You don’t find many sci-fi books that deal with space travel only within the solar system. Usually if spaceships are involved, so is travel between the stars. So I found Leviathan Wakes, the first book by James S.A. Corey, to be rather interesting just from that perspective alone. My interest was piqued even more when discovering that the name “James S.A. Corey” is the pen name for two people, Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck (the latter of whom can’t seem to have his name listed without the addition of “George R.R. Martin’s assistant”, making me wonder if we can blame him at all for the massive delay in A Dance with Dragons). I’m sure there are other examples out there, but for the moment, I’m drawing a blank on instances of two people writing as one person. In any case, those are two things that made Leviathan Wakes stand out a bit even before starting to read it.

The book bounces between two men: Holden, the executive officer of a small ice-mining ship, and Miller, a detective on the asteroid Ceres. Holden's ship stops to answer a distress call and discovers something completely unexpected which leads to he and his crew being chased by a variety of people, known and unknown. Miller is assigned to look for a missing woman on behalf of her rather wealthy parents, despite there being seemingly more important cases to pursue. When the stories of both men end up intertwined (as such plots are wont to do), they find themselves potentially as pawns in a larger game between Earth, Mars, the Outer Rings, cross-planet corporations, and perhaps even a stealthy unknown party, just to mix things up a bit.

And when I say the book bounces between them, it really does -- each chapter alternates between each main character. Though still written in third person, each specific chapter is solely from the perspective of that particular character. The Holden chapters focus on how he tries to do the best for his crew first, followed by what he views as "right" in terms of the rest of the solar system, even if his decisions aren't thought all the way through. The Miller chapters are more noir-ish, with the jaded detective somewhat lost in his own thoughts without particularly anyone to turn to. Once things got going, there was a nice balance between plot progression and mystery, and the back and forth between main characters worked well, both when the characters were together and separate. I would say that the book did take a little while to really get going, though. The initial build-up was fine, but it just didn't really grab me. It was pretty easy to read a chapter or two and then put the book down with the intention of getting back to it later, but as it progressed, the amount read in one sitting increased correspondingly.

There were a few things I didn't buy, though, which took away from my total enjoyment. For one, we all know the cliché where a lonely, jaded detective investigates the disappearance of a woman and ends up falling for her (or not really her, but the image of her he creates in his mind as he learns more about her) -- that's what happens here with Miller and the focus of his investigation. But it's not so much the cliché that bugged me but how it was handled. He seemed to fall for this image of her really quickly and for little reason. His feelings help drive the plot later on, so I can see why it was necessary, but I just didn't buy the way it happened, and that colored my opinion throughout the rest of the book. Another thing that bugged me a bit was the ending. I won't spoil things here, but I will say that the ending wasn't quite what I was expecting, and I felt a little disappointed in it. It's not a bad ending, by any means, and as I think more about it, it kind of is somewhat fitting and natural, but it still bugged me.

Nevertheless, I look forward to further books in this proposed series. The writing team did well in setting up their literary vision, with many different potential plots that could be explored. And I definitely recommend Leviathan Wakes. Sure, there were a few things that bothered me about it, your mileage may vary. If you're in the mood for a sci-fi book with noir-ish mystery elements, give this a look. If the series becomes particularly successful, then maybe Ty Franck will more easily be able to tell George R.R. Martin to get cracking on writing himself!

   -- K. Burtt