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Welcome to the thread! I’m Milkfred E. Moore - you may remember me from the Bayformers thread in CD, my repeated probations in the Mass Effect 3 thread in Games, my retrospective watch-through of The Sarah Connor Chronicles in TV/IV, and the few times where I’ve been called one of the late Bravest of the Lamp’s sockpuppet accounts. I’m here to direct my talent for writing long diatribes on poo poo nobody cares about towards a little-known book series called The Expanse. The Expanse is a series of eight novels (to be nine) written by James S. A. Corey, the pen name of authors Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham. Since the first novel was published in 2011, the series has been a pretty big hit, releasing a novel every year since (plus novellas, graphic novels, etc.) and is set to close out when the final novel releases this year. In 2015, the series landed an acclaimed TV adaptation produced by Syfy, only to be cancelled and then resurrected by Amazon. #savetheexpanse, everybody. The world of The Expanse is that of a future where humanity has colonized the Sol system and organized around three major factions: the tradiational United Nations of Earth, the authoritarian Martian Congressional Republic, and the loose-knit Outer Planets Alliance. In these stories, space travel is so commonplace as to be boring, but still hazardous if something goes wrong. Perhaps the most interesting part of the series is how the sci-fi elements are hard-ish, with things like travel time, acceleration, and so on, all factoring into the storytelling. All the issues that humanity faced ‘down the gravity well’ have followed them to the edge of the Solar system and back. The storytelling of the Expanse novels is third-person past tense with multiple points of view, novels often rotating in an A-B-A or A-B-C fashion. Including prologues and epilogues, there have been thirty-three point-of-view characters across the eight current books. The only one of these to feature in every novel is James Holden, the central protagonist. The captain of the spaceship Rocinante, Jim Holden is an idealistic everyman who finds himself swept up in events far bigger than him and his motley crew--things like wars, conspiracies, and mind-bending discoveries. So, that’s the basics. But Milky, I hear you ask, why these books? Why are you devoting all this time and energy to a set of generally-okay sci-fi novels? Why not something great, or something terrible? A good question, and with an easy answer: these novels make up what’s, perhaps, my favorite series of books. I’ve enjoyed reading them and, while I feel the quality of the latest few hasn’t been so great, if the ninth book is as consistent as the others, then it’ll be a pretty good series, all in all. For those who are wondering: the fifth is my favorite and I feel the weakest is the sixth. The strength of the series is in its consistency. While I don't think any of the books would make my Top Ten lists, the series as a whole is generally solid. My personal history with The Expanse novels is that I picked up Abaddon’s Gate on a whim in 2013, not seeing that it was the third in a series (I missed the big 3 on the spine, I guess.) I consider it a credit to the writers that it was easy enough for me to follow, only beginning to get the suspicion that I’d missed a book or two when I hit the halfway point. Interestingly, I think this helped me with the series. See, I don’t think the first novel in the series - Leviathan Wakes - is that well-written. It’s very good for what it is - it has a plot that keeps moving forward, simple but entertaining characters, and an intriguing world… But the prose? Eeehhh, it’s pretty bad in that first entry. Even the second novel - Caliban’s War - feels like a significant step up from the first. The other part is that, while I enjoy the novels and am eagerly awaiting the ninth book, I feel like the series has never reached the full potential the authors could have realized had they been a bit more daring, a bit less prosaic. Especially in the later books, where the scope of the series has broadened out to something beyond the more limited, personal scale of the first few novels, it feels like the books have never been able to, for better or worse, properly break away from being a series where - in the words of SA Goon General Battuta - ‘people just talk in and around spaceships.’ That’s why I was motivated in doing a Let’s Read. Not because these are bad books and will be fun to riff on or otherwise expose the baffling flaws and decisions made by the authors, but because they’re decent books that also feel like they never excel, never quite commit to the potential of their world and characters (and sometimes do make stylistic or creative decisions that are somewhat baffling.) I’ve found them fun to talk about like one might rearrange puzzle pieces, or take some elements and maybe take them further than the original authors thought of doing. When I think of these books, I feel like you could cut the word counts of each novel by half and still tell the same story. This might be why the TV adaptation feels stronger--it tells the same story but without some of the issues the books have. Ultimately, I think the Corey combo is a pretty good team. I’ve also attempted to read Abraham’s The Dagger and The Coin series and, despite some favorable recommendations, I found the first novel to be a really poor book that shocked me as an overall fan of The Expanse. Without going into details, I think the Corey persona synthesizes two very different styles of author and creates something better than either of them could do individually - but more on that later. With that in mind, I’ve tagged my posting pal Omi No Kami to offer an additional perspective on these novels. Omi and I have put our heads together before, contributing to a Let’s Read of the imaginative-yet-bizarre web serial Worm on another forum. Omi has come to these novels more recently than I, and is reading through them for the first time. I’ve read each novel approximately twice, and so it’ll be interesting to see what we agree on, disagree on, and so on. Discussions we’ve had previously about these novels is what led us to deciding to widen it out for others to enjoy and get involved with. The goal here is to get through the first three books, and maybe the whole series (if it feels like there’s still stuff to talk about.) As an aside, If you’re reading these for the first time, it’s possible that there will be unmarked spoilers. I’ll endeavor to spoiler tag anything we talk about that refers to the events of a later novel, but it can’t be guaranteed. So, nine books. That’s a Herculean task. What’s making it more achievable is that these books are, overall, pretty okay. This won’t be a line-by-line type of Let’s Read, if only because there’s not much value in that. There’s not much of the baffling, bizarre, creepy or otherwise weird stuff that you might find in, say, Twilight. The plan is to discuss each chapter as a whole, perhaps segueing into particular topics that might seem particularly notable or evident, as well as picking out particular bits we like and particular bits we dislike. Will we draw out the various ‘Coreyisms’ that suffuse these books? Oh, absolutely. Expect a running tally of explanations on why Belter body language is so expressive, on how many half-eaten meals people throw into the recycler, on just what Belters eat, how many times Amos is described as ‘beefy’, and so on. In this thread, I don’t think we’ll talk about the TV series that much, beyond maybe basic stuff - how the adaptation differs from the source material, why it works better, etc. Casting of the characters as compared to how they are in the books. Little things like that. Overall, I just think the TV series is an excellent adaptation that just tells the story better than the books themselves. We might discuss the novellas, we might not. I encourage others to join the discussion and provide their thoughts and opinions as we go. I’d also like to hear from some of the more critically-minded posters, such as the posters in The Genres Ablaze thread, because some of the posts they’ve made on The Expanse in the past were interesting reads to me, even as a fan of the books. Like these books, love ‘em, or hate ‘em, I want to get as many perspectives as possible. Let's begin. Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 07:12 on Mar 18, 2020 |
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Book 1: Leviathan Wakes Prologue (Julie) Leviathan Wakes - Prologue: Julie posted:The Scopuli had been taken eight days ago, and Julie Mao was finally ready to be shot. There’s a rule in writing that you should cut prologues. That they rarely, if anything, add anything to a story. The prologue of Leviathan Wakes is one I think has a place in the novel. After all, at its core, this is a ‘missing girl’ detective novel. Here’s the missing girl. All in all, I think it’s okay. Julie’s trapped in a closet aboard a spaceship called the Scopuli, a freighter which Julie appears to be serving on as a space trucker. She’s trapped because the Scopuli has been assaulted and boarded by unknown forces. Whoever the attackers are, they’ve killed everyone else, seemingly by some combination of beatings, torturings, and spacings. She’s been in the closet for eight days. We get to hear about her peeing, drinking water, peeing, and so on, and running out of water. All the while, she’s been hearing her shipmates getting beaten and killed. A part of me wonders why Julie was able to hide within a storage locker. If I was the mysterious attackers, I’d probably open up everything just to be sure. But it’s a minor thing. We get our first hints of the Expanse’s setting here. Mention of ‘inner planet navies’ implies multiple powers, and an outer planets division of sorts. The OPA is mentioned, too, but it’s not clear if the Scopuli is affiliated with the OPA, whatever it is, or just carrying their data. One thing that stuck out to me is while the story lets you think that Julie is trapped on the Scopuli, there’s brief mention of the fact that she was taken to a different ship. Later, we’ll find out that it is the Anubis, associated with Protogen. But it’s a bit strange. It feels like it’s tried to obscure by not making that clear until now. It also means Julie is aboard that other ship which should overlap certain events we’ll cover later. She’s also not hiding in the locker per se, but she was thrown in there by the attackers. Like, it’s all okay, but it all feels a little strange to bury these elements of the past eight days in the middle of the exposition that kind of defines this chapter. Having been out of water for two days, Julie kicks her way out of the locker and finds the ship… abandoned. Everything empty, everything quiet. Was she left behind when the attackers fled to another ship? Julie thinks not, but goes to investigate. Julie finds evidence of a fight just outside the Engineering section and figures that whatever happened to the ship transpired in there. Outside, she finds the signs of a fight - blood, tools left in disarray - and then, inside, she finds something else. A strange fleshy thing covering the reactor core. A strange fleshy thing with the head of her friend Captain Darren, begging for help. Dun dun dun! The bit where Julie discovers the thing around the reactor core feels like it exemplifies what I mean about the roughness of Leviathan Wakes’ prose. Leviathan Wakes - Prologue: Julie posted:The strange smell became overpowering. However, what Omi and I both think the prologue is solid because it establishes three important things:
(We also think the repeated mentions of peeing is a little bit too much, but can maybe point to how desperate she is and how disgusting the conditions she’s kept in are. But reading this again, it stuck out to me, too.) Our quibbles are relatively minor. The first is the part where Julie is about to be - or thinks she is about to be - sexually assaulted by the attackers. It’s unclear whether she’s about to be assaulted or if it’s something she’s misreading. Despite reading this book twice, I’ll admit this is a part of the book my memory is hazy on. It’s something we’ll get more of an idea of later, if I remember correctly. The second is that the shutdown of the ship doesn’t feel right, and doesn’t quite add up with certain events we hear about later. It works to generate interest - neither the reader or Julie know what happened - but it feels a little cheap. And, on a re-read, it feels especially obvious that it’s deliberately withholding certain information from the reader as opposed to cleverly setting up a twist. This is something the TV series does better. The TV Adaptation Not much to mention here. Here is how the TV series covered it. It’s clear indication of how the series does it better - it places us with Julie and doesn’t need us to go through all of the exposition and Julie’s thoughts and the peeing and so on. It’s an effective, interesting two and a half minutes, and Julie screaming feels way better than the flatness of the prologue’s ending. The big difference is the depiction of the reactor core. It means little to me either way, but Omi preferred the way the book described it. I think I might have preferred it had it just been a weird talking head, and not a man being consumed into the stuff but, eh, it’s minor. One big difference is that the TV series corrects that second quibble. Rewatching this, it’s very clear to the audience what was happening to the ship Julie was on. The Anubis was involved in the nuking of the Canterbury, where you can hear battle chatter (“All hands, battle stations.”) and the thump of torpedo tubes. But you have no idea of the significance until your second watch. It’s entirely absent from the book, even though the book later establishes that the Anubis was present at the attack on the Canterbury. Coreyisms None... yet.
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Mar 18, 2020 06:57
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Chapter One: Holden “Meet Jim Holden, space trucker extraordinaire! Well, he’s not really extraordinary, more like… kinda okay, I guess?” It’s the perfect summary for this chapter. The first chapter proper of The Expanse is, essentially, a day in the life of its protagonist. All in all, I like it a lot. It puts us in the shoes of the guy we’ll be following for this book - and for the rest of them - and kind of sums up who he is: a well-meaning dork with an affinity for lost causes and tilting at windmills. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter 1 posted:A hundred and fifty years before, when the parochial disagreements between Earth and Mars had been on the verge of war, the Belt had been a far horizon of tremendous mineral wealth beyond viable economic reach, and the outer planets had been beyond even the most unrealistic corporate dream…
So, after the exposition, we meet Jim Holden. Like Julie Mao, he seems to be a space trucker on a freighter. We meet some other characters, too. Chief Engineer Naomi Nagata and her assistant, Amos Burton. Naomi is a Belter, Amos (and Holden) are from Earth. We get a nice little indication that these people are friends and have been working with each other for a while. There’s a problem, Holden knows Naomi can fix it, etc. The Belters are a big part of the series. As Omi points out: “While interacting with Naomi, Holden observes the unusually thin, spidery skeleton and body that growing in space gave her. This is a key racial feature of Belters, and it’s an interesting piece of background: of course growing up in low gravity with radiation and crap would mess with your biology. (We’ll also quickly grow sick of constant references to Belter physiology and body language, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.)” The constant references bit is true, and gives us our first ‘Coreyism’. If you think you know any others, point ‘em out! From there, Holden wanders his way down to the infirmary where he investigates the situation with an injured ice miner, Paj. We also meet the Canterbury’s medical officer, Shed Garvey. We get a nice little indication of the world of the Expanse, the working conditions of the Canterbury, and the hazards of ice mining. Shed is still using medical maggots (no fancy tricorders here!) because Paj’s arm was crushed and amputated. He’s going to get a cybernetic arm, but were his company’s medical plan better he could get some fancy inner planet medical gel to regrow the limb. Already, we’re seeing one of the recurring elements of the novels - the class divide and corporate abuses thereof. We also get introduced to the divide between the ‘Inners’ and the Belters - Paj would rather have the Belter-made prosthesis. “gently caress the Inners,” he says, before telling Holden he meant no offence. Holden, of course, being the ‘cool teacher’ kind of XO, says none was taken. Basically, Chapter One is a day in the life of Jim Holden. We even get to see his not-quite-on-the-regs relationship with the Canterbury’s navigator, Ade Tukunbo. He wants love and relationship but she just wants casual sex. Like I said, here’s our hint that Holden’s kind of an overly-sentimental dork. Ade points out that Holden’s more than comfortable on the Canterbury, even if he insists he isn’t. Mention is made that everyone on the Cant is something of a screw-up or wildly under-qualified - so, which one is Holden? Suddenly, the routine is interrupted - the Canterbury has picked up a distress call. Holden and the Captain of the Canterbury, McDowell, do a bit of a song and dance about it. Again, it feels comfortable. McDowell pretends he doesn’t want to answer the distress call that they must attend to under maritime (uh, space-maritime?) law, and lets Holden - his XO - be the bad guy who insists they have to stop. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter 1 posted:As the shipwide comm system clicked to life and McDowell began explaining the situation to the crew, Holden imagined he could hear a chorus of groans coming up through the decks. He went over to Rebecca. Anyway, I really like the ending. I like that, despite the meandering ‘setup’ of this chapter, it immediately links into the prologue and the mysteries therein. It’s definitely introducing us more to the world than the characters, though. But because of this, it really helps build and establish the twist that will take place in just a few chapters: that the Canterbury will soon be attacked and all of these characters - Paj, Ade, McDowell, Rebecca - will be dead. Omi’s final summary was similar: “By and large I like this chapter. The fast-paced Sports Night-style walkthrough of what Holden’s day-to-day looks like is interesting, and with the exception of the opening sprawl it’s generally devoid of the dense chunks of worldbuilding that we’ll see in later chapters. The Canterbury seems like a fun place to work, all the folks working seem okay, and Holden has a beautiful girlfriend (or at least wishes he did) and generally seems like a stand-up guy as far as dirtbag space truckers in dead-end jobs go. The ending callback to the Scopuli is a nice touch, and it’s a very effective fakeout for what the plot is going, as at this point I expected to spend the lion’s share of the book hanging out with the crew of the Canterbury.” The TV Adaptation It’s honestly fairly different. A key element is that depicting Belters as they’re described in the books would be prohibitive, so they made it more of a cultural than physiological thing. Another key change is that Holden’s relationships are different - he’s not nearly as chummy with Naomi and Amos as he is in this book. He also isn’t the XO. Honestly, it’s a good change. I’ll let Omi summarize it: “The TV crew come are much more convincing blue collar workers: they’re tough and grumpy, everyone looks and talks like they’re in a dead-end job on a crappy ship (which they totally are), and there are tensions and resentment that emerge as a natural result of living and working together. Holden’s less of a cool guy and more of a lazy shithead that constantly gets called out for being a lazy shithead- he tries multiple times to duck out of the promotion that would make him XO (and put him in line for captaincy), and when his final trump card is that it’d make it impossible to continue his relationship with Ade, she tells him point-blank “This is never going to be more than sex, I’ll miss it but you should take the loving promotion.” Having Holden be more of a lazy jerk who tries to shirk responsibility, of course, sets up his overall arc of becoming a leader. In the books, he just kind of is the leader from the get go. We’ll talk about why this might be later on. But Ade is interesting. Typically, the Expanse adaptation has done a wonderful job of matching actors to the roles. Perhaps the one exception to this is Ade. For the TV series, the Nigerian character was renamed to Ade Nygaard, and made blonde and white. This was a pretty big change, and a lot of people were concerned that it heralded that the Expanse series would make a habit of whitewashing or erasing characters of color. When the Expanse series didn’t, and in fact stayed quite true to the books, the problem just became more confusing. Why did they whitewash only this extremely minor character? Shortly after the series was picked up by Amazon, the Corey guys mentioned (I think via Twitter or Reddit) that the reason was because the powers-that-be were concerned that if Ade was black and Holden’s later relationship with Naomi was also black, then they didn’t want people to think he had a fetish for black women. Which is, uh… It’s a thing. Another change is the decision to stop and assist the Scopuli. Much like the change in Holden’s relationships with his coworkers, this adds a dimension of conflict that the first few chapters lack. McDowell wants to say ‘gently caress it’ and keep going and the crew agrees with him as being late to Ceres will mean they lose their shipment bonuses. Holden is basically the only guy who is down to do the right thing and when he fails to persuade anyone, he just hacks the ship’s computer and covertly logs the message, thereby forcing everyone to do something about it. I don’t want to get too much into a discussion of Holden yet, but that feels more true to his character: Caliban’s War will have a character sum Holden up as someone who uses his ideals to beat people with like a cudgel. Basically, he thinks he’s the main protagonist in his own story, and I think the TV series makes that a bit more apparent at how grating that can be than the novels do. It also establishes some early potential conflict between Holden and the other members of the crew. Given that the authors have mentioned that the adaptation is an opportunity to tell the story more effectively, it’s hard to not see it as a straight improvement. As a brief aside, I’ve mentioned to Omi in the past that while Show Holden as played by Steven Strait is wonderful, but I can’t help but think that he is the kind of person who Book Holden thinks he is - good-looking with a cool voice where, really, he’s just kind of average looking. There’s also a subplot about the current XO getting a case of space madness. Eh.  Steven Strait as James  Dominique Tipper as Naomi Nagata  Wes Chatham as Amos Burton  Paulo Costanzo as Shed Garvey  Kristen Hager as Ade Nygaard Coreyisms: The Belter Shrug And The Origin Thereof: “McDowell patted at the air with his wide, spidery hands. One of the many Belter gestures that had evolved to be visible when wearing an environment suit.” LW: 1 Big Meaty Amos: “He waved one meaty arm in their general direction.” LW: 1 Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 07:23 on Mar 18, 2020 |
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Mar 18, 2020 07:09
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FPyat posted:If I could suggest anything, it'd be using Reynolds' Pushing Ice as a benchmark, being the story I've found with the most overlap in starting on an ice-mining ship that encounters solar system-changing events. Interesting! I'll see if I can give it a read in the near future. Is that also where the term 'rockhopper' comes from? It shows up in The Expanse a bit.
