Reviewed by Joshua R. Parker

Between now and a future of inter-stellar travel, there is an intermediate point where humans make the jump from dominance of this solar system into a true space-faring species. Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey is set during that liminal time. As with any transition, this one is full of lessons, critical decisions, and pain. Since Leviathan Wakes is a space opera, it also has governmental corruption, larger than life personalities, intrigue, explosions, and vomit zombies.

Two characters trade POV chapters throughout Leviathan Wakes, and they are used to highlight the ways people differentiate themselves. Some are new. There is a huge cultural divide between those who grew up on Earth, Mars, or Luna and people from space stations spread throughout the belt. Earth and Mars vie for military and economic supremacy, with the belters struggling for independence in the thick of it all. Racial differences have been replaced by gravitational ones; culture is now a function of growing up breathing real versus recycled air.

Of course, the old distinctions–rich or poor, cop or criminal, hero or sociopath–are still there. Some are more distinct, as being poor takes on a whole new meaning when air is imported. Others are less so, as when a cop finds it expedient to look the other way when vigilantes throw a guy out of an airlock for failing to keep their air scrubbers clean and functional.

The two protagonists are a study in opposites. Jim Holden is a classic space opera hero. He’s good looking, smooth to the point that it’s effortless, and able to go through life finding the best path without trying very hard. Detective Miller is more the anti-hero. Alcoholic, divorced, and borderline functional, he does the jobs that nobody else on his space station wants.

Holden leads a diminishing crew through a series of space battles that leaves two ships destroyed and the solar system on the brink of war. When the belt erupts in spontaneous riots, Miller finds himself out of a job. He opts to quixotically continue his last bad assignment and leaves the station on his own dime to track down and kidnap a missing girl.

This is the point where Holden and Miller meet. Dashing idealistic hero and drunk shovel-faced cynic team up and begin to uncover layers of conspiracy. Before long they are wading through gore on a space station that has become a genocidal science experiment. Shootouts abound, quips ensue, and the two men eventually learn that the mystery they are investigating is several billion years in the making.

It is a fantastic ride.

Holden and Miller are an unlikely pair. Miller is so world-weary that being accepted in Holden’s crew nearly brings him to tears. He has little social grace and no tolerance for nonsense; his best qualities seem to be tenacity and an unflinchingly realistic view of the world.

When the two of them are irradiated to the point of illness as a space station is exterminated, Holden is ready to lay down and die, but Miller won’t allow it. They fight their way free of the largest single mass killing in human history almost exclusively on Miller’s grit.

On Holden’s end, his belief in the goodness of people, while annoying to Miller, does allow him to talk his way through some sticky situations. People trust him. If anyone close to Holden is fighting to do the right thing, he will push himself nearly to death to help them.

Their flaws also contribute heavily to the course of the narrative. Miller doesn’t flinch before executing a man who propagated the genocide, even while that man is a prisoner. Holden does the right thing, even when it is also the stupid or naïve thing, and is responsible for starting the war in the first place.

The future hinges on their decisions. For good or ill, both men follow their hearts and live with the outcome, and Leviathan Wakes is at its best when the main characters are in perfect concert or direct opposition.

James S. A. Corey is a pseudonym for Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck. Leviathan Wakes is the debut of their series The Expanse, and is a solid introduction to the setting. They end Leviathan Wakes with the survivors confronting a new reality, one that has concrete proof of extra-terrestrial intelligence. It is an adventure with consequence and heart, an exciting look into a future where old problems dog us even as we are inventing new ones. Above everything else, it is also unreservedly fun.