Monday, February 04, 2013

LEVIATHAN WAKES by James S.A. Corey

A few hundred years into the future, Jim Holden, executive officer of the ice hauler Canterbury, is part of a small team sent to the derelict ship Scopuli shortly before Canterbury is inexplicably destroyed by stealth fighters. Holden and the team try to survive long enough to find answers as the incident pushes Earth, Mars, and the Belt toward war.

Meanwhile, Miller, a detective with Star Helix security force on the dwarf planet Ceres, is assigned to retrieve Julie Mao, who rebelled against her wealthy parents and was last known to be aboard Scopuli.

My friend Matt Tedesco recommended LEVIATHAN WAKES to me last summer. It's the first book in The Expanse series, and when I learned the pseudonymous co-authors were inspired in part by Joss Whedon's Firefly, I was poised to plunk down coin, only Matt gave me the book for Christmas.

It's everything he promised, an absorbing vision of the future that, like Firefly, feels lived in. The characters may come from far off times and places, but I can relate to them. As a crime fiction fan, I especially related to Miller, but the story works because the characters are individuals. To hear from each of them is to get a sense how humanity might indeed react to technological advances and alien encounters.

Sign me up for the series.

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