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Mar 19, 2020 01:43
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Chapter Two: Miller A thing to note about the Expanse, and to keep in mind as we go through the books, is how they were written. Abraham is writing based on Franck’s worldbuilding notes, but they split the viewpoint characters. In Leviathan Wakes, Abraham wrote Miller and Franck wrote Holden. While they pass the chapter back and forth to edit them, and claim they end up without any fingerprints, there’s still little tells, I think. For example, Franck’s chapters tend to get more heavily into the worldbuilding exposition, whereas Abraham’s chapters are a little more likely to feel like stuff is happening. It’s pretty apparent even in the first pair of chapters. In Chapter 2, we meet Josephus ‘Joe’ Miller. While Holden is the first protagonist we meet, I think it’s fair to say that Leviathan Wakes is more Miller’s story than Holden’s. Miller is a space cop, and breaks the trend of the viewpoint characters being space truckers. He’s interviewing a witness at a murder scene, and it’s immediately apparent that the story is moving along. Miller interviews the witness, a Belter woman. Miller is also a Belter, as it turns out. A big difference in this chapter is the immediate difference between how Jim views the differences between people and the rest of the system does. With Holden, it feels like an idle curiosity. Again, he’s the cool XO - Jim's too cool for it. But the rest of the system? Those divisions are keen ones. One such indication is the language which the woman is speaking: Belter creole. While Miller follows it just fine, Havelock and the reader might be mystified. But it leads to a really good piece of character interaction that introduces us to Miller and his Earther partner, Havelock: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter 2 posted:“So,” Havelock said as he punched in their destination code, “did you have fun?” Then we get the exposition. Miller works on Ceres, a space station mined out of the asteroid of the same name. Ceres spins to generate gravity, takes in thousands of ships a day, and has a population in the millions. Omi puts it as “the Tortuga to the Belt’s Caribbean.” There’s a bunch about the Belt economy, which is fairly typical sci-fi - the asteroid belt does minerals and mining and so on, Ganymede and some other locations do food, Earth and Mars do specialty organic products. All in all, heaps of valuable stuff passes through Ceres, which brings with it crime, which means Miller and Havelock have no shortage of work. Basically, Miller explains space crime stuff to Havelock. Havelock, for his part, seems to exist mainly to facilitate this dialogue for the benefit of the reader. Something’s bothering Miller - the victim was a known member of the Golden Bough, a crime gang, but the Bough hasn’t done anything in reprisal. It bothers Miller who, in the words of Omi, “likes his gangs like his environmental systems, self-contained in a stable loop.” Miller and Havelock head back to their precinct house. Now, a key aspect of Ceres is that it is run by Star Helix Security. Miller and Havelock are private security, but private security that’re basically overseeing an extremely important trade port. Captain Shaddid, Miller’s boss, asks him to come up to her office. They talk. There’s brief mention made of the OPA, who are basically the Belt’s version of the IRA (and directly addressed as such in the text.) They resent the influence of Earth and Mars and are looking to establish themselves as a major player in the Solar system. Like Miller, Shaddid is a Belter. Miller reflects that while Shaddid didn’t like Havelock due to his Earther origins, the OPA would throw him out an airlock. And the OPA would come after Miller, too. Star Helix is an Earther-owned outfit and everyone who works for them could be considered traitors to the Belt. Shaddid and Miller briefly - very briefly - discuss the murder. She then tells him to drop it and gives him a new job under strange circumstances. A shareholder is asking for a favor. A daughter of the Mao family has gone missing. Omi: “In short, a mega-ultra super-rich family’s beloved daughter is a bit of a black sheep, and decided to slum it in the Belt. She fell in with an OPA front and her family is suddenly very interested in seeing to her safety. To that end they’re bribing the space cops to kidnap her, stuff her into an envelope, and mail her back to them on Luna. The daughter’s name, of course, is Julie Mao.” (Technically, it's not a bribe, but more that Papa Mao is throwing some weight around. Either way, it's clearly not 'on the level.') Both Omi and I think the chapter should have ended on this little note. From my perspective, it’s a nice little note of ‘oh, drat’ to quickly tie this back to the prologue and matches the ending ‘energy’ of Holden’s first chapter. Instead, it just kind of peters on for another six-hundred words to give us some more details about Miller’s life. He eats food, he drinks booze. He has memories of someone named Candace - a wife, a daughter? He people watches and reflects that whatever is going on with Ceres is more important than the ‘sideshow’ with Julie. All in all, it’s a better chapter than the first. It’s sharp, snappy, and gives us a good idea of what it’s like to live on Ceres. We meet Miller and Havelock and get a fairly good idea of who they are. The worldbuilding comes along in short bursts now and again. Omi pointed out that he wished the book had begun on Chapter 2, and I can see the reasoning. But I wonder how much work the first chapter really pays dividends for this chapter. Does the additional weight of the worldbuilding in Chapter 1 free up Miller’s stuff to be a bit more easygoing on that front? It also feels like there’s a bit more of a story here with potential for conflict. Miller’s Drunk Asteroid Adventure with the racism and crime and gangs and the Mao side job… It all feels more like a story than the Holden chapter, which is just… ‘Here’s Holden, here’s his friends, they’re going to the Scopuli.’ But it’s good. The prose also feels like it captures Miller’s tired mixture of resignation, cynicism and resentment more than it really captures any aspect of Holden’s perspective. Because of that, there are some lines I do quite like: Havelock and Miller sum up the Expanse: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter 2 posted:“Okay,” Havelock said. “What the hell is the ‘forgotten arm’?” Miller’s perspective shines through: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter 2 posted:Miller left him alone with the playback, trying to parse the fine points of class and station, origin and race. Lifetime’s work, that. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter 2 posted:People like Miller would only rate getting a bullet in the skull, and a nice plastic one at that. Nothing that might get shrapnel in the ductwork. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter 2 posted:The circle of life on Ceres was so small you could see the curve. He liked it that way. The TV Adaptation There isn’t much to mention. Miller’s stuff is quite different. The little exchange between him and Havelock is preserved as-is, though, so that’s nice. However, because the series is, well, visual, we get a better sense of how the OPA pervades Belter culture on Ceres - I don’t think the distinctive OPA ‘helmet seal’ neck tattoos are mentioned at all in the novels, for example. There’s also a bit where Miller beats up and threatens to space a local slumlord whose busted air filters killed some people. Of course, as Omi points out, the TV adaptation of Miller also took bribes to look the other way in the first place. Miller’s just not a very nice guy. We are also introduced to Octavia Muss, a Star Helix associate of Miller’s, who otherwise had a much expanded role than she ever did in the novel. We'll meet her in a few chapters time in the novel itself.  Thomas Jane as Josephus Miller  Jay Hernandez as Havelock  Lola Glaudini as Shaddid Coreyisms The Belter Shrug And The Origin Thereof LW: 1 Big Meaty Amos LW: 1
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Mar 19, 2020 04:58
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Omi had the thought that everything that goes down on Eros should've happened on Ceres. I feel like that'd be pretty neat but I'll let 'em talk about it. I wonder how much of Leviathan Wakes results from the story arising from, basically, a synopsis of a play-by-post online roleplaying game. I believe the Corey boys have said the story of LW basically diverts from the game about halfway through but that still basically shackles the novel to a lot of game-y aspects of it. Might get into this around Eros or when the crew meets Fred Johnson. I feel like the next we hear of Ceres in any real fashion is, like, Book 6.
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Mar 19, 2020 06:28
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General Battuta posted:One thing that interests me about Daniel Abraham as a writer is that he's both smart and consciously commercial - his first fantasy series was more high-falutin' and literary but when it did badly he made a choice to try to write to market. So whenever I'm irritated by a decision in these books I always wonder if Abraham's irritated too but just playing it the way he thinks will sell. No, it's pretty true. Nemesis Games is the novel that does a lot to make them feel like people. Amos gets a bit of development in Caliban's War, but most of it comes from The Churn novella. The characters in Leviathan Wakes are really quite thin. Holden is maybe the most developed and he's just, like, 'is a dumb idealist, loves coffee' whereas Naomi and Alex don't even get that. And Amos... Well, Amos is a completely different person. I believe the Corey boys have said the Expanse characters are based off people's characters from their roleplaying game and it certainly feels that way - they've even got niche protection! There's the leader, the pilot, the mechanic, and the funny muscle man. Which was his first series? The Long Price books? Chapter Three: Holden A recurring idea in the Expanse is that space kind of sucks. To us, space seems exciting and interesting. To the people who live in the time period the books are set in, space is alternatively boring, dangerous, and tedious. It’s something you endure. So, here’s Holden, enduring it. It took the Canterbury two days to decelerate so they could poke around the Scopuli, and the intense gravity has left him with all sorts of aches. Presently, Holden’s getting a team together on the Canterbury’s shuttle, the Knight, to investigate it. The team consists of three characters we met in Chapter 1: Naomi, Amos, and Shed. We are introduced to another character, Alex. Alex is a Martian who has a reputation for being loud and, as Naomi puts it, "ebullient." That stuck out to me. One thing I’ll point out as we go through Leviathan Wakes is that some of the characters, especially Amos, don’t feel like they line up well with their characterization later. Basically, I think the Corey guys were playing a bit more broadly with them in the first book, drawing from archetypes or pop culture. Especially Firefly. Anyway, ebullient. That’s a fancy word. As we’ll find out in a later book, maybe even Book 5 from my memory, Naomi is very well-educated. But I can't decide if it's an extremely subtle hint of her education or if it's just a word someone used because they liked it. Anyway, here's Alex: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter 3 posted:A few minutes later, Holden glanced over to see Alex Kamal’s thinning black hair appear, followed by his round cheerful face, a deep brown that years of shipboard life couldn’t pale. Martian-raised, Alex had a frame that was thicker than a Belter’s. He was slender compared to Holden, and even so, his flight suit stretched tight against his spreading waistline. Alex had flown in the Martian navy, but he’d clearly given up on the military-style fitness routine. So, there’s four people on the Knight. Based on Chapter 1, we basically know that Holden is the dorky but sentimental XO, Naomi is the hypercompetent, spunky engineer, Shed is the medic with a heart of gold, and Amos is… just kind of there. He’s Naomi’s big tough helper guy. Alex has ended up with this little group seemingly because he was the one rostered on for it today. Unlucky - or is he? The Scopuli is out in the middle of nowhere. Strangely, it’s resting against the side of an asteroid. The asteroid - CA-2216862 - isn’t in the Belt. It isn’t really anywhere. Even desolate feels too lived-in for the location it’s in. Holden deduces that the Scopuli couldn’t and wouldn’t have ended up there by accident. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter 3 posted:Holden looked at the pictures they were getting from the Knight’s scopes, as well as the image the Knight created by bouncing a laser off the Scopuli’s hull. “What about that thing that looks like a hole in the side?” While I know Holden’s character from reading the series, and can understand why he makes the decision retroactively, I feel like the novel doesn’t really tell me why he makes the decision now. Is he concerned about possible survivors? Is it the fact that it’s a bit of a mystery? Are they going to loot it for salvage? Is he just curious? We don’t really get much idea. I assume it’s more the latter aspects because Holden later says he doesn’t expect there to be survivors. Holden takes Naomi, Amos, and Shed with him to the Scopuli. Alex remains behind, keeping the Knight warmed up in case it’s a trap. A nice little touch is the Expanse noting that Alex could turn the Knight about and use its engine as a weapon to melt any bad guys that might be hiding on the other side of the asteroid. In just about any sci-fi universe, any given propulsion system is just a weapon that you've pointed away from the bad guys. Turns out, someone blew their way into Scopuli. Despite, again, remembering the words of his Captain, Holden elects to continue his way inside. Inside the ship, nothing seems to add up. It’s like the crew of the Scopuli stopped and let someone blow a hole in their side with a breaching charge. Inside, the ship is quiet and empty. All the atmosphere has been vented. There’s no creepy stuff in Engineering. They make their way to Ops. Holden gets Amos extracting the ship’s data core, then begins poking around himself. He finds the distress beacon, but it had never been activated. Something else had called them, and Holden finds out what it is - a third-party transmitter. Omi sums up how the chapter ends: “Holden posits that the transmitter is a trap, and is rigged to send a second signal when someone tampered with it. Before anyone can say “Oh poo poo!”, the captain radios them from the Canterbury and informs them that they have a problem. Oh poo poo!”” Chapter 3 is okay, all in all. Not much to talk about. As Omi points out, it’s just a bridge between the interesting stuff in Chapter 1 (space truckers find a mystery ship) and the interesting stuff that will transpire in Chapter 5. Really, there’s only so much you can do with a chapter that can be summed up as ‘the heroes, who all get along with each other, investigate a location where they are alone and there are no threats.’ Omi says: “If you cut out all the fat this chapter is ‘Holden and some crewmates visit a freighter, just as they realize that none of this situation makes sense they get alarming news from the Canterbury.’” TV Adaptation Again, not much to say. It works a lot better in the show because the visual nature makes the tension of investigating a ghost ship more apparent. There’s tense moments where they clear corridors and get spooked by empty spacesuits and so on. Similarly, we see the Canterbury pull the turn-and-burn maneuver that leaves Holden feeling so sore. Otherwise, it’s basically as-is. A few little changes stress the tension between the members of the crew as they head to the Scopuli. Alex flat out says he doesn’t want to be there. Holden confesses to Naomi that he logged the distress call, feeling guilty over it because everyone on the Canterbury thinks it was Ada. Naomi points out, tersely, that he might want to keep that to himself. Another element of the adaptation that I think works better is that we have no idea that Julie isn’t on the Scopuli. All we’ve seen the TV’s version of the prologue is her, on a ship where weird stuff has happened, wearing a Scopuli jumpsuit. It just works better.  Cas Anvar as Alex Kamal The Belter Shrug And The Origin Thereof LW: 1.5 (+.5 retroactively due to it being the first thing we learn about Naomi) Big Meaty Amos LW: 1
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Mar 20, 2020 02:05
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Chapter 4: Miller Back to Miller. He’s eating dinner when he gets a call from a barman named Hasini. Turns out, Havelock is in a bit of trouble - he’s getting drunk and is looking for a fight. Miller sighs, gets dressed, and arms up. He also gives us one of the more prominent Coreyisms - the phrase that twigged me to them, in fact - when... Leviathan Wakes, Chapter 4 posted:Miller looked at his half-eaten meal, sighed, and shoved the remains into the recycling bin. Anyway, it’s a nice start to the chapter. We know who Miller is and what he’s like, just as we know what Havelock is like and the pressures he is under. But we then get a little sequence where Miller decides whether he should take a cart or a tram, walks to the station, checks the status, talks with a man about his daughter, and reflects on the day-night cycle of Ceres Station. It’s not horrible, but it doesn’t feel like it’s super necessary. But I do like this exchange between Miller and the man: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter 4 posted:“How old?” he asked. Before long, Miller reaches the Blue Frog, the bar where Havelock is. Hasini nods Miller over in the direction of his partner. There’s an interesting bit of descriptive text that Omi picked up on. “There’s a bit of descriptive text that I missed the first time around, when we first get a look at The Blue Frog- ‘The Blue Frog was crowded, the barn-heat of bodies adding to the fake-Mumbai temperature and artificial air pollution.’ So, two thoughts here: one is that it’s kind of weird for Miller to use ‘fake-Mumbai’ as a description, since he’s a Belter. Is the implication that Earth culture is well-known enough that even hardcore career Belters are casually familiar with it? If so, that’s interesting. But alongside the line about ‘artificial air pollution’, is the implication supposed to be that the Blue Frog’s is explicitly made out to resemble the Mumbai slums for aesthetic purposes? Because that’s genuinely fascinating, it’s a piece of world-building and Belter culture that I’d genuinely like to hear more about. But as-is the story doesn’t really give me the tools to take it apart, so it just comes off as kinda weird.” Miller makes his way over to Havelock. Both Omi and I picked out Miller’s pre-planned hierarchy of people to risk confrontations with as a nice little indication of his character. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter 4 posted:Miller was careful not to bump into anyone if he could help it. When he had to choose, he’d run into Belters before inner planet types, women before men. His face was a constant mild apology. As mentioned, the pair talk. Miller tells Havelock that, no matter how many Earthers he decided to beat up, it’s not suddenly going to make Captain Shaddid like him. Havelock’s upset because he’s a good cop, he’s worked homicide - hell, he broke up a ring that was smuggling kids. He’s worked eight years in orbital stations and on Mars. So, why is everyone such a dick to him? Miller points out that it’s because whenever people see him, they just see Earth. And having worked on Mars doesn’t help much either - to the hardcore Belters, Mars and Earth are the same thing. Havelock points out, bitterly, that a Martian will kick your rear end if you said that. Maybe it’s happened to him. As Havelock and Miller wander and talk about these issues, there’s a tense moment where they pass by four Belters - one of them openly wearing OPA iconography. But nothing happens. Phew. The pair end up at a different nightspot, the Distinguished Hyacinth Lounge. It’s a cop bar, which means it is packed full of Star Helix people but also other corporate forces. Protogen among them. They talk, briefly, about the Mao case. Havelock thinks it’s bullshit to kidnap an adult for their parents. Miller says it is just his job - a bullshit one, at that. The night goes on. Havelock’s attitude improves. Then, Miller’s terminal chimes and - ominously - every other terminal in the bar chimes. All the space cops pull out their space phones, all of them find themselves looking at Captain Shaddid. Shaddid looks pissed - someone woke her up. Emergency orders, says Shaddid. An unencrypted message has come in from Saturn, and it’s going to hit the civilian net in about five minutes. The message plays: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter 4 posted:A moment later a man’s face and shoulders appeared. He was in an orange vacuum suit with the helmet off. An Earther, maybe in his early thirties. Pale skin, blue eyes, dark short-cropped hair. Even before the man opened his mouth, Miller saw the signs of shock and rage in his eyes and the way he held his head forward. But what are those circumstances? Well, we’ll see that next chapter… TV Adaptation Well, this whole chapter is basically expunged from the TV series. Instead, around about this time, Miller and Havelock are investigating an issue with the water supply on Ceres. It’s an introduction, really, for the character of Diogo. There’s also a bit where Havelock takes lessons from the Belter lady they were interviewing in the first episode who, in the series, is named Gia. Which leads into a brief discussion. So, Belters. As mentioned, it was pretty prohibitive to do all the Belters are they’re supposed to be in the books - very tall, lanky, big heads. While the TV series does try to use tall actors and actresses and use CGI or camera angles to make them look taller and so on, they also came up with the idea that rich Belters can afford a cocktail of drugs that alleviate the symptoms of, well, Belterness. I remember fans didn’t like this much, thought it was a cop out and not something mentioned in the books. But then, in this chapter… Leviathan Wakes, Chapter 4 posted:Her skin had the pink flush of Belter babies, which came with the pharmaceutical cocktail that assured that their muscles and bones would grow strong. Coreyisms The Belter Shrug And The Origin Thereof LW: 1.5 Big Meaty Amos LW: 1 Into the Recycler LW: 1
