Book review by Corey
Leviathan Wakes
Leviathan Wakes follows two main storylines that slowly crash into each other. Holden is part of an ice-hauling crew that gets pulled into a much bigger political mess after answering a distress call, while Detective Miller is trying to find a missing young woman whose disappearance turns out to be connected to something far more dangerous than he expected.
I got pulled into this faster than I expected, mostly because the book does a really good job of balancing the mystery with the larger space conflict. Holden and Miller are very different, and I liked how their separate stories slowly started connecting. The world-building is big without feeling impossible to follow, and even when some of the politics get dense, the mystery around Julie Mao and the protomolecule kept me invested.
The Goods
- Strong mix of mystery and space opera
- Holden and Miller are very different but both interesting
- Great sense of scale
- The protomolecule mystery is really compelling
- The world feels lived-in instead of overexplained
The Bads
- Some political sections get dense
- A few side characters need more depth
- The middle slows a little
- There’s a lot of terminology early on
- Some readers may prefer one storyline over the other
My Recommendation
This is a great choice if you like space opera but still want a strong mystery pulling everything together. I liked that the book didn’t just rely on huge battles or technical sci-fi ideas, because the missing-person case and the tension between the characters gave it a much more personal side. If you enjoy big science fiction worlds, political conflict, strange alien technology, and a story that keeps getting larger the deeper you go, Leviathan Wakes is a really strong start to The Expanse series.
