Book Review: Leviathan Wakes

I was beginning to be oppressed by the thousands of pages of serious reading I had on my table. Sometimes it just seems hard. What to do about it? How about some non-serious reading, like an old fashioned space opera? Leviathan Wakes, by James S. A. Corey, looked like a plausible prospect. I didn't know it when I bought it, but it's also kind of a plus that Corey is actually the pseudonym of two Albuquerque based writers. I mean homeboys, close enough.

Leviathan is set a few hundred years in the future, when humankind has colonized the Moon, Mars, many of the the moons of the outer planets and numberless asteroids. The protagonists are a Ceres based detective in the noir mode and the executive officer of an ice hauling freighter who gets involved in a response to a mayday call from a crippled ship. This is not hard science fiction, but it does try to stay within the bounds of physics. It has elements of mystery and horror as well as space faring adventure.

It is perhaps not great literature, but I blew through the 583 pages in a couple of days of hard reading, so, from my point of view, it is a real page turner. It's also been an NYT bestseller with 1493 Amazon reviews averaging 4.5 stars. While the novel is complete in itself, it does seem to be part of a multi-volume series.

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