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Mar 21, 2020 04:30
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Chapter Five: Holden Okay, so, straight off the bat - I have a problem with this chapter and it’s the use of disjointed time sequencing. quote:Ten minutes at two g, and Holden’s head was already starting to ache. But McDowell had called them home at all haste. The Canterbury was warming up its massive drive. Holden didn’t want to miss his ride. For the first little bit of the chapter, this is how it’s done. We flash between Holden’s crew racing back toward the Canterbury and the conversation Holden had with the Captain of the Cant immediately prior. I don’t really think it adds anything to the chapter. It reminds me of a similar part in Tiamat’s Wrath where it jumps between Naomi and events that were happening at a different time. It might be a personal thing but, to me, flashbacks like this aren’t a very effective writing tool and they take me out of the story more than they immerse me into it. I figure that most stories would be improved if you scrapped any usage of DTS and just arranged the story in a more conventional order. For example, going from ‘Holden, we have a problem’ to the conversation where there’s this weird, tense discussion as Holden tries to figure out what’s going on and McDowell and the crew don’t have much an idea, just that something is very wrong, which leads to the events that take place here. I don’t know, I just feel like it’d be stronger than jumping us around the timeline. In particular, an example of how the approach they’ve taken weakens the chapter, I think, is this paragraph: quote:Holden tongued a painkiller tab from his suit’s helmet and reran Becca’s sensor feed for the fifth time. The spot in space lay about two hundred thousand kilometers from the Canterbury. As the Cant had scanned it, the readout showed a fluctuation, the gray-black false color gradually developing a warm border. It was a small temperature climb, less than two degrees. Holden was amazed Becca had even spotted it. He reminded himself to give her a glowing review the next time she was up for promotion. Especially when we then get another italicised flashback about Becca spotting it and reporting it anyway. Why not just arrange the events in order and accelerate the timeframe? Funnily enough, that’s exactly how the TV episode portrays this event - but more on that later. Omi has similar thoughts on it: “The back-and-forth between Holden’s away team and the Canterbury feels a bit weird- it feels genuinely rushed and urgent, which I think is the right tone for this scene, but seeing Holden find something out and then reading him communicate those same findings to the Canterbury is weirdly redundant.” So, the Knight is racing back to the Canterbury while the crew talks about what they found - the ship is a small frigate and it was coated in some kind of stealth tech. And if it was hiding until just now, Holden says, then it doesn’t have good intentions. Which is confirmed by the mystery ship firing a spread of torpedoes at the Canterbury. Despite what I’ve said, what I do like about this chapter is how it demonstrates how time and travel speed and all of that matters in the ‘hard’ sci-fi of The Expanse’s world. The Knight is one hour out from the Canterbury. The torpedoes fired by the mystery ship will strike the ice hauler in eight minutes. There’s nothing that Holden can do to change things. The only thing he can do is sit there and watch and pray. The crew of the Knight explode into talking about various things. There’s this nice bit where Holden tells them all to shut up and starts giving orders. To Amos, he says: “Amos, keep cussing, but turn your mic off.” It’s a nice light bit to break up the tension. From here, the chapter plays almost like a fight scene. Push and pull, play and counterplay. Holden and co. want to jam the torpedoes, but the mystery ship has them painted with a targeting laser. They try to scramble the beam, but the laser is very powerful. They talk about using the Knight to draw the missiles away from the Cant, but Holden dismisses it - the torpedoes can’t be so easily fooled. Another little note about this chapter is it’s our first mention of Holden’s previous life in the navy. Holden and his crew finally have to admit that they won’t and can’t reach the Canterbury in time, nor do they have the tools to really alter what’s about to happen. All in all, they might be able to provide disaster relief or evacuate crew members. Those that survive or remain, anyway. Ade indicates that the crew might be abducted by pirates. As the Knight accelerates towards the Canterbury, all Holden can do, through a private comm link to Ade, is listen to the crew try to buy themselves more time. The Canterbury executes a hard turn-and-burn, which breaks the ship and disables the drive. McDowell orders Holden and his crew to hide behind the asteroid in the Knight and act as witnesses. That way, he reckons, whoever is about to board them will be less likely to throw the crew out the airlock. Holden orders Alex to hide the shuttle. quote:“Roger that, Boss,” Alex said. He added in a lower voice, “I’d kill for a couple of tubes or a nice keel-mounted rail gun right now.” Then, one minute to impact. Thirty seconds. Holden wishes to say something comforting to Ade, but can’t - the heavy pressure of gravity from the Knight’s burn won’t let him. Five, four, three, two, one. Ade gasps, and then there’s nothing but static. Holden shouts for a report and Alex gives him one: the Canterbury is nothing but a cloud of vapor. The attackers didn’t just torpedo the ice freighter, they wiped her out of the Solar system entirely. Holden can’t comprehend it - pirates don’t nuke ice haulers. The radiation from the nuclear detonates forces them to reboot the Knight’s systems. When they’re back up, we get our first real indication of one of Holden’s more aggravating traits: self-righteousness and low impulse control. Holden promptly gets on the comms to the stealth ship that just annihilated a freighter’s worth of people, seemingly for the thrill of it, and makes threats: quote:“This message is to whoever ordered the destruction of the Canterbury, the civilian ice freighter that you just blew into gas. You don’t get to just fly away, you murderous son of a bitch. I don’t care what your reasons are, but you just killed fifty friends of mine. You need to know who they were. I am sending to you the name and photograph of everyone who just died in that ship. Take a good look at what you did. Think about that while I work on finding out who you are.” In response, the stealth ship paints them with its targeting laser, but then saunters away. Holden orders the crew to follow the stealth ship. Naomi, once the others are gone, points out that it’s an insanely stupid idea. If Holden’s the Captain now, then she’s the XO and it’s her job to tell him when he’s being an idiot. Which he is, and all he should do now is get his four crew members to safety. Then, later, he can go on his idiot crusade. Okay, Holden says, and then lies about McDowell giving him one last order. Alex shows up and has a bit of a chat with Holden. Pirates don’t have tech like that, and they don’t have military-grade torpedoes. But Alex claims he’s seen similar stealth technologies in the navy… “Are you saying the Martians did this?” Holden asks. Alex points out that if Mars had the tech, then so does Earth. But they have another piece of evidence, and Holden fishes it out, passes it to Alex. Inside the transmitter, on the bottom of the battery, is a serial number that matches to the Martian Congressional Republic Navy. So, Holden does what he does best - starts talking about things before he thinks them through. quote:“My name is James Holden,” he said, “and my ship, the Canterbury, was just destroyed by a warship with stealth technology and what appear to be parts stamped with Martian navy serial numbers. Data stream to follow.” “I really like that Chapter One worked really hard to set the scene and establish the Canterbury and her crew as a major element of the story- it makes it much more effective when they all eat poo poo and die horribly here, even though we honestly didn’t know that many crew members beyond Ade and the captain. “All in all this is a decent chapter- it gets off to a bit of a weirdly-paced start with all the radio chatter, but after that we get a neat spaceship fight and Holden being a dumbass, which is where he does some of his best work in this series.” It also gives us some real insight into Holden. He’s not just the cool guy, he’s prone to being a bit of a self-righteous idiot. He’s also got some experience in ‘the navy’ which we can assume is Earth, given that he’s not from Mars or the Belt. But what’s a naval officer doing on the Canterbury? TV Adaptation Unsurprisingly, the destruction of the Canterbury plays out pretty differently to the book. There’s no disjointed time sequencing, for one. In the episode, the mystery ship fires nukes at the Knight, which Holden and crew attempt to - similar to the novel - lead on a ride into the asteroid. It doesn’t work and, horribly, they realise the nukes were never aimed at them, but the Canterbury. There’s an interesting little bit where the Captain prepares to eject the ice as a shield against the nukes, but then doesn’t. I assume it’s because he still thinks they’re pirates and destroying the cargo would just have them destroy the ship. So, while I think the episode handles it better, there’s one thing that really hangs over it as what I can only assume is a producer-mandated thing to include. Immediately prior to the nukes hitting the Canterbury, Ada says “Jim, there’s something you should know-” Boom. It’s just cliche. And it never really ever comes up again. I think, in the series, Holden has a nightmare about it and that’s about it. Omi says: “In the book she doesn’t give a poo poo, and he spends her last moments alternately wanting to say something romantic and hoping she does, while she fails to give a crap and spends that time focused on her job and trying to dodge an incoming torpedo she knows they won’t get away from. I think the book’s version tells us more interesting things about the characters: Holden’s a weird sappy romantic who’s slow on the uptake when it comes to interpersonal stuff, and Ade kinda doesn’t give a crap.” Despite that, it handles Holden’s broadcast better, with the crew hauling him away from the camera instead of just, like, letting him sit there and say something that could set the world on fire. Omi says: “I like how the chain of command immediately breaks down on the show, and Naomi essentially strips him of command before he can get them all killed. I’ve always thought of Holden as the cute puppy who won’t stop making GBS threads on your floor. He’s part of your family so you love and take care of him, but you also kinda hate him and get really paranoid when he looks at expensive upholstery. The crew probably should’ve been way, way angrier at him, and their reaction to his attempts to trail the apparent space pirates in a tiny shuttle feels weirdly muted and amiable.” We’ve also talked in the past, however briefly, at how interesting it could be if Naomi was the one who became CO with Holden as her moralistic, pain-in-the-rear end XO.
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Mar 22, 2020 03:18
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FPyat posted:There's one thing that bothered me at various points, the number of testicle mentions. Omi and I are a few chapters ahead and we just hit the mother of all testicle (and prostate!) mentions.
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Mar 22, 2020 06:30
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Nail Rat posted:Enjoying this so far. One point regarding why Julie was able to hide in a locker - one of the attackers shoved her there and told her to shut up after she'd fought back against them. Then they just kind of forgot about her apparently. That's true. I was wondering whether I should've specified that it was explained later, but my initial thought - even reading it again - was just 'Wait, the dudes taking the ship didn't check the lockers?' Sort of specifying earlier that it's 'Julie is a prisoner in the locker/closet' and not so much 'Julie is hiding in the locker/closet.'
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Mar 22, 2020 09:24
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Chapter Six – Miller Chapter Six opens with Miller and Havelock riding one of the carts through a Ceres tunnel. Havelock is having a bit of an issue comprehending why Star Helix is going to battle stations over the destruction of ‘a water hauler millions of klicks from here.’ After all, they’ve got enough water to last for months as it is. We get a nice little reminder of the difference between Earthers and Belters. Remember, Miller is a Belter. Miller points out that, okay, the water might be dirty on Earth - but it falls out of the sky. The air might be filthy, but it’s not an airlock failure away from suffocating you. Ceres depends on ships like the Canterbury. Then, he tells a story: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter 6 posted:“When I was homicide,” Miller said, “there was this guy. Property management specialist working a contract out of Luna. Someone burned half his skin off and dropped him out an airlock. Turned out he was responsible for maintenance on sixty holes up on level thirty. Lousy neighborhood. He’d been cutting corners. Hadn’t replaced the air filters in three months. There was mold growing in three of the units. And you know what we found after that?” Show watchers might twig to something here, but we’ll touch on that at the end of the update. Basically, Miller points out that the environmental systems are the most important thing to Belters. Havelock argues that Miller is saying that Belters have ‘selective effected’ their way into not being human, claiming it’s racist propaganda bullshit. It’s a little weird because Havelock’s an Earther. But there’s a funny little line: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter 6 posted:“I’m not saying that,” Miller said, suspecting that it was exactly what he was saying. Miller says it’s not the ones who wait for the whole story that’re going to be the problem. The pair reach the Star Helix station house. Shaddid gives a briefing. Basically, everything is hosed - or about to be hosed. Holden’s transmission is all over Ceres. All they can do is maintain station integrity and put down any riots. All inner system ships have been given clearance to leave. The Ceres government offices have sealed themselves behind blast doors and turned onto their own environmental systems. So, it’s looking pretty bad. Probably because, as Shaddid points out, there’s eighty known OPA agents on the station. The station house, Miller figures, has about a hundred and fifty cops. Miller gets given an order to take a team of officers down to the port and cover a bunch of sectors. But Havelock’s not coming with him. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter 6 posted:Miller was torn between sympathy for the man and impatience. It was hard being on the team but not on the team. On the other hand, what the hell had he expected, taking a contract in the Belt? The lockers are empty. Miller continues down the line, but every locker he opens is the same: empty. What’s plan B, Miller asks Shaddid. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter 6 posted:“Check the SWAT lockers. There should be enough in there to outfit two people in each squad.” Like a lot of Miller chapters, I feel like you could end it here and it'd be an effective moment to end on. But the chapter keeps going. It's not bad per se, but it's weird to hit a beat that feels like it's ending a chapter and then the chapter keeps going. Miller takes his squad down to the docks. They find a mob of civilians blocking one of the tunnels, preventing anyone from getting through, while a “huge shirtless man” beats someone to death. Miller’s team approaching, scoping the crowd out. The huge murderer has an OPA tattoo on his shoulder. All in all, it’s a pretty okay little sequence, but I think Omi’s thoughts match mine mostly: “The riot feels like it escalated really quickly. Like, when Miller and company suited up I was picturing that they were gonna disperse crowds before they could get amped up, so seeing the squad walk up to a dude casually beating someone to death while the mob cheers felt like a significant increase in stakes out of nowhere. “The big head-stompin’ OPA murder guy feels like a cartoon, and I can’t tell if it’s intentional. Like, is he supposed to be a drug- and anger-fueled rage machine, or an ordinary guy pushed too far? Because he comes off like the former, but I think seeing Miller talk with an ordinary working joe having a bad day would’ve been a better vehicle to showcase the OPA and Belter stuff.” After a bit of back and forth, Miller has his unit blow out OPA Murder Guy’s kneecaps. Omi points out that the violence is pretty clinical, and I’d say that reflects Miller’s cynicism and general ‘who gives a poo poo?’ attitude. With the mob, Miller points out that Mars and the inners want the Belters to be having riots and killing people because it turns everyone against each other. Miller says: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter 6 posted:Every one of you I have to arrest or cripple or kill, that’s one less we have when the day comes. And it’s coming. But it’s not now. You understand?” TV Adaptation So, as mentioned, there’s an interesting change. The story Miller talks about with Havelock? As mentioned earlier in the thread, we see Miller be the one to do it. Having watched the series, it makes the exchange a little bit more interesting. Is Miller editing himself out of the story he’s telling Havelock in the novel, or was it really someone else? Another change to the Ceres riots is that Havelock is attacked by who I figure is the TV version of ‘Shirtless’ (OPA Murder Guy) and impaled with a big spike. Beyond this, there’s a whole lot of little changes to the adaptation (and a lot of big ones) and we'll sum them up closer to the end of Miller's time on Ceres.
