I thought that this worked very well, and I wondered sometimes at the leisurely pace of the first half of the book. The stakes in the show are always much higher than the same situations in the book.

And here is where the series beats the book like Holly Holm knocking out Ronda Rousey (sorry, couldn’t help myself).īecause of the nature of a weekly series, various situations were ramped up in the show to the very limit of suspense. His supporting cast is remarkably light on characterization (in the book), something I found surprising. The problem with the book is the other main character. I loved the character arc of the main character Detective Miller. The end is nothing like what you would expect, even if you saw the show, which thrilled me to no end. It’s a fast-paced soap opera with a heavy dose of noir mystery–an effective combination and done with style as well as substance. Of course, all this is brilliant marketing, because I (and probably countless others) now found myself unable to avoid buying and reading Leviathan Wakes. Then season 1 of The Expanse ended in the middle of Leviathan Wakes. I was thrilled that the show was so good, because I wouldn’t have to spend time that I did not have reading a book I that I did not want to read. I had been burned by what Daniel Abraham’s (one half of the author duo that write this series) sloppy characterization and lack of detailed world building in another series. To be honest, I only picked up this book because I was mesmerized by the look, feel, dialogue, characterization, and depth of the Syfy version of this novel, known as “The Expanse”. How happy was I, then, to find that sometimes the reverse is true.īut of course, this is a book review. How often do people say–with justified anger–that “the movie version is so much worse than the book!” I myself am usually of that camp, especially as Peter Jackson has done more and more to besmirch the good name of Tolkien with his zany-video-game-amusement-park-ride-bloated-monstrosity that was The Hobbit.

Leviathan wakes goodreads