This is a reread. I started the series a couple of years ago, but then I started grad school and I really didn't have either time or focus to read a series of 500+ page novels. However, I promised myself that when grad school was over that I would restart the series.
The book holds up to a re-read. Even though it took me the better part of a week to get through, I found myself pushing bed times to read more which is always a good sign. I'm one of the group of readers that came to this series late. I actually watched the first season of "The Expanse" on Prime before I ever laid hands on the book. The series and the books differ in several places, yet I wouldn't be able to say that I prefer one over the other.
Leviathan Wakes is the first book in a richly developed sci-fi odyssey. In the future, humans have settled the moon and colonized Mars. To support the settlements, a third group has settled the belt of asteroids between Mars and Jupiter. The inhabitants of the moon are largely identified with the citizens of Earth, so these three main groups of people (Earth, Mars, and the Belt) have different goals and identities. The peace is tense.
In the first chapters of the book, Corey establishes two main POV characters: James Holden and Detective Miller. James Holden is the XO on the Canterbury, an ice mining vessel in the belt. He's originally from Earth and has a military background in the Earth navy, complete with a dishonorable discharge. Even so, Holden is a kind naive idealist puppy-dog with romantic tendencies. Detective Miller, by contrast, is a belter born and raised. He's a security officer on Ceres working for an Earth company. Miller is a kind of throwback to the grizzled protagonists of classic crime noir novels. He's a cynic and an inherently broken cog in a corrupt system, yet still fundamentally sympathetic.
Within the first 50 pages, Holden has seen the Canterbury blown up by a mysterious ship and uncovered pieces of a vast conspiracy. Miller has been put on the trail of a missing rich girl daughter of a major Earth corporation. From the beginning it's clear that his superiors don't really want her found, but Miller becomes obsessed with this rich girl who turned her back on her wealth to join a revolutionary group agitating for the freedom of the belt: the OPA.
It's a great read. Despite its size, it feels like a quick read.
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