Leviathan Wakes

If you like the TV series, read the books. It’s not really the same story. If the books are a chronicle of what actually happened, the series is the folk tale that evolved from it—compact, sensationalized, action packed, and contrived to serve a different narrative. After reading the whole story, the series feels like a multi-faceted disappointment. I’m glad that I watched the series first, because at least I was impressed with it for a while. If I had read the books first, the series would have been a disappointment from the start.If the thought of reading nine 550-page books seems daunting, like it was to me, the rewards are worth the effort. I had not read a fiction book in more than 20 years. I’m reading the collected stories, Memory’s Legion, right now, so the story is still fresh in my mind.The story is as good as science fiction gets. The setting is close to home, only a few hundred years in the future, and the premise is plausible. The world-building is thoroughly convincing and rich with detail. The character-building is equally as successful, which makes it a special treat for this genre. The story is masterfully imaginative.The TV series is disappointing, primarily because the story it tells is not faithful to the story the books tell, in very important ways. To do the story justice, with live actors, would be a huge undertaking with a financial commitment to match. Even then, it would be difficult to portray the physical differences between Earthers, Martians and Belters that the books describe. The most sensible approach would be to make an animated series geared for adults.Read the books.

I picked up the first book of The Expanse after I heard the news that the SyFy channel was making it into a series. I had heard good things about it online and I think, in my fiction reading, I was needing a good dose of some science fiction space opera. The very first thing I can say about this book, is that it had me engaged from the very beginning. I was enthralled and didn’t want to put it down. This is counter to the last book I had read, which was a relief.An amusing side story, when I purchased it from Amazon I didn’t check the details, so unknown to me this copy of the book also included a bonus book, The Dragon’s Path. I read through the first couple of chapters of Leviathan Wakes and my Kindle only showed 1% completion. I was groaning to myself that this book was humongous but kept at it. When I got to 25% completion, it felt like the story was half over, so I checked out the table of contents to see what was going on and noticed that I had a bonus novel included, so that was nice.The story starts out with plenty of intrigue: a missing person’s case on the Asteroid/Dwarf Planet Ceres and an inter-planetary incident involving an ancient ice freighter investigating a distress signal. The two stories rock the solar system to its core through a careful narrative. Each chapter is divided between two different points of view, the detective and the XO of the ice freighter.The pacing is really quite marvelous and this book should be studied on how not to overload a reader with heavy exposition. The entire setting is very futuristic and could have become bogged down with ease, but the writers went to great length to give bits and pieces of information about the book universe; it almost feels like you are there living it and have a good grasp of the political machinations that are occurring. The book comes to an exciting conclusion, which ended differently than I expected.I feel the central theme of the book is integrity, or doing the right thing, but the right thing is a matter of perspective. The two main characters are foils to each other, each with their own moral compass of what they believe is right. One believes that regardless of the consequence, the truth must be revealed to everyone; the other believes in making sure you measure twice before making the cut. Each follows their own personal guidelines and make some very surprising choices that have very far reaching consequences. It really made me think about what I would have done, if I were to have been in their shoes.The characters are very developed and their behaviors never felt out of line. I found myself curious how certain characters would react to each other when they met, which eventually happened and felt perfect. One specific character who is introduced later in the book, has almost a chilling presence and made an excellent villain.There was one specific thing I really liked, which is kind of silly, but it is one of those things that annoy me when people use it wrong and I could tell it annoyed the authors too when people use it wrong. The authors went into great detail in one particular dialogue to explain the difference between blackmail and extortion, and about how people often incorrectly say blackmail when they mean extortion. I laughed at that, because it sounded like something I would say.The science in this is fairly good. The authors went to great lengths to make sure technology didn’t appear too wild, and that things would behave in a realistic matter with how we understand the Universe currently. The mechanics of ship flight, gravity and general colonies in the solar system felt very good. Only one thing that really annoyed me, the fact that medical technology still felt very current and not all that advanced. With as much money we spend on medical research now compared to space technology, it just felt kind of weird.If you are looking for a good science fiction book, with an excellent story, well written characters with a good dose of mystery and political intrigue, then you won’t go wrong with this book.Verdict: Recommended

I had never heard of James S. A. Corey, had never heard of his book series The Expanse . I had never heard of the Syfy series, having dropped the network in an effort to cut down on my cable bill! Now, years later using streaming services to pick exactly the networks I want and none of the gazillions of "junk" channels that both cable and satellite services stick us with, I was looking for something new to watch. Something in the sci-fi genre that didn't have titles that included Trek or Wars connected to it. I saw a listing on Amazon Prime for a series with several seasons available that looked intriguing. It took just one episode of The Expanse to hook me! The scope, the characters, the mystery of the protomolecule... I binge watched all the episodes and craved more!This is where the books come into the picture. This is, after all, supposed to be a BOOK review! On top of that, I was coming at the series in the reverse order that is normal for me. Usually I read the book or books first and then watch the films or series and am either satisfied that the production has done a good job, or horrified at how badly they have screwed it up, and sometimes a bit of both. (yes, I'm getting to the book!)Leviathan Wakes is very well written, exciting and suspense filled adventure. The characters are fully developed and very diverse in their natures. The conflict between Earth and Mars and the relegation of the Belters to the status of second class citizens or less, is very believable. The discovery of the protomolecule and what comes of it is both horrific and strangely beautiful. I can hardly wait to read book 2!As for the question in my title... both the book and the television series are amazing, each in their own way, something that is very rare and wonderful!

The media could not be loaded. La fuente es buena, la calidad es aceptable, estoy deseando que llegue la aventura...La entrega es súper rápida.

As usually the book is better than the movies or series. In this case I think that the adaptation for the series is a very good surprise because although it has a lot of changes from the original history the result is so good that I have already watched it three times. But as usually the experience to read the original text from James S. A. Corey brings us much more details and puts us inside the history. And for who enjoys science-fiction is a must read.

I've been reading science fiction since I was about 8 years old, and this series ranks way up there in my top 10. The entire Expanse series is a great read. This is space opera with well-developed characters, political intrigue, lots of space combat, exploration of new galaxies, with a wonderful, deep, series-long mystery at its core. I started with the first 4 books back when they were first written and lost track; the TV series -- which is remarkably true to the books -- got me back into it, and I'm now on book 8.What I love about reading then books after watching the series is that I can now see and hear the characters as I read, they were so well-depicted in the series. I wish Amazon had continued on to the end of the 9th book, but alas, that was not to be.

Delivered as what expected

Absolutely love the books and the show. The character development in both is outstanding.I own the original 1st edition of Leviathan Wakes and couldn't resist getting the 10th anniversary hard cover. It's not an essential edition and doesn't add anything more if you've already read or owned the original edition, so no real bonuses here. However it is definitely a striking book, with its bold cover design and magenta pages edges.I hope they will continue to release anniversary editions for the other books in the same style to really have a impressive and audacious book collection.