It’s already been a few years since the 10th anniversary edition of this book was published, to celebrate the first decade of this huge and hugely popular SF franchise now known as The Expanse. I came to it rather late, having started watching the streaming adaptation around 2022 when its sixth and final season dropped, and finished watching it sometime in 2023 (probably — I mean, who can keep track of what they’ve watched since the beginning of the pandemic, rights?). I put off reading the books for a good long while, wanting to have sufficient distance from the screen adaptation so I could enjoy the books on their own. And at least for this first book in the series, it seems to have worked. I greatly enjoyed Leviathan Wakes, racing through its 500-some pages in near record time, and plan to proceed through all nine of the series novels published so far. (Taking time out, of course, for the upcoming installments in their new The Captives’ War series.)
I guess this is a good place to insert the obligatory note that James S. A. Corey is the pen name of collaborators Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, consisting of their two middle names and the initials of one of Abraham’s kids.
Leviathan Wakes was originally intended as a one-off space opera. According to the authors’ note in the 10th anniversary edition, though, no sooner had they turned in the manuscript than their editor at Orbit essentially said “how soon can you do a sequel?” They wrote that authors’ note right after turning in the manuscript for the book series’ ninth and so far final installment. That’s nine books of more than 500 pages each in 10 years, during which time they were also heavily involved in writing and producing the TV series.
I’ll try to give a brief plot summary while avoiding major spoilers, because surely there are folks out there who are even slower than me in coming to this series.
The books are set in a (sort of) near future in which humans have invented a fusion drive that has allowed them to colonize the solar system (but not interstellar space). There’s tension if not outright war between the inner planets (Earth, Luna and Mars) and the outers, the asteroid belts and some of the gas giants’ moons, etc. Our main characters in Leviathan Wakes are crew members aboard an ice freighter called the Canterbury, one of numerous such aging vessels mining comets, asteroids, moons and Saturn’s rings to provide H2O for the Belt. When the Canterbury receives a distress signal from an unknown vessel, members of the crew including executive officer James Holden, engineer Naomi Nagata, mechanic Amos Burton, co-pilot Alex Kamal, and medic Shed Garvey take a shuttle to render assistance. After the Canterbury is destroyed by unknown assailants, the shuttle flees. They end up being pursued by fleets from both Mars and Earth (which at this point are rival powers) and setting off a low-level war among Mars, Earth and the Belt.
The story is told in alternating chapters from the point of view of two characters, Holden and Josephus “Joe” Miller, a security detective on the major asteroid Ceres. Miller is searching for Julie Mao, a missing young woman who has fled the confines of life with her wealthy Earth family and thrown in her lot with the Outer Planets Alliance, which is something between a militant workers’ union and a guerilla militia combatting the exploitation of the Belt by Earth.
Holden and company come into possession of a salvaged Mars Navy frigate (which they dub Rocinante) and as they try to figure out why everyone wants to kill them, their path takes them to the asteroid Eros. Miller’s pursuit of Julie also leads to Eros, and the two parties join forces as they discover a conspiracy by an Earth corporation that threatens the future of humanity and the whole solar system.
The authors are huge fans of classic space opera from the ’60s and ’70s, and it definitely shows. Leviathan Wakes is highest caliber space opera with nearly non-stop action, fast pacing, a cast of diverse characters and an insanely engrossing plot. I intend to continue on with the series and hope the writing continues at this level. Meanwhile, if you like space opera and haven’t yet read it, you definitely should. Prepare to be pulled into a whole new universe of action.
(Orbit, 2011)