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Mar 23, 2020 01:12
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Chapter Seven – Holden On the Knight, we get introduced to probably the one character trait of Holden’s we get in these books (beyond being an idealistic idiot) - he likes coffee. He’s focusing on thinking about how you drink coffee in gravity versus under zero-gee to keep his mind off thinking about Ade being turned into vapor. It's pretty understandable, given the circumstances. Omi says: “I like how the chapter opens by showcasing how everyone de-stresses after the broadcast- Alex gets quiet, Holden makes himself some coffee, Shed naps, Naomi gets herself some tea and immerses herself in data, and Amos stares at his gun.” But then... Leviathan Wakes, Chapter 7 posted:Alex ruined it by speaking. That’s pretty funny. Alex points out that they should be doing something. Naomi says they can’t just keep flying a big circle at half-gee forever. Holden says that he’s just waiting for their head office to call back and tell them what to do with the Knight, since it’s still their ship and all. Amos thinks they should fly back to Saturn then. Alex says it’s not a good idea, they’d be stuck in the Knight for three months. Naomi suggests Ceres, which is kinda funny because we, the audience, know that place is about to go up in riots and such. Holden says no, and says that “we” will sit here and drink coffee and wait for the bosses to help him make a decision. Omi points out something fun: “I like how Holden describes the collective crew’s actions as “We are sitting here and drinking coffee,” given that he’s the only one actually doing that. It reinforces that he’s kind of a self-centered oblivious dick without actually having him act like a dick.” Right after that, though, there’s a big block of exposition as Holden takes drugs and goes for a nap. It’s very much the author telling us that, like, Holden is sad and grief-stricken and is barely holding it together and wants to know why someone who nuke an ice hauler. But I feel like we get that just from how the chapter opens. So, Naomi wakes Holden up three hours later - the bosses have called back. Holden heads up to ops to listen to it. But it’s not the operations manager - it’s Wallace Fitz, a lawyer. To sum it up, Pur’n’Kleen isn’t happy. They’re not happy that Holden basically accused Mars of piracy and murder - so, they’re sending the MCRN Donnager to investigate matters. Fitz orders Holden to head to the Jupiter system and to cooperate fully with any officer from the Martian navy. Oh, and you won’t make any more broadcasts, Holden. If the crew of the Knight fail to follow these instructions, they’ll have their contracts terminated and be considered in illegal possession of a P’n’K shuttle, leading to criminal prosecution. There’s a nice little bit between Holden and Naomi then: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter 7 posted:Holden frowned at the monitor, then shook his head. So, the crew crams into the Knight’s galley. It’s just large enough for Amos’ bout of pacing to be two paces. The crew discuss things. Shed thinks Holden did the right thing. Amos thinks: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter 7 posted:“We’re getting hosed here, and not the nice way.” Omi and I think it’s a funny little bit, but we also think that Amos is essentially an entirely different character in the first few books - especially Leviathan Wakes - and I’d argue that this is why so many people have initial problems with The Churn. Perhaps we’ll have a detailed talk about this but, essentially, Amos feels like a Jayne from Firefly ‘expy.’ Amos’ attitude here and how he puts things just doesn’t feel like it aligns with what we learn about him later. It’s not that strange, though. For a lot of the early Expanse novels, the characters are pretty thin. Holden is the idealistic leader, Naomi is the more pragmatic second, Alex is the pilot, Amos is the funny murder guy who swears a lot. It takes about Book 5 until they start getting a bit of detail and nuance. Something the TV series has a marked improvement on is that a lot of the stuff they came up with later is brought forwards, especially for Naomi, Alex and Amos. Anyway. Holden says that they have two options: go along with this and hope the Martians are merciful, or run to the Belt and hide. Naomi, Shed and Amos vote for Belt. Alex says that the Donnager is the flagship of Mars’ Jovian fleet, that they can’t run away from it, they can’t hide from it, and it could reach out and torpedo them from half the Solar system away. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter 7 posted:“Oh, gently caress that, sir,” Amos said, standing up. “These Martian needle dicks blew up the Cant! I say run. At least make it hard for them.” So, Holden third-ways himself a solution - disobey the spirit of the order. Omi says: “Holden trying to solve the problems caused by his making a stupid broadcast by making another stupid broadcast is pretty great.” Holden broadcasts: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter 7 posted:“This is James Holden, formerly of the Canterbury, now on the shuttle Knight. We are cooperating with an investigation into who destroyed the Canterbury and, as part of that cooperation, are agreeing to be taken aboard your ship, the MCRN Donnager. We hope that this cooperation means that we will not be held prisoner or harmed. Any such action would only serve to reinforce the idea that the Canterbury was destroyed by a Martian vessel. James Holden out.” Later, Captain Theresa Yao of the Donnager contacts them. She tells them to stop making general broadcasts, and that her navigator will provide them with their next course. The Donnager will reach them in thirteen days. And six other objects, originating from the belt, will reach them in eleven. Six small ships, flying dark. Flying under heavy burn. “Well,” Holden wonders. “Who the hell are you?” I’ll let Omi sum it up: “Both six and seven feel like transitional chapters to me. Like, critical things happen in both, and they both give us a lot of key information that’s integral to later stuff, but they’re also oddly sedate and slow-paced relative to the chaos which happened before and is about to happen again.” TV Adaptation There’re a bunch of differences between this chapter and the show. For one, the Knight only holds about four hours of oxygen, and has been battered by debris from the destruction of the Cant. There’s a bit when Holden and Amos go outside to fix the antenna and Amos basically says he’d happily murder Holden for everything that’s happened, but Naomi wouldn’t like it much if he did. Shed and Alex almost die from lack of oxygen. Holden only makes the one transmission, basically combining both of them, because the Donnager is already en route. A significant change is that the crew doesn't just let Holden blab about whatever to the whole Solar system, and actually drag him away from the console and tell him he's being an idiot. Like a lot of things, it just streamlines it a bit better than the novel. But both the Miller and Holden stories are really beginning to diverge to the extent that it becomes difficult to sum up differences. Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 07:14 on Mar 24, 2020 |
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Mar 24, 2020 06:54
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GreyjoyBastard posted:also the show's a bit bad about hard science space travel, they complain that they can only get x distance to y destination and then will be stuck in place transmitting which is... not how that works Cool! Feel free to post your thoughts as we go. A lot of science/tech/space stuff tends to go right over my head. Chapter Eight – Miller Something about Leviathan Wakes to note when compared to later novels, is that it has a strict A-B structure. Holden, Miller, Holden, Miller. Later books introduce more viewpoint characters but also break up the consistent pattern. Both Omi and I assume this was to make the initial collaboration between Abraham and Franck - remember, Franck is writing Holden’s chapters and Abraham is writing Miller’s - a little bit easier. Later books tend to get a bit more, shall we say, adventurous. Babylon's Ashes, for example, has a fairly ludicrous number of viewpoints and some of them only show up for a single chapter. As far as the form goes, it tends to be okay. The constant cliffhangers can be a bit obnoxious but they keep you wanting to read on while giving each chapter a sense of dramatic energy. It also helps that, while the stories don’t really link up until the halfway point, we can see how they’re affecting each other - Miller sees Holden’s transmission, we see Holden make it, we go back to Miller’s reaction, etc. However, I think a problem Leviathan Wakes has is actually that A-B structure, and the overall plan they had for the then-trilogy. Holden was to be the consistent point of view for the first three books, so, they have to include him in the first. But we’ve seen already in these first half a dozen or so chapters that Leviathan Wakes ultimately feels like Miller’s story - Holden’s just kind of there to shoulder a lot of the exposition and, eventually, shuttle him around to finish his story. I feel like you could edit Leviathan Wakes down to just being Miller’s side of things and that maybe the story would actually feel and flow better. Omi had an issue with the structure that’s as follows: "Chapter Eight might be the first time that this structure noticeably irritated me. Chapter Seven’s ending is basically the lead-in to a new (potential) action setpiece: mysterious ships are hauling rear end for the shuttle, oh no! Ending on a cliffhanger is kind of cheap, doubly so when the actual cliffhanger isn’t picked up and it transitions into another character’s story instead of following up on things. At the start of Chapter Eight I don’t want to be watching Miller and Havelock chat, I wanna be in the shuttle with Holden learning who the heck is chasing them!" So, yeah, we open on Miller and Havelock watching an OPA propaganda video and kind of snarking about it. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Eight posted:“Don’t be afraid of them. Their only power is your fear.” Omi and I both think the chapter should’ve started instead with this paragraph: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Eight posted:A week had passed since James Holden, self-appointed martyr, had proudly announced that he and his crew were going to talk to someone from the Martian navy instead of just slinging poo poo and implications. There’s a nice little bit where Miller talks about post-riot Ceres like family getting bad news from the police. It sets the scene, it’s nice. Havelock’s having a rough time since the riots and he’s thinking of transferring over to the Protogen facilities on Ganymede. Miller says it’s a good move. Omi has some thoughts on Miller: "Miller wanting to show off that he’s a Belter first, earth security guy second, is an interesting beat. I think that book Miller is much more openly… not really racist, but nationalistic. He openly wonders if he’d side with the OPA or Star Helix in the case of an insurrection, and Belter pride feels like more than an empty slogan. The Miller we see in the TV show is a much more openly company man, jaded and often angry at young OPA members for acting like common criminals instead of being a cool, upstanding Belter guy like him. Then again, most of Miller’s quasi-nationalistic Belter stuff is informed through his internal narration, which we don’t have access to in the show." Speaking of Miller, now that the riots have calmed down, he’s going to head over to investigate Julie Mao’s place. She lives in what seems like a standard issue Ceres domicile - so small that calling it cramped would be implying a luxury it doesn’t have. Miller pokes around. We find out that Julie’s a pretty good fighter, that she has an OPA armband, and that she’s a fairly efficient lady in general. There’s a nice bit that Omi points out: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Eight posted:The refrigerator had two takeaway boxes filled with spoiled food and a bottle of local beer. Along those lines, the bit where Miller reflects to himself that it’s legal for him to basically go through her life as a voyeur. It’s interesting because, on one hand, it reflects that sense of bias we get from Miller about his capabilities and moral centre - look, he understands what he’s doing is weird and creepy, that kind of thing. But it’s also a little sign of how Miller is already growing obsessed with Julie. A final email from Julie’s mother to her claims that she has “solid information” that the Belt is going to become very unsafe imminently and that Julie should “FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY COME HOME NOW.” And that it had been sent two weeks before the Canterbury was destroyed. Did Julie's parents know this was coming? All in all, it’s an okay chapter with a simple purpose. Omi sums it up well: "it’s essentially character-building and exposition-via-voyeurism, as Miller goes through her apartment and correspondence to learn about Julie. Later on Miller’s interest in Julie will grow weirdly obsessive and deluded - there’s not much of that in this chapter, a lot of his search seems clinical and fairly professional, but his reaction to her curt response to her mother threatening to sell her beloved racing ship seems like it might be an early seed of his other-than-professional interest in her." TV Adaptation: Nothing to note, really. I’ll just mention a scene I like, which is new to the series. As mentioned earlier, Havelock gets impaled with a big spike and Miller goes to see him in hospital, where the prostitute from the first chapter (named Gia in the series) who is there making sure he’s okay. Miller basically gets horrible about it and says something to the effect of ‘Is this a get well present to yourself? Put it on my tab’ and him and Havelock have an argument where Miller angrily snaps that learning all the Belter language in the world isn’t going to help Havelock any when the OPA guys put the next spike in his skull. It’s good and, continuing the theme of the TV adaptation, adds a bit of interesting conflict to the early part of the story. In the series, Miller leans a bit more towards 'tired cynical rear end in a top hat' than 'tired sad old man.'
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Mar 25, 2020 07:05
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That's pretty much Miller's character, yeah, and what leads into the three bits of information we'll learn in a few chapters later. That Dawes and Shaddid think Miller is a joke of a cop, that Muss tells him he's one of the worst guys in the place if not the station joke, and Shaddid firing him for poor performance/lack of trust. Reading purely from the novel, we don't really get much information at all on Miller's thirty years with Star Helix. We don't really know whether he was a good cop who turned into a sorry drunk after his divorce, or if he was just always kind of bad and persisted there because he was a Ceres native, took orders well, didn't make waves, and Ceres was kind of a dump. It sticks out to me that I don't think we learn anything about Candace, his ex-wife, or their life together beyond the fact that she existed and they divorced a few years before the start of LW. There's a bit where Shaddid says he 'was a good cop, once' but it's very much an attempt to soothe what's left of his ego. However, the TV series changes Miller a bit (and it especially changes the stuff in that spoilered text) which I think makes Miller way more of a 'was good, lost his edge, rediscovers it on this last case' kind of character. Series Miller is a much more active investigator, too. I think the best deductive leap we see from Novel Miller is 'Wait, why would a gas tanker be travelling between two places that consume gas?' Be interesting to see what people think as we go through, though. edit: A thought. If Miller has been a (private space) cop for thirty years, and if we assume he was really good at his job until two years ago or so, shouldn't he be ranked higher than Detective? Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 14:09 on Mar 25, 2020 |
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Mar 25, 2020 13:57
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Omi no Kami posted:I've always been really unsure on how much of Miller's thing was "Used to be a good cop," and how much was "Used to be okay, now is trash, always thought he was great." The latter feels like it would fit in better with the setting, but it might be a little too depressing and crummy even for Miller. Maybe, yeah. I figured Miller could just really enjoy being a Detective, but it doesn't seem like he does, really. Of course, he's well in the trench of his lowest point when we meet him, but I don't think we ever get a moment where we see any trace of Miller's accomplishments. No medals, no commendations, no one recognizing him in Ceres, etc. So, it kinda feels like he's just coasted for thirty years or so. Chapter Nine – Holden Similar to Chapter Eight, the A-B format hurts this chapter slightly. Chapter Seven had us ready for some action or tension, but the next chapter was a fairly low-key expository chapter. Chapter Nine continues that low-energy vibe. It also features a little bugbear of mine - the timelines are now out of sync. In Chapter Eight, we are told that it’s been a week since the riots. However, in this chapter, it’s mentioned that Holden and co. have only been on the Knight for three days. I feel like when you write stories with this type of structure, you really need to keep the timelines in sync. So, it’s been three days. The Knight wasn’t made for that (it has no showers, for example), and the crew is running low on amenities. Holden’s hair is greasy, Amos has shaved his off. The crew is eating protein bars and may run out of water before they reach the Donnager - it’ll be down to the wire, as Naomi puts it. Throughout this whole bit, Amos is saying things that feel like they’re in that aforementioned category of Amos Not Being Quite Established here. It’s hard to put into accurate words, but Amos feels a bit too irreverent and goofy for the person he becomes, even as of the very next book. Omi mentions it too, and reinforces something I mentioned in Chapter Seven: "Amos honestly feels like a different person in these early chapters. If I recall correctly (spoilers!) we’ll eventually learn that he’s a chemically castrated master crime guy with a soft spot for low-rent brothels and space hookers because they remind him of home. Beats like this make me feel like that backstory was written after the fact, and at this point in time Amos is supposed to be Jayne from Firefly: a Big, Beefy Crime Guy who likes food and sex." Anyway, it’s rough on the Knight. Shed is having a particularly rough time. Holden goes to see how he’s doing. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Nine posted:“Hey, buddy, mind if I come in?” Holden asked. Did I actually say “Hey, buddy”? Holden and Shed chat - or Holden tries to. Shed becomes increasingly disturbed by the fact that the Knight’s medical supplies are, to be blunt, poo poo. The Knight has a tube of a acidic solution to treat genital warts with, but nothing for pain relief. Shed points out that the Canterbury had run out of that solution and it would’ve helped three patients back on the ship. The Knight doesn’t even have any coagulant boosters - Shed wonders what they would’ve done had they found anyone on the Scopuli wreck that might’ve actually needed help. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Nine posted:“Everyone on the Cant is dead,” Holden said, making each word clear and strong and brutal. “Everyone is dead. No one needs the antibiotics. No one needs wart cream.” In essence, is this a ‘Wow, Holden’s a bit of a dick’ moment or a ‘Yeah, you tell that dumb medic what’s up, Holden’ moment? After a brief pep talk, Shed pulls himself together. It’s an okay character beat. Shed hasn’t really featured much and it helps give him some depth, establishing that he’s way out of his depth and so on. Omi points out though that the scene feels weird when you know that Shed is about to die and basically vanish from the series from that point on. I feel like it might be similar to the bait-and-switch with the Canterbury, Omi posits that it might be an editing thing where it felt too obvious that Shed was going to die or that maybe Shed’s death just didn’t land without it. Either way, it does feel a little strange. Naomi calls Holden back up to ops. Turns out someone is sending a tightbeam message to the Knight. It’s from somewhere in the Belt, but it’s not any of the big stations. In fact, it seems to be coming from a construction site near Tycho Station (which has, as an aside, been mentioned maybe three times before this point.) Here is where things get a bit strange. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Nine posted:“Hello, James Holden. My name is Fred Johnson.” In the form of over seven hundred words of exposition. I like a bit of statistics in things like this. It’s fun to think about. The chapter is about 3000 words long. So, about a quarter of this chapter is devoted to spelling out who this new guy Fred Johnson is. I’ll also point out that Holden’s little scene with Shed is less words than that. This means you could argue that this bit with Fred is more important than the scene between Holden and Shed which feels a little off. So, basically, we get what amounts to Fred Johnson’s entire history, which makes it all the more apparent how strange it is that Jim Holden - who we were reminded this very chapter was a member of the Earth navy - had to be reminded who this guy was. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Nine posted:The man on the screen had once been among the most decorated officers in the UN military, and ended up one of its most embarrassing failures. To Belters, he was the Earther Sheriff of Nottingham who’d turned into Robin Hood. To Earth, he was the hero who’d fallen from grace. “So,” Omi asks, “what do we know about Fred Johnson? As it turns out, we know a lot about Fred Johnson, because the entire plot screeches to a halt to go into his background and history. Long story short: his history is war crimes. He’s a legendary earth military guy who quit the military after committing some atrocities, and is now a high-level OPA leader.” There’s more to it than that - it’s seven hundred words, after all. To sum it up, Fred Johnson is known as The Butcher of Anderson Station because of an issue that took place on that station with an Earther politician increasing a cargo surcharge and this affecting the price of air and this affecting the health and lives of the Belters and then how this led to the marines being sent in and then this led to the Belters broadcasting Anderson’s marines slaughtering the people of Anderson station and this led to Anderson retiring and... Who cares? No, I mean it - who cares? I tend to believe that when a story hits a speed bump like this, when it needs to drop a significant amount of words to explain a development, then there hasn’t been proper work done to establish it in the text. This is the first time Fred Johnson has been mentioned in the text, and because of that, this whole section is all really clunky. Don't get me wrong, I like the story of what went down with the price of air and how it meshes with what we've known about Belter life from Miller and such, but overall... As Omi puts it: “we need to know about Fred Johnson because the characters know about Fred Johnson, and the characters need to know so they don’t just stare blankly at the transmission and go ‘I have no idea who this is.’” In other words we, the audience, should’ve been told something about Fred Johnson prior to this point where we need to know who he is to have everything make sense without needing to bring the story to a screeching halt. It’s just a part of the tension in writing - how do you get the audience knowing what the characters know? Especially in a fantastical setting like The Expanse where there's been hundreds of years of history. Good worldbuilding makes it subtle with context clues and extrapolation and things like that. A big seven-hundred word infodump spelling out the entire history of any given character is not good worldbuilding. Anyway, Fred has a message for Holden. He thinks they’re being played and that he’s a member of the OPA - but not the violent OPA we’ve heard about, a more legitimate, peaceful branch. And he wants to avoid a war and has a particular interest in Holden. Omi says: “This is information that Holden needs to hear now, because it’s going to inform his decision in a few chapters. But why does Fred Johnson care about Holden, and why is he giving him a giant infodump? It’s one of the few legitimately clunky pieces of plotting in early LW.” Ultimately, I agree. I think the first six or so chapters of Leviathan Wakes are solidly plotted. Not ideal, but pretty much perfect for what the story is. But we hit this chapter, and it’s like the Corey team is like ‘Oh, gently caress, that’s right - we need to introduce Fred! Have him call Holden up out of the blue.’ (I think there’s a reason for this clunkiness of Fred Johnson, but we’ll talk about that when we actually meet him.) Fred basically says he thinks someone wants to start a war and that he hopes it isn’t Mars but if it is then he knows that Holden and co. will never get off the Donnager alive. He gives them advice to use the word 'ubiquitous' within the first sentence of their next broadcast - if they do so, he’ll know they’re not being coerced. He says he does this because he wants them to know they have allies in the Belt. I also feel like there’s a thought to touch on here that by saying this Fred has opened himself up to a tactical error. Let’s say Holden and co. end up on the Donnager and Mars, like, turns them into double agents. Then Holden and co. come off the ship and say ‘ubiquitous’ and Johnson gets played. But whatever. After all that, the crew meets in the Knight’s cramped galley and the chapter basically ends up where the previous one ended: they’re on their way to meet the Donnager but they’re being chased by six other ships. Mysterious ships, at that, because pretty much everyone says something to the effect of ‘Those ships can’t catch us before we reach the Donnager and they can’t take a battleship in a fight, so, what are they up to?’ What indeed... But if this chapter ends on the exact same cliffhanger, it just stresses how little anything actually happened. TV Adaptation: Fred doesn’t contact Holden before they reach the Donnager. In the series, Johnson has been watching the Donnager and only contacts Holden after they reach the ship which smooths everything out some (bit of a recurring theme, no?) More on that later. Fred Johnson’s ‘ubiquitous’ gambit features in an episode of the series where Holden and his crew need to use the word in a similar fashion to sneak past a Martian patrol. A fairly hefty change, however, is that of Fred Johnson himself and how he acquired the title of ‘The Butcher of Anderson Station.’ In the novels, his marines assaulted and retook the station but at a severe cost of civilian lives. In the TV series, delivered via flashback, it appears that one of Johnson’s ships blasted the station into free-floating components with a torpedo, presumably at his order. It’s a pretty dramatic change. I figure I'll make a note of how the show depicts Fred Johnson reaching out to Holden and co. given how it doesn't have the issues the novel's version of it does. The Expanse, 0105 - Back to the Butcher posted:JOHNSON: My name is Fred Johnson, Director of Operations at Tycho Station. I don't know who you are, or what your intent may be, but unless you're trying to start a war, you need to contact me. I can help you. Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 01:01 on Mar 26, 2020 |
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Mar 26, 2020 00:59
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Holden might not be naive, either. It allows you to see Holden as a bit more of a dubious character. Like, he talks a big talk, but he'll happily do his best to avoid dealing with the concept of just who Fred is if it gets him what he wants. Like, he avoids bringing up Johnson's history until Naomi forces it, and then Holden just says 'well, people change!'
