It’s a mystery, and one the resolution of which has implications much wider than the solar system alone.
It’s more straightforward and gripping than that. The threat and eventual unfolding of this war is the background for the major mystery that plays out, and though the conflict is not as Machiavellian as portrayed on the TV series, the scope and implications of the war– what all out-conflict would mean in regions already as marginal and inhospitable as the outer solar system and the threat of even the simplest weapons rained down a gravity well on the inner planets– effectively keep tensions ramping up throughout the novel.īut the work isn’t a political war story. Political tensions are already high between the three groups, and when a water carrier bound to the asteroid belt from Saturn’s rings is destroyed by what appears to be a Martian warship, the entire solar system tips toward war. Corey does a good job painting the cultures and sensibilities of each group (though Earth takes a more minor role here than it does in the television series), and the considerations of humanity would develop both biologically and sociologically in the asteroid belt and outer moons of the solar system is handled deftly, adding to characterization and tensions rather than distracting from the overall plot. Humans have colonized the solar system and splintered into three distinct groups: Earth/Luna, Mars, and the Belters.
The authors themselves explain their goal of the novel as to situate in a specific science fiction landscape: they wanted it to function as a bridge between far-future and near-future scifi, between fiction that explores our first steps into the solar system and those that already assume humanity’s place on a much larger galactic stage.Ĭall this then a mid-future science fiction epic. I haven’t read any of the Game of Thrones books (or seen the series), so I can’t say whether Leviathan Wakes brings some of the scale of Martin’s sensibilities of politics and peril into a scifi milieu, though there is certainly a good portion of both in the mix. Corey is the author, but the name is actually a front for a creative team of two, one of which is George “Game of Thrones” Martin’s assistant. And like last summer, it turned out to be the perfect choice.
This year, because I was taken with the first few episodes of The Expanse on Syfy, it was Leviathan Wakes, the first novel of the series upon which the television show is based. Last year the perfect beach book was The Martian. If you’re going to fill long days, you need a good page-turner that’s consistently compelling without requiring too much processing power. It’s a tradition I’ve continued, and one I appreciate even more now that I’m a father: taking a good paperback along to read on the shores of Lake Michigan.
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