggests really takes the noir Private Detective explicitly into a SF setting.


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