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Mar 26, 2020 02:54
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General Battuta posted:Fred Johnson is such an unassuming name. I don't know if I like the choice or not. It's kind of cool to give The Butcher of Anderson Station a 'just a guy' feeling, but it's also a little bit "GM didn't have a list of names written down and had to adlib." Khizan posted:Also, I really don't find a problem with Holden not recognizing him immediately from the vid call. Colonel Frederick Lucius Johnson, the Butcher of Anderson Station, is an infamous political figure. You just don't expect somebody like that to give you a call out of the middle of nowhere and be like "Hey, this is Fred Johnson." There's tons of public figures I would recognize on the news but probably fail to recognize if they just Skyped me out of nowhere. Chapter Ten – Miller We’re back with Miller and Shaddid and we are in her office, even if the mention of it feels a bit blink and you’d miss it. Omi made an interesting note here, that he thinks Franck - who has been handling the Holden chapters - writes introductions better than Abraham. Based on the chapters we’ve seen so far, I think that’s a pretty accurate assessment. Omi notes that a bit more scene-sitting would make the opening feel less jarring - where are we, when are we, what’s going on? Because remember, the two PoVs are now thoroughly out of sync. So, Miller is talking to Shaddid. Again, blink and you’ll miss it, but he’s trying to get Shaddid to investigate the message from the family Mao to Julie about the imminent clusterfuck. It happens really, really quick. I don’t really get the sense that taking it to Shaddid means much to Miller, even if he notes it as “the cause.” Miller and Havelock are back on police work. Omi has thoughts: “I’m a little conflicted about how chapter ten throws Havelock and Miller back into casework. On one hand, it’s important to keep the story moving and not dwell on past events, but due to the disjointed nature of the two POVs I still feel like Ceres is a powderkeg: two chapters ago there was a giant riot where dudes were beating dudes to death and Miller was shooting people’s legs off, and last chapter Havelock was hiding in his office because he had reasonable concerns that his Earth origin would make him a target in public. As a reader I feel like tension is still building up, and I’m not really prepared for them to shrug and get back to business as usual.” But that’s basically what’s happened. Miller and Havelock go up to sector eight to investigate an extortion complaint. It’s called a ‘hardware shop’ but is then mentioned as being an ‘entertainment franchise.’ It confused Omi slightly, but I think the idea is that it’s hardware in the sense of fancy VR hardware. It’s not a big issue, but it is a little odd. I’m not sure I’d call that an ‘entertainment franchise' as such. Anyway, they’re there and there’s some pretty basic police procedural stuff. Miller would prefer to work the Mao case, but Omi and I both think the ‘why’ is elusive. Omi says: “I know he’s fast on his way to becoming unhealthily obsessed with her, and in a lot of ways every time he says that he wants to get to the bottom of things, what he actually means is that he wants a justification to pursue his fascination with her. But it feels like we’re missing a key building block between the lazy, semi-drunk guy who tossed her apartment as part of a job, and the increasingly unhinged guy who’s about to start cratering his life and career to look for her.” Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Ten posted:If Miller squinted, he could see the seventeen-year old boy he had been under the layers of time and disappointment, and it looked a lot like the clerk out front. So, the police procedural stuff gives us some exposition. Long story short, everything’s getting a bit strange on Ceres. One of the big gangs, Loca Griega, has seemingly vanished into the ether. They go to watch the security footage and Miller notes: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Ten posted:The split circle of the OPA was perfectly clear on the thug’s armband—the same kind of armband he’d found in Julie Mao’s hole. From there, Miller goes to visit a known OPA-friendly bar and makes a bit of a mess of everything. He fails to recognize who we will learn if a pretty high-level OPA operative (Anderson Dawes), turns his fact-finding mission into an ideological argument, and basically throws all of his cards down on the table and gets nothing for it. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Ten posted:Miller took another drink of his beer, frowning. An uncomfortable feeling of having made the wrong step fidgeted in the back of his mind. Omi, however, has some thoughts on it: “The core issue, I think, is that we haven’t had enough time to see Miller either slide into ineffective obsession or reveal that he’s been a bigger screw-up than his narration thinks all along. With more setup this would be a great chapter for his screw-ups to start snowballing, but as-is it feels like we’ve gone from Super Cop to Sorry Cop in essentially one and a half chapters.” Miller goes back to his cabin and daydreams about Julie Mao for a little, then wanders down to the station. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Ten posted:Havelock was waiting at his desk. His broad, short Earther face seemed strangely alien, but Miller tried to shake it off. Then Miller hears about a new homicide - someone’s broken into the extortionist’s cabin and shot him in the face with a shotgun. “Well,” Miller says. “Called that one wrong. OPA’s not moving in on the criminals, they’re moving in on the cops.” There’ll be more on this later, and we’ll talk about it when the story gets to it more properly. It’s a very strong line to end the chapter on, but it also feels really sudden. Like we’re not seeing the thought process Miller had to lead him to that conclusion. And before we can explore it, we hop back to Holden... TV Adaptation Where to begin? By this point, things have been progressing pretty differently for Miller. We might do a summary of this when we get towards the end of it.  Jared Harris as Anderson Dawes
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Mar 27, 2020 00:56
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PriorMarcus posted:It's interesting to me that you glossed over this, because Jared Harris is basically a masterclass in this role, and either because of direction or his choices is basically the shoes template for Belters going forward. I'll be bringing up a lot of Miller's stuff, such as Dawes' altered presence and plots, when we get to the end of Miller's time on Ceres. Unlike Holden, Miller's stuff diverges pretty wildly pretty early and makes it hard to sum up as we go. Chapter Eleven – Holden Case in point about the openings. “The Donnager was ugly.” So, here we are - the Martian flagship is big and ugly and intimidating. This means several days have passed and they’re meeting up with the Martian warship as instructed. But, in true Expanse fashion, it goes on for a bit much. It’s not quite as irrelevant as some of the exposition previous, but it comes back to the thought I have about these novels - there’s a lot you could cut and render more efficiently. I like this little bit: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Eleven posted:“They say one of those can kill a planet,” Naomi said over the comm. She was at the ops station a deck below. Amos says something that doesn’t feel like Amos: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Eleven posted:“Yeah,” Amos said. “Fuckers killed McDowell, but we have to act nice…” Holden and crew enter the Donnager proper. They meet Captain Yao and get patted down for weapons. There’s a bit where Yao asks Holden about the mystery ships and whether they’re friends of his. Holden says he thinks they’re concerned citizens of the Belt out to be witnesses. A Martian Chief takes them to a holding cell. Amos comments on how clean the ship is, while Holden reflects that Martian warships are just better than Earther ones. Amos says: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Eleven posted:“See, that’s why I work haulers,” Amos said. “Clean decks or get drunk and screw, and I’ve got a preference.” We get a clunky line here that I think paints a picture of Franck’s relative inexperience: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Eleven posted:As they walked through a maze of corridors, the ship started a slight vibration, and gravity slowly reappeared. The chapter as a whole it a bit clunky. It has this real feel of Franck needing to pad out the word count to have a full chapter, and he needs to have a full chapter due to the A-B narrative format of Leviathan Wakes. Omi points out that, really, this chapter would probably work better from Captain Yao’s perspective. Anyway, the future Rocinante crew are hauled into a holding cell. It’s quite spacious and nice, actually. But one marine grabs Holden, taking him to see a ‘Lieutenant Lopez.’ Lopez feels a bit like a Dune mentat. But instead of juice of Sappho, it’s a little lozenge. Like, Lopez could say something like “It is by this lozenge alone I set my mind in motion” and it wouldn’t feel out of place. Or, as Omi puts it, “It is through drugs alone that I set my exposition in motion.” I don’t hate the interrogation scene between Lopez and Holden, but I can recognize it immediately for what it is - a somewhat clever way of avoiding any big blocks of expository text to tell us Holden’s own backstory. Instead, we get it in a somewhat antagonistic chat. It’s somewhat clever, but it’s a pretty cheap trick, too. It's not too far from having your protagonist look into a mirror or reflective surface to talk about their own appearance. Because we do get all of Holden’s backstory - his navy career, why he’s no longer in the navy, why with all that military experience he ended up on the Canterbury, his family, etc. Omi wonders if it would feel better if it had come with Holden talking about it during the downtime with his crew. But I feel like, based on how friendly everyone on the Knight is, they all maybe know this? During the interrogation, the Donnager fires torpedoes at the incoming ships. Then the Donnager goes to red alert - the mystery ships have shot back. The chapter picks up when Holden is back in the holding area. Omi and I both really like the sequence where the crew is sitting there and trying to figure out what’s happening based on sounds and such. The battle between six mystery ships and a Martian dreadnaught filled with people we don't really know or care about doesn’t really matter much to me (or Omi) but I do care about these characters, so, this helps keep the focus on them. It’s neat! I feel like a lot of authors would fill the sequence with paragraphs like “Holden could picture the point defence cannons spinning up and firing a thousand rounds a second.” But I do appreciate how the Corey pair keeps everything about the sequence inside the room. Shed freaks out about the possibility of dying due to decompression and so on, which is neat. Alex points out that without instruments they won’t know the fight is going bad until something punches through the hull. Shed freaks out a little bit more. Holden goes all ‘Hey, no one can kill the Donnager’ to reassure him. Naomi goes ‘Okay, sure, but those mystery ships should be dead and they’re not.’ The sounds and vibrations of the fight all sounds pretty relaxing, and Holden even falls asleep to it, which is kinda goofy. He wakes up when the Donnager takes a torpedo hit - and there’s no gravity. Either the Donnager has stopped or it’s engines are gone. Holden wants to find out what’s going on, but their marine prison guards are gone. Then the Donnager’s gauss turrets start firing, and it works really well to tell us something is wrong. How had the ships survived the Donnager’s torpedoes and closed in to knife-fighting range? In the world of the Expanse, Holden notes, it’s basically unheard of. We get another Weird Amos Line. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Eleven posted:“Anyone else think this is desperate loving queer?” Amos asked, a touch of panic in his voice. To me, it feels like something someone would say in Firefly, which I think was one of the biggest inspirations for The Expanse. Then- Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Eleven posted:The gauss round that killed Shed didn’t even make a noise. TV Adaptation So, the Donnager situation is handled fairly differently in the series than in the books. For example, the Knight doesn't so much dock with the Donnager as it is apprehended by the larger ship. Holden and co. don't go out to see the Martians, the Martians come and grab them. As their identities are being checked, Holden says "Go ahead and destroy the evidence, word is already out." So, straight away, it's way more confrontational and dramatic. They get led to the cells. Holden says they have a right to legal counsel, and he gets thrown in a cell. Naomi gets thrown into a different cell - Amos takes offence to this, attacks the marine, gets tased and sedated. Shed goes in without trouble, but Alex? Alex gets taken away by the Martians. There's way more tension between the crew. Shed thinks they're going to get framed, and they only really need one false confession. They come grab Holden and he gets hauled in for his interrogation by the Martian Mentat. As a lot of other things in the Expanse's adaptation, the unsettling nature of the interrogator (Lopez) and the way it gives us Holden's backstory plays better. But there are fair differences in the dialogue between the two of them. For example, in the novel, Lopez never does the thing where he repeatedly asks Holden 'Why did you destroy the Canterbury?' Because Alex was never separated from the others in the novel, Holden never angrily asks where he is. We get a reason why Holden assaulted his superior, because his superior ordered him to fire on a Belter ship. "A smuggler ship," Lopez points out. "Smuggling people," Holden responds. "Which you," Lopez says, "had no way of knowing at the time." That's a really good insight into Holden's character! We also get a mention of Phoebe Station, which is a rather important location that gets hints here and there in the novel, but is mentioned outright in the interrogation. Also, Lopez mentions that Naomi is an OPA operative which, alongside some other things that are mentioned in the first season, draws from the later novels - specifically, Book 5. There's a funny bit where Shed tries to butter up one of the Martian marines by claiming he dated a Martian and how much he respects the Martian industrious nature, only for Amos to do Amos and taunt the guy to come and fight him. But either in response to Amos' taunting, or just through coincidence, it's time for Naomi's interrogation and she's taken from her cell. Holden is taken to a larger cell, where he meets Alex who is wearing an MCRN uniform. That's where we get Alex's 20-year MCRN experience thing, and Holden assumes Alex is helping them and they argue a bit. Alex basically argues that Holden is a big idiot for blaming Mars when it was so easy to find the implicating beacon? "By whom?" Holden asks. "Well," Alex supposes, "it's the OPA - I mean, who else stands to gain from a big war between the two major powers?" And, hey, suspicions are cast about Naomi again. Naomi gets interrogated by Lopez. It's similar to the Holden one. The Knight crew get hauled into the big cell, except for Naomi. Amos does not take the sight of Alex in a Martian uniform well. Holden asks them what they told the interrogators. AMOS: "To suck it." Shed babbles about telling them everything, including making stuff up. He asks if Naomi is really OPA. Amos defends her with a 'Who cares?' and a point that the Martians will make stuff up - like, how they told him that Shed faked his medical records and is only on the Cant to get away from a drug dealer who wants to kill him. Which Shed says is actually true. When Naomi's brought to the big holding area, they have an argument. Why didn't Naomi let them chase down the ship that killed the Cant? Because Holden was being a reckless idiot. "Or was it because they're friends of yours?" Amos takes offence to that, and Holden points out that no one knows anything about Amos beyond the fact he's Naomi's loyal dog. "Sleeper agents," Alex says. "Ever heard of them?" Amos grabs him. "Human shields, ever heard of 'em?" But before the Martians can storm in and put Amos down, Holden shouts that he's ready to talk - but only to the Martian Captain. Captain Yao is happy to oblige and Holden is taken up to the bridge. Long story short, Yao says Holden has lied and that lie is going to lead to war, Holden must recant his statement. Holden's fine with that providing they guarantee the safety of his people. Yao is fine with this, providing Holden pins the act on Naomi and the OPA. Holden is not fine with this. As an aside, while Holden is chatting with Yao, the crew wonders if he's setting up a deal for himself. A big difference is that, at this point, there's only one incoming ship to the Donnager. Yao suspects it's a pickup for Naomi. Holden figures they're guessing and refuses to throw Naomi under the bus. Lopez points out that by blaming Naomi it will change the narrative and allow cooler heads to prevail. Still, Holden refuses. The incoming ship then jams the Donnager and - splits into six! They were using their drive plumes to hide their numbers! Then the attackers start launching torpedoes. In the cell, we get the bit where the crew has to piece together what's happening by sounds and lighting, it's cool. Seeing the stuff from Holden on the bridge is cool, too, and it informs us a lot about how the Martians see themselves - confidence, maybe arrogance; pride, maybe hubris. I like the bit where Lopez basically goes 'you Earthers have it all with your perfect little planet and you're so unmotivated.' The Donnager starts taking hits, and Yao basically gets impatient, and orders the railguns brought online. But the attacking ships have railguns, too - but ships that small aren't supposed to have them! And there's nothing matching those profiles in the UN or MCRN warbooks! But there's this neat bit where Holden sees the radar image and goes 'I've seen that ship before...' and the Martians take notice. Then Shed dies, and it's basically the best execution of the death you could hope for. Alex starts having a panic attack because who would be stupid enough to attack the Donnager, and now the battleship's engine is offline and they're zero-gee. Shed throws him some gum and says, hey, don't worry, everything's going to be just- CLANG. And then Shed is just a headless corpse. The differences stem from the aforementioned change at how friendly the main cast are. In the book, you get the idea they’re all basically friends and can talk through their issues. In the show, they’ve been thrown together under desperate circumstances and don’t really know or trust each other. The Martians aren’t so cordial. Amos feels way more like the character he becomes in later novels. Everyone feels more like a real person with real motivations, whereas the book characters (Martian and otherwise) feel like they’re a bit too talkative, a bit too polite, and a bit too understanding. It’s hard not to see the book’s version of the events as being a first draft for the TV adaptation.  Greg Bryk as Lieutenant Lopez  Jean Yoon as Captain Theresa Yao
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Mar 28, 2020 02:30
