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.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anti-Libertarian: re-post

The most pointed critique of social security and liberalism in general is the libertarian critique. The problem with libertarians, for a liberal, is that we have too much in common. We both believe in individual rights, tolerance of individual differences, and dislike government prescription of religion. The basic difference, it seems to me, is the different answers we give to Cain's (with thanks to the Captain - my original version had the corpse asking the question!) famous question: "Am I my brother's keeper?" That's not really my basic bitch against the libertarians though. My real complaint is the same as my complaint against most religion - its premise is a fraud. For those who can't stand to wait for the punchline, I believe that trying to implement libertarian principles leads to tyranny or social disintegration. Demonstrating that takes some historical (and pre-historical) context. For all but the last 15,000 or so of the 100,000 years the human spec
Read more

Uneasy Lies The Head

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown ........... Shakespeare Henry IV, Part II. So it is with us and our slightly distant primate cousins , so it seems. A 9-year study of wild baboons in Kenya by Princeton University and the Institute of Primate Research may turn conventional assumptions of alphas males upside down. The study found that alpha males have high testosterone levels, which allows them to dominate other baboons, get access to more food, and attract better mates. This is expected. Surprisingly, though, the alpha males also have high levels of stress hormone glucocorticoid, which scientists measured from their feces samples. In fact, the stress of alpha baboons was on par with low-ranking baboons. The convention wisdom is that access to food and females provides life security and thus less stress for dominant males. Conversely, weak males who are constantly threatened by starvation and physical violence from stronger males are thought to be more stressed. The st
Read more

We Call it Soccer

The US played its best, and maybe only good game of World Cup, but lost thanks to brilliant goalkeeping by the Swedish keeper and the bizarre method soccer uses to settle ties when three US stars could not put the ball on frame from the 12 yard spot.  At the end it came down to a blocked shot that spun in by maybe a couple of centimeters. Well, that's football - too much like life.   Which brings me to a modest proposal.  Replace the thirty minute overtimes with as many 7-player 15 minute periods as needed to settle it.  Scoring should be much easier with fewer players.
Read more