Leviathan Wakes

Science fiction

First published: 2011
Print length: 582 pagesOrbit, 2011

Description

An ice-hauling ship traveling from Saturn toward Ceres investigates a distress signal and discovers an abandoned vessel. An unknown stealth ship attacks, leaving survivors to continue aboard the renamed Rocinante. A public accusation about the disaster ignites widening conflict among Earth, Mars, and the Belt. Meanwhile, Ceres detective Joe Miller searches for the missing Julie Mao and uncovers links between her disappearance and the attack. Their investigations draw them toward Eros Station, where a strange infection transforms victims into violent attackers and evidence reveals an alien-created biological mechanism with a mysterious purpose beyond the solar system.

Reading profile

About this profile

Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).

Writing: How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas: How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure: How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge: Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity: Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.

Writing style

Conversational · Dialogue-driven · Direct

Pace

Brisk

Tone

Dark · Suspenseful · Tense · Unsettling

Structure

Braided

Focus

Mystery · Plot · World

Emotional intensity

4 / 5

Reading complexity

1–5 · higher means more demanding

Writing: 2 / 5
Ideas: 3 / 5
Structure: 3 / 5
Background knowledge: 2 / 5

Themes

InequalityKnowledge and truthPolitics and ideologyPowerSurvivalTechnology and society

About James S. A. Corey

James S. A. Corey is the shared pen name of science fiction writers Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck. Their central achievement is The Expanse, a nine-novel space opera that begins with Leviathan Wakes and follows its societies and recurring characters across wars, political realignments, technological upheaval, and long stretches of time. The collaboration works on several scales at once, linking the pressures faced by crews, families, and individual combatants to conflicts among Earth, Mars, the Belt, and later interstellar powers. The prose is direct and strongly driven by plot and dialogue, while the world-building pays close attention to transport, supply, labor, military power, and the institutions that emerge around new technologies. Across novels such as Caliban’s War, Babylon’s Ashes, and Persepolis Rising, alien discoveries matter chiefly through the human struggles they intensify: competition, empire, resistance, loyalty, and survival. Corey has also produced Expanse novellas, the Star Wars novel Honor Among Thieves, and fiction outside both settings.

Series

The Expanse · Book 1

Book details

For the print edition listed above.

Publisher: Orbit
Language: English
ISBN: 9780316129084

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