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General Battuta posted:I always hate it when SF books say this! It's not exactly wrong, but if you push an anvil out the airlock, it's just going to keep orbiting next to you. You still need to de-orbit your impactor, which will take some retro thrust or big backwards kick. There's a particularly dumb thing Holden says later on in the book (about the 'invisible' ships.) Do you think the Corey guys were trying to establish some kind of pattern in things Holden says? I believe they've said on Twitter (when questioned about that invisible ship bit) that Holden was written to say a lot of dumb things, but that's always felt to me like post-hoc rationalization to Holden saying dumb things, not something he was written with from the beginning. Chapter Twelve - Miller Back to Miller. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twelve posted:For twelve years, Miller had worked security. Violence and death were familiar companions to him. Anyway, Miller is apparently watching a war start. It’s a little strange. I assume he’s referring to the imminent war between Mars and Earth, but with the gang stuff it could be some kind of large-scale turf war. There was an explosion in the docking station of what I assume is Ceres? But I genuinely can’t tell whether it was the OPA attempting to nuke a Martian installation somewhere else or a Martian trying to nuke something on Ceres or any other kind of intersection between the OPA, Mars, and a nuclear device. Basically, if a nuke went off on or near Ceres, I feel like the writing should make that more clear than making it feel like a nuke went off somewhere else. Omi is a bit confused too, and says everyone feels a bit too “laid-back” for the explosion. “Do explosions happen often? Miller talks as if this has happened before, but it’s news to me as a reader.” If a nuke didn't go off on or near Ceres, then I feel like the author should've taken a line or two to properly establish where this nuclear attack took place - or almost took place. Phobos, Deimos? Somewhere on Mars itself? A Mars military installation? Writing this out now, I remind myself that Ceres is an Earth installation which means it's almost certainly an attack that took place somewhere else, but, man, reading that opening, my mind goes to 'someone tried to nuke Ceres.' Why else open the chapter with it, especially after a chapter where there was a riot and talk about bad poo poo going down? And maybe a bit of 'Ceres is safe from this, we have Earth backing' reflection from Miller would make the later reveal that Earth is pulling out the OPA is taking over a bit more impactful. Whatever. Miller and Havelock are talking about things. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twelve posted:Miller licked his lips and leaned forward, elbows on the smooth off-white table. Someone had scratched a design into the plastic. A split circle. And this was a cop bar. Anyway, Havelock’s transfer off Ceres has been held up and Miller wants him to cover for him as he takes some time off (a few days) to investigate the Julie thing. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twelve posted:Havelock shook his head again, this time in mild disbelief. If he’d been a Belter, he’d have made the gesture with his hands, so you could see it when he had an environment suit on. Anyway, Havelock agrees to cover for Miller and Miller goes off to investigate Julie stuff. It’s another one of those things that makes Miller’s character feel a little weird - is he really ditching work when someone tried to sabotage Ceres with a nuke? Either way, both Omi and I think the bit where Miller says Havelock can just say that he went on a crazy drunken bender is a good bit. As Omi says, “It’s not just funny, it’s a good setup for the eventual reveal that Miller isn’t just pretending to be a drunk, he totally is one.” Miller heads off to a Ceres gym. There’s a bunch of people using the gym, which feeds into the strange tone of the chapter - is the station chaotic and scared, simmering and threatening to boil over, or is everyone just sort of on business-as-usual? Are attempted nuclear sabotage events, on Ceres or otherwise, a regular thing? So, Miller has a long conversation with Julie’s teacher that feels a bit loose and rambly. It feels like it could be tightened up and the actual meat of the conversation is pretty thin. Basically, the core thing we find out is that Julie was working on a light freighter. And that she might’ve been raped at some point. This was mentioned briefly back in the prologue. Both Omi and I aren’t a fan of it, and I’ll let him cover it: “It’s really jarring and odd: Miller is the one that suggests it, and I don’t think anything ever clearly establishes whether this is Miller’s tired and crime-obsessed alcohol brain inventing a story, or if it’s a reasonable theory. Given how Julie freaked out when the guards grabbed her in the prologue (presumably to search her, I think, not assault her?), it feels like it was an actual thing. “I have a few issues with it: my main one is that I deeply dislike sexual violence in fiction. It’s disturbing, often traumatic, and very rarely necessary. There is almost always a better way to traumatize a character or catalyze their resolve, and sexual violence often feels like a lazy and tacky shorthand to create shock value or grittiness in a story. “In this case, it feels like it doesn’t even accomplish that: as far as I can tell, the only reason she supposedly got raped was so she had a reason to learn jujitsu, which would give her the skills to hurt her guards and antagonize them into tossing her into a space locker instead of with the rest of the prisoners. So, why couldn’t she just be a badass who likes martial arts? She lives a rough life on a rough station and has a tough job on a cargo hauler, that seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do. The rape is going to come up quite frequently, usually in the form of Miller musing on who hurt her and how it shaped what came after, and I pretty much hate all of it.” If I recall correctly, the TV show scraps this bit of Julie’s character entirely. That afternoon, Miller’s in his room looking at the news. The science station on Phoebe got hit and people assume it’s the OPA. Miller obsesses over Julie for a bit. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twelve posted:He hesitated for a moment, torn between answering the door and throwing the bottles into the recycler. Then Anderson Dawes shows up. Who is the guy Miller spoke to in the last chapter. Dawes wants Miller to stop investigating Julie Mao, and we get the reveal that the OPA is looking for her too. We also finally get a direct tie back to Holden’s story when Dawes reveals that she was working on the Scopuli. This is the first time we hear about this, but it’s a pretty nice way to tie everything together. Dawes is interested in it, Fred Johnson is interested in it, Holden’s caught in it, and Miller’s missing girl was on it. Of course, the prologue kind of spoils this because, well, we already know she was on the Scopuli. Unfortunately for Miller’s case, he’s quite drunk, and botches his conversation with Dawes - again, he basically reveals his whole hand and gets nothing in return. Dawes could be lying when he says he doesn’t know who took the riot gear, or he could be telling the truth. Long story short: poo poo’s hosed, everything’s bad, on the verge of getting worse, and the OPA is worried. So, Miller calls Havelock and advises him to get off station and find somewhere safe. Havelock closes out the chapter with: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twelve posted:“Jesus,” he said. “What scares the OPA?” TV Adaptation Still not sure there’s much else to say until we hit the point where Miller is fired, where it might be more simple to just sum up how differently the whole thing was told. Mainly because the differences are more spread out than we see with the Holden one. Coreyisms The Belter Shrug And The Origin Thereof LW: 2.5 Big Meaty Amos LW: 1 Into the Recycler LW: 2 Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 02:29 on Mar 29, 2020 |
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Mar 29, 2020 02:25
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Chapter Thirteen – HoldenLeviathan Wakes, Chapter Thirteen posted:Holden froze, watching the blood pump from Shed’s neck, then whip away like smoke into an exhaust fan. There’s a hole in the hull, the crew patches it up. It’s an okay sequence, but I feel like it'd be better if it was more a sign of them coming together under pressure than just... fixing a thing, y'know? From there, the crew wonders how Belt ships got railguns. Holden says “Shed’s been killed” and I’m one-hundred percent certain that the Corey boys desperately wanted to avoid anyone saying “Shed’s dead.” Lieutenant Kelly leads a bunch of Martian marines in with orders to evac Holden and co. Why? Because they’re being boarded. So, what’s the problem? Well, the Martian marines are losing the fight. And, to make things worse, the evacuation is on a timer. The attackers are after the Donnager’s CIC, with all the top secret information it holds. If they get it, the defenders will blow the ship and kill everyone. However, there’s just not much to say about the chapter. It’s an action chapter where the heroes don’t really take part and aren’t really in danger and the tension of the ticking time bomb isn’t really there either. So, there’s a lot of action and it’s mostly okay but the pacing is pretty stop-start because of the Expanse’s love of dropping in exposition and it reads a little bit like a transcript of someone’s tabletop roleplaying campaign (Huh, wonder why…) I'll admit, though, that part of this probably stems from my general disinterest in action writing. Half the time, it's just filler, really. There's nothing really at stake. Holden will survive, Shed was kind of the least developed dude on the roster, the marines are just cardboard cutouts to get blown away. I feel like you could cut from the evacuation beginning, to them on the Tachi with the marines dead and everyone injured and not really lose anything. Ultimately, the action scene is way less important than how it affects the story, and very rarely does the blow-by-blow affect the story. That's not to say every action scene in the novels is bad. I quite like a fight scene in the later books, the brawl between Amos and Bobbie, for example. Anyway, Kelly is leading them to the Donnager’s hanger so they can grab a ship and escape. But the attackers are already there! The attackers are wearing black armor of a design Holden doesn't recognize - that's about all we get on them. Who are these guys - mystery humans, maybe even aliens? It kind of surprises me that we don't get a description of the Tachi in this chapter beyond it being called a 'squat black frigate.' Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Thirteen posted:They were halfway to the ship and Holden was starting to think they might make it when a line of smoke crossed the room and intersected with Kelly, and the lieutenant disappeared in a flash of light. For whatever reason, the line of smoke sticks out to me. I guess it's a missile? I'm under the impression that you wouldn't see 'lines of smoke' in atmosphere-less zero-gee environments, but I'll also be the first to admit that while I find space stuff fascinating, the science of it bounces off me like rain off Miller's hat. TV Adaptation Continuing on from the previous talk, the Donnager battle is very different in the TV series. In the holding cell, there’s a nice little bit where Alex sedates himself so the crew uses up less oxygen and trusts Amos to carry him out of there. It’s a nice little beat in the sort of ‘crew of people coming together’ arc that the series has and books don’t. Overall, the whole thing just works better in a visual medium. Much like the novel, the Martians evacuate Holden and co. but they do it with the distinct knowledge that Holden knows about the mystery ships. The man leading the marines is Lopez, who we’ve seen a lot more of and have something of connection to, instead of Kelly. Lopez interrogates one of the wounded attackers (who we definitely get pegged as human), who dies before giving up any information, and something like that would greatly enhance this chapter of ‘We walked, there was some shooting, we walked some more.’ Lopez also mentions that the Donnager was in the area because they were investigating Phoebe - the science station. Something happened to it - it went quiet for weeks then the place was cleaned out with everything incinerated by the time the Martians found it. A cover-up, obviously. But who and why? This is stuff the novel has mentioned, but often in passing and you don’t really get the relevance of it (for example, Phoebe was mentioned in the previous Miller chapter.) Is it related to the plot, or is it just part of the Corey love of exposition? Then they hit the hangar bay (after rescuing the rest of the main crew) and that brings us to about where we are now. I said this about the last part of the Donnager battle but it really does feel like the version we got in the book was a first draft of the story.
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Mar 30, 2020 09:14
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Chapter Fourteen – Miller So, Chapter Fourteen begins with what I think we could consider a Coreyism writ large. That is to say, kicking off a chapter with an information dump that, while fairly interesting, isn’t very relevant to the story. We spend a bunch of paragraphs hearing about how a Belter ship was destroyed by a Martian patrol destroyer and everyone is blaming everyone else, and how this has reached Ceres and resulted in a Martian getting impaled to the wall. Okay, tensions are running high, I get that. But we've already had people being murdered in riots, the thought that Ceres was going to descend into more riots, nuclear terrorism, and so on. I'm not sure adding one more civilian ship to the tally does much. Omi says: “I’ve said “Perspective, location, context” over and over in this Let’s Read: who am I? Where am I? What’s going on? Like a lot of Miller’s chapters we take a while to get there, and until we do I feel like I’m floating in a disembodied void.” Really, we could probably begin this chapter at this line Omi picked out: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Fourteen posted:It always surprised Miller how peaceful dead people looked. Maybe we’re being a touch too pedantic. Maybe. Like, you can sit there and say ‘But the chapter headings tell you which perspective it is, Milky,’ and, sure, you’re right. But to me, it just feels like a bit of a band-aid. The same way stories that begin their chapters with LOCATION, DATE, TIME are just putting a band-aid over actually establishing those things in the text. Of course, my personal take on these books is - as much as I enjoy them - that they could be cut down in word count by half and still be just as good if not better. Anyway, whatever. We’re back in Millertown (where drinks and human lives both come cheap, Omi asides) and Miller is investigating the aforementioned dead Martian. Miller’s also got a new partner - Octavia Muss. Which is funny to me, personally, because I remember thinking she was an invention of the TV series, so, I’m assuming she won’t be much of a fixture in the novel. I really don’t remember a thing about her. Either way, she hasn’t been mentioned at all before this point, which means we get a fairly abrupt summary of who this lady is the moment she's introduced. She’s a tough cop - she’s worked violence, then rape, then crimes against children. That is, solving them, not committing them. They do some police work for a bit. It’s kinda ‘eh.’ Miller thinks the impaled man will be the first shot of the wider war, Muss disagrees. A part of me, even on a re-read, isn't sure whether I'm supposed to take away 'Miller is fantasizing, Muss is right' or 'Miller is accurate, Muss doesn't get it.' More to the point, and maybe I'm being too harsh, but I don't really see the need for the unrelated police procedural stuff. The opening of Miller's first chapter established really well that Miller is a space cop. A story that was just Joe Miller: Ceres Space Cop could be pretty neat, but Leviathan Wakes has the Julie Mao stuff hanging over all the Miller chapters and the police procedural stuff just has me going 'okay, and?' It's sort of like Havelock, really. We meet him in the first chapter, a really neat dynamic is established, and then he just kind of exits stage left. So, Miller and his newer, tougher partner go back to the station-house and we get a fairly entertaining bit that helps show us a bit of the corporate security nightmare life of Star Helix and how calloused Miller has become from exposure to it. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Fourteen posted:He navigated to the form letter, dropped in the new widow’s name and contact address. Dear Mrs. Dos Santos, I am very sorry to have to tell you blah blah blah. Your [he spun through the menu] husband was a valued and respected member of the Ceres community, and I assure you that everything possible will be done to see that her [Miller toggled that] his killer or killers will be brought to answer for this. Yours … Are Omi and I the only ones who think it’s a bit of a weird request? Could a private security corporation request such information from a contemporary world government? Maybe in the far future of the Expanse, something like Star Helix could, but they’re working a Belt station that is under Earther jurisdiction. It feels really weird, especially when the transcripts relate to an ongoing investigation into an incident that has implicated Mars and taken out one of their battleships. Omi says: “It honestly feels a little weird that Miller wants and expects to get them. It feels like the story is visibly creaking when it bends to get Miller and Holden in the same place, since they don’t really know that their stories are related yet.” Omi actually has a pretty neat thought as to how you could link the two stories a bit more neatly which, as mentioned, is just combining Eros and Ceres. Basically, Miller wants the transcripts to see if Holden knows anything about Julie. His reasoning is that, if Holden found the Scopuli with no crew and and Julie was on the Scopuli, then she had to leave the ship at some point. Like, it makes sense, but it still feels weird that Star Helix could just get such information from Mars. Miller doesn't even seem to entertain the thought that Mars could, and probably would, just say 'nah.' Maybe there’s a real-world equivalent for this and neither of us know about it. Anyway, Shaddid acts like they could get such information from Mars, but the problem in this case is that Mars has no reason to hand over the truth of what happened on the Scopuli. Shaddid says that Mars planted the Scopuli there. Miller asks if that’s Star Helix’s official line, and Shaddid gets pissed. Now, Shaddid wants the Julie case closed and for Miller to get out there and do his normal job. Omi points out that the exchange where Shaddid asks if Miller’s evidence in the Julie case is solid and on the record is a bit strange given that it’s a quasi-illegal under-the-counter operation. Miller goes back to see Muss. There’s a nice little bit of foreshadowing: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Fourteen posted:”Good work,” Miller said. Dawes brings Miller some information - the OPA didn’t lift the gear from the lockers, someone else did. The ship carrying the gear went on to Ganymede but seemingly lost some cargo along the way. Obviously, someone met with the ship and transferred the loot. But to where? Dawes either doesn’t know, or acts like he doesn’t. In return, Miller holds up to his bargain to drop the Julie case. Or so he says. Because once Dawes is out, Miller turns to his terminal and starts recording a message for Julie’s father. He’d like to ask him a couple of questions… TV Adaptation I’m not sure any of this is in the TV episodes. Octavia Muss is actually introduced earlier and has an expanded role, and Havelock took the place of the guy who got impaled to the wall, but I think a lot of this is sort of glossed over or transformed into something else. Dawes, especially, has a different relationship with Miller. The bit with the Belter ship being destroyed is made more explicit. The Martian ship boards the Belter vessel and roughs up the crew. Incensed, the Belter pilot then hurls his cargo of rocks at the Martian ship, which fires upon and destroys the Belter vessel in response. The only survivor is fan-favorite Diogo.
