Leviathan Wakes -- The Beginning of a Giant Saga

Leviathan Wakes is the first of many books in the Expanse series. You may recognize the name from the Expanse TV show streaming on Amazon Prime (to the loss of SyFy who was dumb enough to let it go). I'll come back later to review the TV show, but today you get Book #1.

And I must tell you -- it's difficult for me to review this book separately from the show, as the whole overarching plot is phenomenal. After watching five seasons, I know what comes next and where this book fits in the whole scheme. So, I'm trying my hardest to ignore what I already know.

This book follows Holden and Miller as they travel across our solar system for various reasons. Holden starts on an ice trawler returning from Saturn to Ceres, and while on a shuttle, he witnesses the destruction of his own ship. Friends, loved ones, and associates he had known for years -- all dead. So, he begins a quest to find out who did this and make them pay.

Miller is a washed-up detective on Ceres who has to deal with the aftermath of the ice trawler's destruction -- in part because of the impending water shortage, but also because angers rile up. He's also asked to track down some rich guy's daughter, who's gone missing.

Holden and Miller don't realize yet, but they're really on the same mission, and something rotten is happening in the solar system. And yes -- it does involve vomit zombies. Sound crazy? Well -- it is, but it makes much more sense while reading. 

And what's most awesome -- it is all mostly scientifically correct (even those vomit zombies). That is by far what attracted me to this series -- the fact that it is "real" sci-fi. Some people call this "hard" sci-fi. Think The Martian, Interstellar, or the 2001 series. "Soft" or "fake" sci-fi are other stories that only loosely use real science and just have fun with lasers and pew pew! Like Star Wars, Star Trek, and the Stargate series.

On top of this, the writers (Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck under the pseudonym of James S. A. Corey) successfully create an entire world full of politics, intrigue, and science. It feels that something like this could actually happen 100 years from now.

However, I do have to be honest. As a standalone book, I didn't find the writing too compelling. Similar to how I find George R. R. Martin's writing in his Fire and Ice books -- only George is better. And possibly similar to Orson Scott Card, who's also good at keeping the narration out of the story (which I sometimes appreciate greatly). Of these three, I find Card's writing to be best, followed by Martin, and lastly Corey.

As an aspiring writer, myself, I easily picked up on all the newbie errors: telling instead of showing, clunky dialogue, cliche F-bomb use, and so on. They also decided to alternate between Holden and Miller for each chapter throughout the entire book -- even when the two converge. I don't think I've ever seen a book do this before, and I can't decide if it's good or bad.

If I hadn't already known how great the whole story is, I might have put this book down early on. But what I did like about the writing is that is indeed very easy to read through it quickly. They do indeed do a good job of having the narration stay out of the way. I figure that regular readers won't be phased by the newbie errors and will most likely enjoy this book.

Finally, I suppose I could end with a quick comparison with the TV show. This first book covers the first two seasons -- but only from Holden's and Miller's points of view. I figure the next book or two comes back later to fill in the gaps for the many other characters who have yet to be introduced. Either that, or the show writers added in a lot of stuff for the series. In some instances scenes in the show are more fleshed out (kind of like how Jackson did a whole movie out of a few paragraphs in The Hobbit). In many instances, it felt like I was reading a script to the TV show -- indicating that some of the dialogue is indeed lifted straight from the book (including one of my favorite interactive scenes). And in a few cases, the book gave a lot more useful detail that helps explain some things not covered in the show -- which probably gave me the most value in reading this book.

There you have it -- feel free to check it out. If you stick with it, supposedly the following books get even better. I'll definitely continue chugging through, but I got a lot of other books on my list. (It never ends!)

Magicians -- Giving Up

I did make it two seasons in. In an earlier post, I expressed my doubts -- that it looked like "a cross between Hogwarts for grownups and Alphas." But after one episode, it was clear that it was something bigger than that.

Brakebills is a college for magicians -- so you get the whole college scene mixed with something really bad going on -- well -- several really bad things going on.

All of the characters are interesting. A new freshman appears to have one of the strongest natural talent, but he has no idea how to use it and control it. His girlfriend is rejected from the college, even though she wanted it more than he did. Some of the older students are mean, manipulative, and vindictive, but somehow all these people become friends.

Overall, I loved the first season even though the writers seemed to have an overt obsession with sex. In fact - they wasted an entire episode on that -- something about sex bringing strength to magic -- some crazy nonsense. That episode was so bad, I think it could be skipped entirely without missing too much plot -- well, some big things do happen somewhere in the middle.

But other than that distraction, the first season seemed tight with good plot and strong direction. The season finale left me hanging -- making me have to wait till the next year to continue.

However, then -- the second season came out weaker. There were still some good parts in each episode ... but there was still that obsession with sex, and the tendency to convolute the plot to get the strangest people together and set up all kinds of love triangles, squares, and pentagons. That got boring with the exception of watching one of the characters get exactly what they wanted in that area.

That season explores the magical land of Fillory, which was kind of interesting ... but ... didn't seem to work. Almost like making stuff up as they went along to fill in the holes instead of first setting the rules, building the world, and letting it flow organically.

At the end of the second season -- I just lost interest. I could tell the show still had potential and could possibly redeem itself, but evidently I found other shows to keep me busy.

You can check out the show if you wish -- I read that it comes to a satisfying conclusion after five seasons. I gave up -- but you just might enjoy it.