I’ve extrapolated previously about how much I love this series but going back to book one and there’s part of me that’s astonished I made it any further. The later books do a masterful job of shifting perspectives but for this first one we only get two – Holden and Miller – and with Holden being the milquetoastiest of all milquetoasts, Miller is the driving personality. And then he goes and falls in love with a dead girl he’s never met. The ick factor is high. I didn’t even fully grasp how bad that limited perspective was until Caliban’s War cold opens with a Bobbie Draper and I took a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. I fell in love with this series without ever reading the name Chrisjen Avasarala.
So I guess what hooked me was the story. The sharp shove into this very fully realized world feels very George R. R. Martin (which makes sense, considering that one of the authors is an assistant of his). It’s a sprawling universe – literally – in which humanity has surpassed the Earth and even Mars and lives among the stars but we are still so very human, with all our faults. Enter an alien magic goo and a private company blinded by dollar signs and … well … suddenly the human race is on the verge of collapse.
Leviathan Wakes is a truly incredible story on its own, but it is even better as a set up for the series. Is way too much time spent parsing the specifics of Naomi’s ethnic mix? Absolutely. Do the authors learn and get better? Yeah, kinda. I read the books and then watched the series and I think I appreciate the casting more now in that I hate Holden less. I mean, he’s still the shoddiest character in the series, but the meh actor makes a lot more sense now.
God, I can’t wait to meet Bobbie all over again.