James S.A. Corey - The Expanse

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Nebuchadnezzar

Golden Squire
458
50
Book 3 is next on my TBR list. Much love for the series, one of my favorites to pop up in the last couple years.
 

Grimmlokk

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
12,190
132
Didn't realize the 3rd one was out. First was quite good, 2nd was great. Introduced a couple outstanding characters in the diplomat chick and the marine chick.
 

Sylverlokk

Golden Knight of the Realm
1,554
492
I just finished the first one and am about to start the second. First was really good so I am glad to hear they keep up the same quality.
 

Gask

Bronze Baron of the Realm
11,732
44,077
Love altered carbon, will check this out. Thanks
If I had known that Leviathan Wakes was jointly written by Daniel Abraham under a pseudonym then I never would have picked it up and read it. Well played,
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. Anyway it started out alright but over the course of several hundred pages it turned into total drivel. The man is more interested in writing aboutsituationsthat happen to take place in interesting settings (he is fairly good at world building) rather than actual stories involving realistic/compelling characters. I've read this and his first Long Price novel and sadly all of his protagonists and supporting characters read like dull caricatures to me.

Read the 3 star reviews on Amazon for unbiased views on this novel.
 

Decado

Golden Knight of the Realm
94
44
Finished the first and thought it was pretty good, once i get the other 2 i'll finish them off. Thought it was similar to Dan Worth's Progenitor series but not as good in my opinion.
 

OU Ariakas

Diet Dr. Pepper Enjoyer
<Silver Donator>
6,872
18,829
Would someone be able to throw a zip of the mobi files up here? Stuck in a hotel for 2 months with pretty restrictive internet.
 

khalid

Unelected Mod
14,071
6,775
I've read this and his first Long Price novel and sadly all of his protagonists and supporting characters read like dull caricatures to me.
The Long Price Quartet has some of the most well-rounded characters in all of fantasy. Could not disagree more strongly with you.
 

Gask

Bronze Baron of the Realm
11,732
44,077
The Long Price Quartet has some of the most well-rounded characters in all of fantasy. Could not disagree more strongly with you.
To be fair it was awhile ago that I read it and about all that I remember is that the premise of the world was interesting, the only character I liked was Seedless and the ending was of dubious quality. Perhaps its characters were more realistic and intriguing than I remember, perhaps not but surely you cannot overly defend the lineup in Leviathan Wakes. Jim Holden and his crew of sheep should have been auto piloted into the nearest sun.
 

khalid

Unelected Mod
14,071
6,775
Jim Holden and his crew of sheep should have been auto piloted into the nearest sun.
Jim Holden is definitely the least interesting character in the series. He is so naive and easy to manipulate that he makes Ned Stark from ASOIAF look like Machiavelli.
 

Grimmlokk

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
12,190
132
Through the first and second books he at least gets called on his retarded shit and shown how much he's fucking up progressively more often.

First book I enjoyed the noir detective in space aspect more than the rest of it. 2nd book I liked 2 of the 3 new main characters, and the 3rd(botanist guy) wasn't bad. Nice outsider perspective on the crew. And the little bit of backstory we got on....umm...military background mechanic guy...I liked. Him and the Botanist were a good duo.

Makes me hopeful for the third book, even not knowing if/how much those characters will be around. Shows that he can write somewhat more interesting people.
 

velk

Trakanon Raider
2,512
1,094
To be fair it was awhile ago that I read it and about all that I remember is that the premise of the world was interesting, the only character I liked was Seedless and the ending was of dubious quality. Perhaps its characters were more realistic and intriguing than I remember, perhaps not but surely you cannot overly defend the lineup in Leviathan Wakes. Jim Holden and his crew of sheep should have been auto piloted into the nearest sun.
I'd put money on Holden being written by the other writer in the collaboration; Miller shows all the Abraham hallmarks - 100% believable, 98% a horrible and depressing person.
 

Lusiphur

Peasant
595
47
This series gets a solid thumbs up from me. Haters gonna hate and all that. Bobbi and Chrisjen were two of the better characters that have seen the light of day in years. While I didn't feel that the new characters in the last book were quite as strong it all tied up quite nicely.
Not ground-breaking by any manner of means but highly entertaining.
 

spronk

FPS noob
22,473
25,379
Just read through all three books over the past week. first book is great, second book is decent, third book is pretty boring. Spoilers on third book
I wish they would have focused more on the protomolecule/aliens rather than the extremely boring, trite humans-are-retarded stories. Was also pretty bizarre that what is essentially a gate building tool, the protomolecule, suddenly also incorporates a detective AI that wants to find out what happened to the builders. It seems like that would have been something that was on the silver death star, maybe it was and lying to Holden since the whole "I see MillerGhost... wait, this one is different!" was confusing to me. I really, really hate the Holden character though, wish the authors would take some GRRM dust and kill him off.

Still, not a great third book by itself, maybe it'll be better with the next book which presumably delves more into the other gates and the big bad galaxy consuming evil. Probably a SuperProtoMolecule from another galaxy or dimension/reality.
 

Seventh

Golden Squire
892
15
I liked the third book, but nowhere near as much as the first two. It's decent, but could have been a lot better considering the storyline that he's working with.

I thought Bull deserved better closure - as I understood it, it was just the one liner where the Martian sniper says "He had the explosives, those were his kills". That was one of the better characters in the book, and I felt a little short changed by the way his death was just brushed aside. I think the author's getting a little too out there with the protomolecule and the Miller plot - I liked it better as just a weird asskicking killing machine that gave zero fucks about being abandoned to Venus.

I was also hoping that the martian sniper (Juarez) would end up joining the crew. Any sniper is always cool, likethis guyin Saving Private Ryan.

IMO it's still worth reading for fans of the first two (I've certainly read worse books). Considering the potential this world has, it is a tad of a letdown but overall I still enjoyed the read. The problem is that his main character just isn't very good (Holden) compared to the asskicking space marines like Bobbie.
 

Dynalisia

Lord Nagafen Raider
55
23
The last Sci-Fi I read before this one was The Commonwealth series by Peter F Hamilton. While it had its flaws, I think it did the looming alien threat thing (meaning what's beyond our solar system/portal, which is mainly an issue in Expanse books 2 and 3) better than The Expanse. Other than that, these were hugely entertaining books and I'm now voracious for more of this stuff. Time to dig up that old sci-fi recommendation thread I guess
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spronk

FPS noob
22,473
25,379
stephen baxter has a whole bunch of stuff thats similar to this, spanning galaxies and crazy aliens. I'm reading his Destinys Children and Xeelee stuff, just like Corey it starts out pretty good and then gets a bit pedantic.

Actually switched over to reading Aslan's Jesus biography in the middle of one of the books, need a change of pace from mediocre scifi. If you haven't read them yet, I definitely would recommend any of Ian M Banks Culture novels.
 
Read the first two books and thought that it was utterly fantastic. Third book was good but just did not suck me in like the first two but I think overall a great trilogy. I find as I get older, I am moving further away from enjoying fantasy books/series to really enjoying sci-fi, and I am okay with it.

Star Carrier series was pretty good and still going I believe.
Crimsom Worlds Jay Allan, again pretty good.

Working on Spinward Fringe...jury is out.