Literature / Leviathan Wakes

Released in 2011, Leviathan Wakes is the first of nine novels in The Expanse series.

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Leviathan Wakes contains examples of:

• All of Them
  Naomi: We’ve got ships on their way from all over the system.
  Holden: How many are coming?
  Naomi: At a guess? All of them.
• Awesome McCoolname: When Miller is trying to find the Rocinante through data analysis, one of the ships he comes across is the freight hauler Badass Motherfucker owned by the Luna company "MYOFB Corporation" (the acronym likely means, judging by the name of the ship, "Mind Your Own Fucking Business"). In the same breath, however, Miller notes that it's Awesome, but Impractical since a ship with a name like that simply begging for a bored port official to bust their chops for kicks.
• Blob Monster: The first Protomolecule creature we see is one of these. It's sucking on the Scopuli's fusion reactor and shrieking "help me!" over and over with the half-assimilated head floating in it. When it's seen later, freeze-dried, it's still got floaters—a colon and a spine are mentioned by name, showing that its an extreme case of Body of Bodies.
• Brick Joke: The legal dispute over the colonization rights to Venus has been in the courts for over eighty years with no sign of resolution in sight. Then the protomolecule-infected Eros is deliberately rammed into Venus, seeding that planet with alien life and making any further litigation over its fate moot. Holden's comments at the end of the book indicate that Venus may become Chekhov's Planet in the long run, but at least for now humanity is safe and can plan for that contingency.

• Crapsack World: All of Them, to varying extents. Earth is severely overpopulated^note  A farm of a dozen acres is described as being the size of a national park; there is population control with "unlicensed" kids having no right to governmental support; and even most legal citizens are basically "surplus to society" and live on food stamps because there is no work for them; higher education is reseverved for those who prove that they will work in their profession afterwards and who can find an already working sponsor to write them a letter of recommendation. and recovering from the environmental damage of the 20th and 21st century. Mars is better by comparison but implied to be a military dictatorship in all but name, and the kids are put through enormous performance stress in school.^note In the Gods of Risk novella, the teenage protagonist does such advanced and long-hour lab work in school that you only realize he's still in puberty (not a particularly immature PhD. student) when his age is stated towards the end. And he and his equally stressed classmates are not supposed to be exceptionally gifted special cases or anything. The exploitation of the people of the Belt and the outer worlds is severe enough to drive a revolutionary faction, the Outer Planets Alliance, to open violence against Earth and Mars interests. Living standards in the Belt are not much different than a developing country on Earth—with the exception that even developing countries don't need to worry about losing their air or water supply on a daily basis.
• Did You Just Have Sex? While the Rocinante crew are dining together in the galley, all it takes to clue Amos in on the fact that Holden and Naomi are sleeping together is the former asking the latter to pass the salt in an overly-formal manner.
• For Science!: Enforced by Protogen on their science personnel by modifying them into high-functioning sociopaths. As long as they are given an interesting problem to solve, they will be completely unfettered, never running into moral crisis about the things they are asked to research.

• Hurl It into the Sun: At Miller's suggestion, the OPA eventually adopts this plan for Eros to keep the Protomolecule out of everyone's hands, by crashing the Nauvoo into it unmanned on a long acceleration trajectory.

• Imaginary Friend: Miller starts having conversations with a hallucinatory Julie Mao.
• Kansas City Shuffle: Holden's plan to intercept the missiles involves pulling this kind of con on the UN.
  Holden: We'll tell them we're going to trick them so they stop listening, and once they're not listening, we'll trick them.
• Laser-Guided Karma: The evil, corrupt MegaCorp Protogen, an N.G.O. Superpower with enough political connections to let them push Earth to attack Mars, is seemingly invincible. Nope. They get outed as being responsible for Eros and go down almost immediately.

• Meaningful Name: Several, to wit:
  • Holden consciously names his ship Rocinante after Don Quixote's horse, and explains to Naomi that the choice was deliberate.
  • Security on Eros is handled by an outfit called CPM (short for Carne Por La Machina, or Meat For The Machine). At first it just looks like a crude joke about the disposability of its personnel, who are all former gang members recruited from throughout the Belt. Given that the protomolecule devours them along with everyone else, the name turns out to be more than appropriate.
• N.G.O. Superpower: Protogen, having enough firepower to bring down the Martian flagship with ease. But reality bites when Earth and Mars learn they're responsible for Eros, and tear the company apart almost immediately.
• Only Electric Sheep Are Cheap: Miller relates a story to the crew about how he disbanded a cheese smuggling ring that was assassinating its rivals. While drugs, prostitution, and synthetic food substitutes are readily available, genuine cheese comes only from Earth or Mars and a single shipment can cost easily as much as the ship transporting it. A single block of Vermont cheddar is considered a sizeable bribe for a cop. Miller's remarks indicate that all non-synthetic food products are considered valuable luxury items in the Belt.
• Our Zombies Are Different: The protomolecule uses them to vomit brown goo to further spread the infection.
• Population Control: When being interrogated on the Donnager, Holden says that Earth has a population of 30 billion and thus being the only child of an eight-person group marriage entitled them to enough tax credits for justify a 22-acre farm.^note The average size of a North American farm today is 441 acres. Holden mentions that his family's holdings are considered 'practically a national park' by the standards of that era.

• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • A nameless Martian officer who learns about the protomolecule on Phoebe responds to it by immediately nuking the moon to atoms so no one else can use the damned thing.
  • The Donnager crew in general, but particularly Lieutenant Kelly, Holden's interrogator aboard the Donnager, is a professional doing a job—he's not brutal at all, just asking questions, and gives his life to make sure Holden and his people make it out with their information. His sacrifice—and those of his crewmates—is not unnoticed. Holden (via Fred Johnson) ensures that Kelly's body is returned to Mars and accorded full military honors.

• Shout-Out:
  • Citizen Kane:
    "Razorback", Naomi said. "What's that?"
    "It's a sled," Miller replied.^note This is a double shout-out. The term sled in racing circles is shortened from lead sled, which denotes a very fast vehicle. What was the Razorback? A racing star-ship.
  • Dune:
    Julies's notes: Panic doesn't help. It never helps. Deep breaths, figure this out, make the right moves. Fear is the mind-killer. Ha. Geek.
  • TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy
    The food dispensers aboard ship can give you something that is not entirely unlike coffee.

• Useless Spleen: When Holden is performing a sustained high-g burn, he complains about his spleen.
  Holden: My spleen is collapsing. Hurry up.

• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Holden gets these pretty often from just about everybody, as he tends to publically broadcast whatever everyone else is trying to keep secret and is personally responsible for two open conflicts as a result.
  • Miller also gets one when he shoots Dresden, an act which results in Holden disliking and distrusting him for the remainder of the novel.
• Zombie Apocalypse: Breaks out in Eros following the introduction of the protomolecule and lots and lots of radiation to the general populace.
• Zombie Puke Attack: The standard method in which the zombies spread the protomolecule to others