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Mar 31, 2020 09:30
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Chapter Fifteen – Holden Back to Holden. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Fifteen posted:Holden grabbed for Naomi. He struggled to orient himself as the two of them spun across the bay with nothing to push off of and nothing to arrest their flight. Kelly barks if Alex can fly the ship. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Fifteen posted:”Why me?” Anyway, they strap in and Alex launches the Tachi and kills the bad guys with the point defense cannons, and so on. Omi says: “It feels like this is the chapter where they figured out what to do with Alex. He’s a nervous smartass with a motormouth who always runs at a hundred miles an hour no matter what’s happening. It’s a little weird, because like his character it feels like this trait went from subtly mentioned to omnipresent in every scene.” Then: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Fifteen posted:Holden was imagining what several hundred rounds of Teflon-coated tungsten steel going five thousand meters per second would do to human bodies when Alex threw down the throttle and a roomful of elephants swan dived onto his chest. I feel like that’s a really clunky analogy. It feels long and awkward (a roomful of elephants? They can fit more than one in a room? Is it a big room? Why swan-diving in particular? Is the press of gravity somewhat graceful?). Hell, the whole sentence feels that way. Sounded good in the head, maybe, but doesn't read well on the page. So, after passing out, Holden wakes up. Sitrep: The Donnager self-destructed, and the six attacking ships are nowhere to be found - the Donnager either got them before she blew up or, more likely, they were caught in her blast. Naomi and Holden patch up Amos. Kelly is dead. Later, Holden and co. make plans. Martian ships are speeding towards the site of the battle, but Alex has turned off the Tachi’s transponder. So, to everyone in the Solar system, Holden and co. are presumed dead. Unfortunately, if they keep the transponder off, there’s no port in the system that will let them land. And the moment they turn it on, Mars will come for them. So, of course, they decide to go to Fred Johnson because of the convenient message he sent them before the whole Donnager situation. There’s a little bit of odd plotting towards the end that I’ll let Omi sum up: “This feels like slightly odd plotting - they agree to go hang out with Fred for no reason, then find the USB, then he calls them back with the deets. At least for me, this section would feel a lot less awkward and forced if they had simply found the USB before calling Fred. They need expert help to decode or interpret it and neither Earth nor Mars is feeling like particularly Holden-friendly places these days, so off to Fred’s Funhouse they go! (Spoiler: Fred’s Funhouse is not actually very fun.)” And that’s basically it. The thing about action-heavy chapters is that there’s not much to really say. The action in the Expanse books is serviceable enough. I don't think there's every really any lines that make you go 'the human body doesn't work that way' or 'bullets don't work like that' or 'the blocking here doesn't make sense' or so on. But it's also not very inspiring, interesting or exciting either. What would the story have lost had it cut the action detail? Actually, come to think of it, why don't the heroes go to Earth? Sure, the Tachi is a Martian warship, but if forner navy officer Holden was to just get on the comms and blab 'Hey, I'm Jim Holden, survivor of the Donnager attack, etc.' surely that'd mean something. The crew states they won't go near Mars because Mars will just take the ship back, but absolutely no mention is made of going to Earth. I guess we just have to assume that they think Earth will blow the Tachi out of the sky and/or impound the ship just like Mars would. Like, their whole train of action seems to be based on 'We don't want to give up the high-tech military ship that we TV Adaptation The obvious thing is that Kelly is replaced by the interrogator, Lopez. Otherwise, it’s all pretty similar and, as a big action set piece, comes across better on screen than on the page.
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Apr 1, 2020 09:03
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Chapter Sixteen – MillerLeviathan Wakes, Chapter Sixteen posted:Miller watched the feed from Mars along with the rest of the station. Anyway, if there’s one thing I always find a bit clunky in prose, it’s this sort of ‘character receives exposition or updates via a television screen.’ It’s cliche when you see it in film and it always strikes me as a weird when you get it in books. It’s pretty expected stuff. Mars is pissed that the Donnager was attacked and lost with all hands. They’re pissed and they’re blaming ‘the Belt.’ Not the OPA, Miller notes, but the Belt as a whole. In response to the attack on the Donnager, the Martian navy has been ordered to “dismantle the infrastructures of evil presently hiding in the Belt, and bring to justice those responsible for the attacks.” It gives me a bit of a Bush-era War on Terror vibe, if I'm being honest. Anyway, while Mars claims they have destroyed eighteen ‘illegal’ warships, one wonders how many of them were really dangerous. Miller turns off the feed. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Sixteen posted:That was it, then. The secret war was out of the closet. Stuff is going to get rough… or rougher… on Ceres. Curfews and mandatory personnel tracking. However, Ceres has run by an Earth corporation and that grants it some degree of protection. While Earth remains neutral in the Mars-Belt conflict, Ceres should remain okay. But Miller notes that it doesn’t mean trouble will ignore the station. Mars or OPA could decide to throw a rock or a nuke at the station to make a point, or... Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Sixteen posted:Or by blowing a fusion drive on a docked ship. Miller eats and goes to meet with Muss. Muss kinda hopes that things go to poo poo because then she’ll get to wander down to the address of an implied rapist who she could never quite “nail” (poor choice of words?) during her time in “rape squad” and put a bullet in him. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Sixteen posted:”Why wait?” Miller asked. “We could go up, put a bullet in him, be back by lunch.” We get a bit of talk about the Belt and the OPA post-Donnager. Some OPA cells are taking credit for it, and some of the other OPA cells are freaking out that they’re taking credit. Miller wonders if there’s a schism in the OPA but it feels like things like this in the OPA should be fairly standard given that they're a bunch of individual cells. Shaddid calls Miller into her office. Dawes is there. Shaddid is annoyed Miller is actually working the Mao case. Dawes tells him he’s basically swinging a pickax at a pressure valve. Shaddid removes Miller from the Mao case “officially.” Omi wonders something. “Shaddid is… officially removing Miller from a black book kidnap job that doesn’t exist in their system?” So, Miller’s message to Papa Mao didn’t go anywhere. And while it’s unclear whether the transcripts of the Holden interrogation got out before the ship went down, it’s clear that Miller won’t be getting them. Dawes points out that Star Helix is an Earther group and if Earth corporations start poking around the Belt, things could erode such that Earth can’t negotiate a peace between the Belt and Mars. Mao also isn’t on Ceres, so, that’s outside Miller’s jurisdiction. Wherever Julie is, she’s probably in OPA territory. But she is one of their operatives and the Scopuli was their ship - they’ll find her. Miller mentions that the Scopuli was bait that killed the Cant, and the Cant was bait that killed the Donnager. So, why should he let the OPA cover up something they did? Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Sixteen posted:“Conspiracy theories, Mr. Miller,” he said. “If we had cloaked Martian warships, we wouldn’t be losing.” Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Sixteen posted:“I’m not sold,” he said. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Sixteen posted:”We have Holden, Dawes said. Then Dawes hits Miller where it hurts: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Sixteen posted:“We have Holden. He and his crew didn’t die, and they are or are about to be in OPA custody. Do you understand what I’m saying, Detective? Do you see my point? I can do this investigation because I have the resources to do it. You can’t even find out what happened to your own riot gear.” Outside, Miller finds Muss again. He works his way through things, bouncing thoughts off Muss. What do you do with a case you don’t want solved? You give it to someone who probably won’t solve it. And that person is Miller and, what’s worse… Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Sixteen posted:“For that matter, I need someone to take the lovely partner, I do the same thing,” Muss went on. “You know. Someone no one else wants to work with? Got bad breath or a lovely personality or whatever, but he needs a partner. So I pick the guy who maybe he used to be good, but then he got a divorce. Started hitting the bottle. Guy still thinks he’s a hotshot. Acts like it. Only his numbers aren’t better than anyone else’s. Give him the poo poo cases. The poo poo partner.” I like it, but I agree with Omi that it feels abrupt. I think, on some level, it’s supposed to. We’re supposed to be on Miller’s side, following him around the station, seeing him do all this stuff but rooting for him, until a bit of a reality slap tells us that, no, the guy doing this is just bad at his job. “I wish it had been delivered less awkwardly than in one big conversational block.” Similarly, there’s a bit of abruptness where, in the next bit, Miller gets drunk at a bar and drunkenly rants to the bartender about Julie. While his obsession with Julie has mentioned, if suddenly, it feels a bit too sudden for him to go to drunkenly ranting about her to his friend Hasini. TV Adaptation Almost started talking about Series Miller here, but I think that’ll be the next Miller chapter.
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Apr 2, 2020 09:18
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Chapter Seventeen – Holden Back with Holden on the Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Seventeen posted:Amos solved this by saying, “I’m hungry as a loving bear,” and then sitting down with a thump. “Somebody pass me that pepper, wouldja?” Anyway, the crew gorges. Holden has a moment where he’s quite attracted to Naomi. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Seventeen posted:Naomi gave Holden a sleepy look through half-lidded eyes that was suddenly sexy as hell. Holden asks the crew about the ship. TL;DR: they all love it. The Tachi is very obviously a ‘hero ship’ in the vein of Babylon 5’s White Star or Deep Space Nine’s Defiant. It’s small and fast, packs a punch, and is wickedly advanced. Omi thinks it feels a little bit “too clean, crisp, shiny and awesome.” Previously, we’ve talked about how it might’ve been interesting if Holden and his crew didn’t get a flashy military starship and had to make do with something less cutting-edge. Omi has said in the past that it feels a little bit disappointing how LW sets up this ‘space trucker’ sort of vibe where space sucks and travel is dangerous and so on… and then immediately give the protagonists a high-tech warship. See, on one hand, the TV adaptation is sort of like a low-key rewrite. 'How would we have done the same story if we knew it was told over nine novels from the start?' But I wonder what the Expanse would look like if the Corey boys got to go all the way back to the conceptual stage, knowing that they had nine books to tell their story in. Would the crew have gotten the Rocinante so quickly? Would there have been more time spent on making the crew a coherent team? Would they have stepped a bit further away from the PbP outline? I know I've mentioned that a few times without really getting into it, but that's something we'll dive into in Chapter 19. After the meal, Holden wanders the ship. He goes into every room and touches everything and claims a cabin and so on. It’s a nice little bit. Then, he goes off to find Naomi, who is working on swapping out the transponder (instructions provided by Fred) with the new name (picked by Holden.) Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Seventeen posted:Holden punched the comm system on the wall. “Well, crew, welcome aboard the gas freighter Rocinante.” Tycho Station is their Belt headquarters and is the largest mobile construction platform in the system. Presently, they’re working on a ship that’s even bigger than the station: the Nauvoo. A big Mormon generation ship. The crew talks about it a little. Amos gets a bunch of lines that don’t sound like Amos. The Rocinante docks at Tycho. Holden and the crew suit up and pack weapons. Someone is waiting for them on the other side of the airlock. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Seventeen posted:An older, dark-skinned man with a heavy build waited for them on the other side. As they came in, he smiled. Omi says: “Honestly I’m struggling to find more to say about this chapter. It’s fine, in fact it’s much better than the last two Holden chapters, but it’s mostly just their wandering around the ship, playing with all their new toys and biding time until they get to the station. It’s necessary setup since the ship will shortly become their new semi-permanent home, but I almost wish this had opened with their arriving at Tycho Station.” TV Adaptation Summing up at the end of Chapter 21.
