Book · 2011
Leviathan Wakes
by James S. A. Corey
A detective investigating a missing-persons case on an asteroid and a scavenger spaceship crew are chasing the same conspiracy without knowing it yet.
What does Reddit think of Leviathan Wakes?
r/printSF is the natural home here — 449 of Leviathan Wakes' 689 mentions, more than r/suggestmeabook (200) and r/Fantasy (40) combined. The recurring praise is structural: a noir detective plot on Ceres and a spaceship crew's plot run in parallel until they collide, a trick one commenter (↑254) singles out directly. Another calls it the novel that pulled them 'back into sci-fi novels after a multi-year drought' (↑97), which is close to a consensus line here — not that it's brilliant, but that it works as re-entry. It gets filed constantly alongside noir-adjacent genre mashups like Altered Carbon and The City and the City, and separately alongside hard-SF names like Iain M. Banks and China Miéville in best-of lists. Nobody in the top-quoted threads argues it's the best Expanse book, let alone the best of hard SF; it's treated as a reliable starting point. Mentions bottomed out at 83 in 2020 and climbed to 120 in 2025, the highest of the tracked years.
Community feedback & reader fit
Themes
- · noir detective plot fused with space-crew plot
- · gateway back into science fiction after a reading slump
- · hard SF grounded in believable near-future tech
- · genre mashup of noir and space opera
Common praise
- + Readers single out the dual-plotline structure — a detective story on Ceres, a crew story on the Rocinante — as the book's sharpest trick (↑254).
- + One commenter credits it directly with pulling them 'back into sci-fi novels after a multi-year drought' (↑97).
- + It gets filed alongside Iain M. Banks and China Miéville in best-of lists, not just beginner-recommendation threads (↑114).
Common criticism
- − Nobody in the top threads argues this is the best Expanse book — most treat it as the reliable entry point, not the peak.
- − r/Fantasy only chips in 40 of the 689 mentions, and even then hedges with 'it's hard sci-fi, so the fantastical stuff is tech or aliens, not magic' (↑93).
- − Several recommenders reach for it mainly to pad noir or hard-SF list threads rather than argue for it on its own terms.
Who it's for
Sci-fi readers stuck in a slump reach for this specifically — one commenter credits it with ending a multi-year drought (↑97). If you like your space opera with an actual detective plot running alongside the crew drama, the dual-structure comparison (↑254) is the selling point. Fans of noir mashups like Altered Carbon and The City and the City get pointed here as a genre cousin. Don't expect r/Fantasy to rally around it hard; its crossover interest tops out at 40 mentions against r/printSF's 449.
Mentions over time
Top subreddits
Which Reddit comments matter for Leviathan Wakes?
Top-upvoted quotes across the subreddits where this book is mentioned. Click through to read the full thread.
“*The Expanse* series does this a lot, but I especially enjoyed it in the first book, *Leviathan Wakes.* You have the crew of the a spaceship and a detective working on Ceres both following the same story but with completely different pieces of information. When they finally meet and share that infor…
“The first Expanse novel, *Leviathan Wakes*, could fit. One of the main characters is a detective who lives on an asteroid turned space station and spends most of the book working on a missing persons case across various locations in the asteroid belt.
“Leviathan Wakes and the subsequent books in the Expanse series by James S. A. Corey.
“* **Surface Detail** (2010) *by Iain M. Banks* * **Embassytown** (2011) *by China Miéville* * **Leviathan Wakes** (2011) *by James S.A. Corey* * **The Hydrogen Sonata** (2012) *by Iain Kim M. Banks* * **The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August** (2014) *by Catherine Webb* * **Children of Time** (2015…
“Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed, because it is one of the works of fiction that got me thinking about alternate ways of living in a positive way, especially beyond capitalism. James SA Corey’s Leviathan Wakes for getting me back into sci fi novels after a multi-year drought caused by being busy w…
“It's hard sci-fi, so the fantastical stuff is tech or aliens, not magic, but I'll always take the opportunity to recommend "The Expanse" series, which starts with a book called "Leviathan Wakes".
“I feel like this is one of the more popular genre mashups. To get a few of the big names out of the way, there's some noir in one of the plotlines in the first Expanse novel, *Leviathan Wakes*. And quite a lot in *Altered Carbon* by Richard K. Morgan. *The City and the City* by China Mieville is a…
“It is very r/fantasy to ask for no rape and get Joe Abercrombie. What *would* fit your request is Daniel Abraham, who writes in that style but without sexual assault. Dagger and Coin (first book: The Dragon's Path) is very Abercrombie/Martin-esque in its style and doesn't have rape, but it does hav…
Convinced? Pick up Leviathan Wakes
Readers also mention
Books that share discussion threads with Leviathan Wakes — counted from the comments, not curated.
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All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries)
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Red Rising
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A miner's son fakes his way into the ruling class's brutal war-games academy to bring down the system that executed his wife.
Children of Time
Adrian Tchaikovsky
A terraforming experiment goes wrong, a nanovirus lands on spiders instead of monkeys, and evolution builds a civilization nobody planned for.
Dune
Frank Herbert
A duke's son survives his family's betrayal on a desert planet and becomes the prophet who leads its people to war.
Ender's Game
Orson Scott Card
A six-year-old is drafted into a war academy that trains him to command a fleet, and he doesn't find out what he actually did until it's over.
Leviathan Wakes — frequently asked
Is Leviathan Wakes a good entry point into science fiction?+
Yes — that's close to the consensus. One reader says it pulled them 'back into sci-fi novels after a multi-year drought' (↑97), and it drives 449 of its 689 mentions from r/printSF specifically as a recommendation staple, well ahead of r/suggestmeabook's 200.
What makes Leviathan Wakes different from other space operas?+
The dual-plot structure: a noir detective investigating a missing-persons case on Ceres runs in parallel with a spaceship crew's story until the two threads collide (↑254). Commenters also file it alongside noir-adjacent mashups like Altered Carbon and The City and the City rather than treating it as straight space opera.
Is Leviathan Wakes better than the rest of The Expanse series?+
The Reddit data doesn't make that case — recommenders treat it as the reliable starting point, not the series peak, with 689 mentions across seven years and a 2025 uptick to 120. Nobody in the top-quoted threads ranks it above the later books; it's discussed as an on-ramp.
Does Leviathan Wakes work for r/Fantasy readers, not just sci-fi fans?+
Marginally. It only pulls 40 of the book's 689 mentions there, and even the recommendations come hedged — 'it's hard sci-fi, so the fantastical stuff is tech or aliens, not magic' (↑93). It crosses over, but it isn't a natural r/Fantasy darling.