Leviathan Wakes

Leviathan Wakes is good old-fashioned space opera which manages to strike a perfect balance between building a brilliantly detailed future universe and a fast-paced, thriller like plot. Set several hundred years in the future, humans have colonised the Moon, Mars and the asteroid belt, but inevitably this has not been an entirely peaceful process. The author, James S. A. Corey, is the pen name of two collaborators, Daniel Abraham (fantasy author of the Long Price quartet and the Dagger and the Coin series) and Ty Franck (sci-fi author and George R. R. Martin's assistant). This is the first book in the Expanse series, which has recently been adapted for television by SyFy.

What immediately drew me into the world of the Expanse was the distinctive development of each of the new human worlds. So-called ‘Belters', those who have lived all of their lives on stations bolted on to asteroids with only small amounts of spin gravity, are tall and lanky with hand gestures developed to allow communication in environment suits. Each chapter is written from a different character's viewpoint, in style very similar to Abraham's Dagger and Coin series, which quickly introduces the reader to life in these new, challenging environments. Throughout the book, there are constant reminders of the adjustments made to everyday life in space in a way that I found constantly satisfying without ever getting in the way of the plot. The level of detail reminded me slightly of Andy Weir's The Martian, but on a much larger scale. These insights are not limited to science and technology – the distinct cultures developed around the solar system are rich and diverse, never feeling too far removed from our own.

The main story kicks off within the first few chapters of the book, when the fragile peace which existed between the human outposts is broken by a seemingly random attack. We then follow our two main characters – Holden, executive office ‘XO' of an ice freighter, and Miller, a disgruntled police detective on Ceres – as events begin to unfold. Earth is not the central focus of the book, remaining a somewhat mysterious political and military force that felt detached and slightly alien to me. I really enjoyed this perspective, learning about the world first from the furthest reaches of human civilization.

This is a fantastic page-turner, followed by four books currently released with a further four planned for the future. If only a UK network would pick up the TV series!