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Apr 3, 2020 00:10
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Chapter Eighteen - MillerLeviathan Wakes, Chapter Eighteen posted:The death of the Donnager hit Ceres like a hammer striking a gong… …It would have scared Miller more if he’d been sober. But to me, something felt off. I figured the news of the Donnager had already hit Ceres. The previous Miller chapter opened with it mentioning that he was watching the feed ‘with the rest of the station.’ I figured that was for Ceres as a whole, but maybe it was Star Helix only? Either way, everyone in Ceres is soaking up the news about the Donnager. Miller’s too drunk to care much: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Eighteen posted:The beautiful thing about losing your illusions, he thought, was that you got to stop pretending. All the years he’d told himself that he was respected, that he was good at his job, that all his sacrifices had been made for a reason fell away and left him with the clear, unmuddied knowledge that he was a functional alcoholic who had pared away everything good in his own life to make room for anesthetic. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Eighteen posted:He dropped the bourbon from the bedside table into the recycler without finishing it, just to prove to himself that he still could. He goes to see Muss, but she basically has all the work handled. Willing to live up to everyone’s expectations of him as a lovely cop, Miller sits at his desk and leaps down the Donnager rabbit hole. The battleship is gone but surely there had to be a ship that escaped, Miller figures. But if it had, it would’ve been a media darling. Unless it was covered up. But then, where had the ship gone? There’re ten ports some surviving ship could’ve gone to and twenty-eight thousand ships between them. Miller winnows away any Martian facilities, then figures the ship would have an Epstein drive, and couldn’t have filed a flight plan before the Donnager was destroyed. He uses some old cases to petition for the data from various places around the system: Eros, Ganymede, Pallas, etc. I’m with Omi on that the section is both interesting and neat and kind of poorly-handled. It feels like there’s a bit too much worldbuilding between Miller’s thoughts and deductions and so on. A call for Muss comes in, as does a warrant for the arrest of a rapist. Omi wonders: “Star Helix is a private security company, not a police department, but I always had this vague notion that Miller was a homicide guy, so it’s weird to suddenly see 90% of his day revolve around rape.” So, then Miller goes off and arrests a guy. To be quite honest, I’m not really sure why this bit was here. I feel like you could just go from ‘Miller looks for logs and waits’ to how this bit of the chapter ends: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Eighteen posted:Two hours later, Miller finished the last of the paperwork and sent Dowd off to the cells. Later, the Star Helix people are all gathered in the precinct house. Shaddid briefs them. Mars has asked the UN to pull out of Ceres, and the UN has obliged them. Shaddid stresses that it isn’t a coup - Earth is pulling out, they’re not being pushed. For the time being, Ceres is forming a provisional government assembled out of local business owners and union members. Star Helix will remain the law. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Eighteen posted:”You will act professionally and within the scope of standard practice.” I suppose it can be both, but I share the slight confusion. Even reading this again, I have to keep reminding myself that Shaddid is not an Earther. And I suppose Star Helix can be closer to ‘ideal’ space cops than how we think of modern private security contractors and such, but still… Anyway. Miller wonders, like, who’s paying Star Helix? What laws are they enforcing? And just why is Earth walking away from the biggest port in the Belt? Muss, on the other hand, quite literally immediately walks out there to go and murder that person she talked about wanting to murder a few chapters back. Omi calls it “muddled.” I wonder how much of it arises from the sort of bait-and-switch that these initial Miller chapters are built upon. That is, that Miller’s perspective on events isn’t very reliable. You think Miller is a cool neo-noir cop guy, but he’s just an old joke of an alcoholic. Miller thinks he’s a space cop, but Star Helix is really just corporate mercenaries with badges. Miller thinks he is enforcing space law, but the only law is the rule of Star Helix's armory. Or maybe it’s just a story where you’re not supposed to think too hard about it. Anyways, Miller figures that the OPA will step in now that the Earth is abandoning Ceres. With everything we’ve seen with Shaddid and Dawes, it seems pretty likely. He wonders if someone on Earth - someone rich and powerful, with enough of both to shift the United Nations itself - doesn’t want a negotiated peace. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Eighteen posted:”What am I looking at, Julie?” he said to the empty air. Personally, even when reading Leviathan Wakes the first time, they struck me as the Corey boys leaning on Battlestar Galactica’s Head Six character. I was not surprised when they cut it from the adaptation. As is, it makes Miller feel like he’s about two seconds from losing his mind. Maybe that’s the point. The next morning, Shaddid hauls Miller into her office and fires him. If that feels abrupt, it’s because it’s about that abrupt in the text. It’s supposed to come as a surprise to both Miller and the reader, I think. But that means it feels like we haven’t really seen the seeds planted. Omi says: “As far as we know Miller hasn’t been screwing up more lately, he’s just up to old tricks: a sad, underperforming drinky cop man. I think he and Shaddid needed more friction before this, and we needed to have seen him screw up more frequently on screen. As-is this reads more like a power play by Dawes and/or the author, and I suspect it’s only shoehorned in here to help get Miller where the plot needs him next.” I figure it is something of a power play by Dawes (but doesn’t he also just call Miller a joke? Hmm…) Even so, Dawes has barely factored into the novel and isn't nearly as memorable as his TV adaptation. Maybe it is just as simple as what Shaddid says - that she doesn’t trust him. I feel like you can read it as the OPA being worried that Miller, like, might suddenly become a good cop again and/or let his Julie fixation screw everything up for them. But then, why just fire him? Why not shoot him in the head? Miller’s been worried about that possibility as far back as the first chapter, and we’ve seen the OPA do as much. Omi had some thoughts on Dawes’ presence in these last few chapters: "Since this is the last of Star Helix we’ll see for a while, I also want to highlight how awkward Dawes’ presence has been in the last few chapters. We know that the OPA is trying to move in on cop town from a single throwaway line, and we know or will learn later that Dawes is a pretty heavy hitter… but his near-constant presence in Shaddid’s office doesn’t really make sense given that he’s a) a civilian, and b) essentially a direct competitor for the Star Helix contract. So what gives? It feels like he’s the tip of a plotline that never fully emerged." More on that in a second. TV Adaptation God, where to begin. I said we’d talk about the differences between book Miller and series Miller and his whole plot line and, well, here we are. Compared to the Holden stuff, it has some substantial changes. So, after the stuff with Diogo and the water bandits (back in Chapter 4’s TV section), Miller finds out that Julie Mao left Ceres aboard the Scopuli. He tracks down Dawes to ask him about Julie, but Dawes basically denies all involvement. Miller pokes around some more and finds out that Julie dated a guy named Bizi Betiko, who is dead in the Ceres morgue. Only he isn’t, because Miller visits a slingshotting den and finds out that Betiko is dying right there on screen. Muss helps him figure out that the guy in the morgue has what amounts to a space fake ID and that he was a data broker carrying government documents. As an aside, this is about where Havelock gets impaled to the wall. The government documents relate to a ship called the Anubis. Miller figures out that the Anubis was travelling from Phoebe to Eros and the Scopuli matched its flight plan - the Scopuli was going to intercept it. And, after that, the system starts going to hell. What’s on the Anubis? That’s what Miller wants to find out. Dawes pays Miller a visit. He has the guy who impaled Havelock in custody and is willing to give him up to Miller, providing Miller keeps him updated on the Julie investigation. Dawes also tells Miller that the goal is a Ceres run by Belters for Belters. While Miller is continuing the Julie investigation, and finding a hidden data cube, Dawes has him abducted. Since he won't drop the case, Miller is about to be murdered by Dawes' goons when Muss saves him. The data cube Miller has contains a transmission from Protogen's man Dresden, saying they found something on Phoebe and they need someone to come and extract it so they can move on to 'the next phase.' Then, Miller takes everything to Shaddid. The Expanse, Episode 106 Rock Bottom posted:MILLER enters Shaddid's office. He's still wearing the bruises and injuries from his beating at the hands of Dawes's goons. As you can see there, Shaddid is far more obviously on the OPA payroll. Miller gets fired, but it’s less of a ‘because you’re a drunk’ and more of a ‘because you got too close to the truth.’ I sound like a broken record, but I think the TV series handles the Miller plotline a lot better than the novel. There’s a bit more intrigue, a bit more things happening, a bit less ‘daily life on Ceres’ that isn’t really relevant, and, above all else, more tightly related to the Holden stuff by bringing in Phoebe and such more openly. Everything is a bit clearer. Shaddid is an OPA agent within Star Helix's command structure. She gets asked by her superiors to find Mao, but her true superior - Dawes - doesn't want it handled by the cops. So, Shaddid gives it to Miller, who she assumes will either a. never solve it or b. be satisfied with finding that Julie's not on Ceres, because he's kind of a bribe-taking drunkard. Meanwhile, Miller gets too close to the truth and Dawes tries to have him killed. Miller takes his evidence to Shaddid, who promptly reveals her true colors and strips Miller of everything he has done. We all get this in the novel, I think, but it's scattered. As I've said, Miller feels like more of a gently caress-up in the novel. Dawes obviously has some connection to Shaddid but it doesn't feel developed. Shaddid gives me the persistent feeling of an Earther woman trying to do her best in a bad situation and not someone who was knowingly conspiring with the OPA to take control of Ceres. Miller reflects that the OPA is moving in on the cops. Miller wonders where Shaddid's loyalties lie. But he never really moves beyond those brief thoughts, so, all of these things feel like fragments of a deeper plot that never really comes together as well as it should. Does any of this constitute a significant change in Miller’s character? I’ll leave that for you to decide... Another significant change is that Muss goes from being a kinda crazy space cop who loves killing people to someone who has never killed anyone before until she saved Miller's life. Also, her and Miller may've been a romantic thing in the past. Coreyisms The Belter Shrug And The Origin Thereof LW: 2.5 Big Meaty Amos LW: 1 Into the Recycler LW: 3 Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 01:52 on Apr 4, 2020 |
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Apr 4, 2020 01:34
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Chapter Nineteen – HoldenLeviathan Wakes, Chapter Nineteen posted:Fred stood alone, hand outstretched, a warm and open smile on his broad face. Holden shakes his hand and says: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Nineteen posted:“I’m sorry, but you have no idea how pleasant this is,” Holden said. “This is literally the first time in over a month that I’ve gotten off a ship without it blowing up behind me.” Holden wonders if they’re really safe here. Fred says they are, because... Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Nineteen posted:“We make campaign contributions to Earth and Mars politicians in amounts that would make a Hilton blush.” "The call-out to a real business is weird and jarring in a moment when I should be engaged and eagerly learning about a new shady character and where the survivors of the Canterbury will go next." Fred and Holden chat and then go for a bit of a walk. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Nineteen posted:The ride was short but halfway through, gravity reappeared, shifting in a disoriented swoop. Even ‘gravity returned’ feels like it’d make more sense. As they follow Fred through Tycho Station, Holden notes the usage of faux wood: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Nineteen posted:Of all his crew, Holden was almost certainly the only one who had grown up in a house with real wooden furniture and fixtures. Amos had grown up in Baltimore. They hadn’t seen a tree there in more than a century. There’s a whole bit where the author - I mean, Fred - gives us some worldbuilding notes about Tycho Station’s history. But Holden’s not convinced that Fred’s doing this out of altruism: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Nineteen posted:“I just don’t live in a universe where Daddy Warbucks swoops in and makes everything okay out of the goodness of his heart.” Then, Fred gives Holden and his crew two luxury suites to stay in. Omi considers this chapter a bit weird and jarring compared to the previous Holden ones, and the surprise luxury digs are a part of it. “They’ve been greasy space truckers in a smelly, gritty survival situation for the entire story, and then suddenly they own an awesome, brand-new spaceship, and then the very next chapter they also have sweet digs on a super-expensive OPA station for cool guys. It’s all a bit much.” Combine that with the pop culture references, and that one line of Holden’s that doesn’t sound like it fits him, this whole chapter feels like it’s hewing very closely to Leviathan Wakes’ original incarnation - as an online roleplaying game. If you’re unaware, the genesis for The Expanse was a set of worldbuilding documents for an MMO. When that didn’t pan out, it was turned into a play-by-post roleplaying game, similar to the ones you might find in Something Awful’s own Traditional Games forum. People create a character and a gamesmaster or storyteller guides them through the world, dice may be involved to overcome challenges, etc. Known simply as ‘2350’, this PbP RP game would become the basis for Leviathan Wakes. Franck ran a private forum where a group of people essentially played through the first half of what would become the first novel in the book series. The game was summed up by Franck as thus: “a crew of a water hauler is caught in the midst of an interplanetary war when they stumble upon an alien protomolecule on the asteroid Eros.” Pretty much exactly what we get, right? In a sense, the novels all grew out of this game (Characters, locations, ships, events, etc.), but none more directly than Leviathan Wakes. Even the split story of Holden and Miller came out of it (Miller was Abraham’s character and he joined after the game had already begun.) The crew of the Roci - Holden, Naomi, Amos, and Alex - are absolutely mentioned as growing out from people’s characters. Shed’s sudden death wasn’t so much a storytelling decision as it was accounting for his player suddenly dropping out of the game, for example. I often wonder how many other elements of LW’s story come directly from the game. According to the Corey guys Leviathan Wakes is about the first half of the game. But one person claiming to be a player in the game (who created Naomi Nagata) claims it is more like two thirds. Anyway, in LW, the central cast certainly feel like roleplaying characters. As I’ve mentioned, they all have a distinct niche and clear role on the ship and they’re all pretty much one-dimensional. You can practically envision their character sheets: Holden is the charismatic leader (Mal), Naomi is the intelligent engineer (Kaylee), Amos is the strong muscle/comedy relief (Jayne), and Alex is the agile pilot (Wash). Shed is/was the medic (Simon.) The PbP game had, apparently, up to eight members of the Roci crew, but the core four are basically as-is. According to that aforementioned player, Firefly references were pretty common during the game. As someone who has played no small share of PbP games in my time, the fingerprints are everywhere. Why is there no conflict between Holden’s crew? Because they’re all members of the same ‘party’ and everyone hates inter-party conflict. Why do you get Fred Johnson calling them up out of the blue? Because he’s basically a quest giving NPC and that’s what they do. Why is the Roci such a badass ship and why do they get it so easily? Because the party has to have a cool ship. Why is Fred so accommodating? Because Tycho Station is just the base of operations/hub to tie various planned sessions together, etc. I don’t want to get too much into supposition, but a reason why Ceres might feel so divorced from the rest of the story could be because it would’ve been, basically, an invention for Abraham’s role in the game and therefore ceased to matter or have any real relevance once Miller left it behind. It might also be why the Miller section of the TV series is much more altered than Holden’s stuff is. A lot of Miller's 'detective work' would've just been dice rolls. That’s not to say that this makes Leviathan Wakes a bad story - it doesn’t. You can peruse the endless amount of Kindle fantasy self-pub books to find what it looks like when someone adapts their DnD campaign to a novel format and does it badly. The core beats of LW’s story are good, the characters are fun enough, the world is interesting. But I think it’s telling that the TV adaptation does virtually everything better. The Corey boys have said the TV adaptation allowed them to do the story with the benefit of hindsight, but I think it also allowed them to ditch the last vestiges of the play by post outline - or, at least, give it a thorough adjustment to make it more of a, well, actual story. All in all, my personal opinion is that Leviathan Wakes is one half novelized roleplaying game transcript and one half novel built on that first half. And, to be completely frank, I’d say the fact that it has such a simple roleplaying game esque setup and hook is why it grabbed a lot of people. Anyway, Fred shows off these spacious suites and it passes by without much comment. I feel it could’ve been a nice opportunity to tell us a bit about, like, what it means for Tycho Station to have these opulent guest suites. Ceres was really cramped and Earth doesn’t seem much better if Baltimore hasn’t seen a tree in over a century. But all we get from Holden is: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Nineteen posted:”It’s all right,” Holden said defensively. “My ship has a really nice coffeemaker.” ...just like a PbP character. Anyway, beyond his party role ‘Captain/face’ and his overall personality ‘idealistic idiot’, ‘likes coffee’ is really the only real trait Holden gets in this novel. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Nineteen posted:“Don’t worry, Boss, you can bunk with me,” Amos said with a wink at Naomi. She asks Fred what’s up, and he lays it all out. In summary, the Belt cannot take on Mars. Even if they armed every single ship in the Belt, they’d probably only kill a few Martian ships and, even then, only through suicide runs. But there’s something the Belt has that no one else does--rocks. And rocks are the best weapon you can get in space, especially when your enemies live on a planet. Fred says: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Nineteen posted:”Einstein was right. We will be fighting the next war with rocks. But the Belt has rocks that will turn the surface of Mars into a molten sea.” It’s very game-y. Omi says: “It feels like Fred is going too far in taking them into his confidence when all he really needs is some videotaped depositions with Holden and company. Everything they’ve said and done should give him reason to believe that they’re unreliable idealists with a tendency to go off half-cocked, which is the last group of people you’d ever give sensitive information or tasks to. It also feels a bit weird that the smart, charismatic politician sits the people he’s using down and tells them exactly what his plans to use them are.” Later, Holden and Naomi are singing karaoke--well, Naomi is. The two flirt a bit. Alex is off playing darts and Amos is… off with an expensive hooker, whom he told everything is fine because he’s on Fred Johnson’s account. “Amos will be murdered by space hookers,” Naomi jokes, “but at least he’ll die the way he lived.” I really don’t want to keep banging this ‘doesn’t feel like Amos’ drum, but… Sure, you can argue this doesn’t strictly contradict any element of Amos’ later characterization (he’s just visiting the brothel and perhaps sleeping there, as I think Book 5 or 6 claims he does) but it doesn’t feel neat. Even the second book, Caliban’s War, will point out that Naomi knows all about Amos’ past. Okay, sure, she’s drunk… but this still doesn’t feel like something she’d joke about. To me, it’d be a tad more intriguing if Holden joked about it and Naomi shot the suggestion down. But I really do think the characters existed as these really basic sketches/archetypes, only really acquiring more depth as the novels go on, and only really happening in Book 5. Amos is actually an exception to this, because we learn a lot about him in the next book. But even reading Caliban’s War the first time, I found myself thinking that it didn’t really mesh neatly with Leviathan Wakes. Anyway, Naomi goes back to singing, and Holden wanders out. But not after a bit of a weird moment where he thinks about taking advantage of drunken Naomi, reflects that he would - but he’d feel bad about it. I’m not sure I buy Holden doing that and I’m not sure I can buy it as, like, a moment of Holden’s insecurity creeping in either. We’ll move on. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Nineteen posted:He gave a little wave, then headed out the door with only ghosts — Ade, Captain McDowell, Gomez and Kelly and Shed — to keep him company. Holden tries to go to sleep in his fancy suite, fails. He wanders around Tycho Station but feels like a weird tourist. He ends up going back to the Rocinante to get some sleep, which is a nice little touch. As he goes to sleep, Holden weighs up his thoughts that Fred was right, that a trial was a good idea, against his desire to kill the people responsible, for them to be just as terrified as Ade was before she died. Omi wonders something: “This is really nitpicky, but even the first time I read LW it weirded me out that Holden found his ship being completely silent to be peaceful and relaxing. I talked to a guy who used to serve on a submarine, which for all intents and purposes is just a water spaceship, and he said that you really quickly got in tune with the sounds and behaviors of all shipboard equipment, especially the noise of the air circulation system. It got to the point where the noise was reassuring, and things getting quiet would take him from deep sleep to panic-induced adrenaline reaction in moments, because a silent boat is a boat whose essential systems are not functioning.” Which isn’t exactly an uncommon trope in science fiction. In Mass Effect 1, Tali claims she can’t sleep on the advanced hero ship Normandy because it’s so quiet and it makes her think the ship is breaking down. In Red Dwarf (and probably a few other series), there’s an exchange that is basically: “Do you hear that?” “No, I don’t hear anything.” “That’s the point: you don’t hear anything. The engines are offline.” I feel like the Canterbury wouldn’t have been a very quiet ship, either. I mean, it was an aging ice hauler for dead-enders and tragics. None of this is major, really, but just thoughts that come to me. TV Adaptation The differences are best summed up at the end of Chapter 21.  Chad Coleman as Fred Johnson
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Apr 5, 2020 00:38
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Chapter Twenty - Miller I know, I know, I don’t want to keep mentioning this but it’s really interesting how it feels like there’s a better opening sentence for each Miller chapter than the one we get, and it’s usually 2-3 paragraphs after the opening line. In this case, it’s skipping the bit where Miller is sitting in a cafe and drinking a coffee (Omi wonders if he’ll finish it or throw it away half-full) and reflecting that even Belter kids think the air can’t even hiss away into nothing. Omi feels like it’s a little strange for Miller to think that, because we’ve been told - a few times, I think - that the very first thing that is drilled into a Belter is that environmental systems are king. Some of it, I think, is supposed to be the old man cynicism of Joe Miller, 'grr Belter kids these days,' but still... Anyway, here’s the line: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty posted:Five days had passed since Star Helix pulled its contract. The governor of Ceres was gone, smuggled out on a transport before the news had gone wide. So, five days since Earth pulled out of Ceres. The governor of Ceres is gone. The OPA has moved in on the asteroid and no one has pushed back. Miller spent the first day drunk out of his mind, before because it felt safe than any real desire to. By day two, Miller was over the hangover. By day three, he was actually bored. While Star Helix - or what was Star Helix - is still handling the law, Miller’s got the dubious benefit of being on the sidelines. By day four, his docking requests have come through. About a thousand entries, all in all. Miller has been going through them at about one ship every fifteen minutes. I’m not sure how necessary it is that we kind of follow Miller as he goes through the ships. I guess it enhances that ‘space detective’ feel and puts us in his shoes, but it is just basically like ‘Miller checked the [ship name]. [Worldbuilding details.] Miller deleted the entry.’ There’s a ship listed to the MYOFB Corporation, though, and that has to be an acronym for Mind Your Own loving Business, right? Miller gets a phone call from Havelock, who has some fun news. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty posted:"I’ve signed on with Protogen security, big-company private army bullshit. But the pay is worth putting up with their delusions of grandeur. The contract’s supposed to be on Ganymede, but with the crap going on right now, who knows how it’ll really play out? Turns out Protogen’s got a training base in the Belt. I’d never heard about it, but it’s supposed to be quite the gymnasium. I know they’re hiring on, and I’d be happy to put in a word for you. Just let me know, and I’ll get you together with the induction recruiter, get you off that damned rock.”
There’s a mention made of a Pinkwater PMC, that Omi found entertaining. “I assume it’s supposed to be a merger between the Pinkerton detective agency and Blackwater PMC, although Blackwater had already renamed itself multiple times before LW was published. (Presumably nobody would’ve recognized the reference if it was PinkerXe or PinkAcademi.)” From there, Miller wonders about getting another job - if it’s even possible for an old man like him. Omi and I find it strange that, while Miller contemplates working as a shady bouncer or black marketeer, he doesn’t give any thought to what Havelock made sound as a pretty awesome job. “I don’t think Miller’s pride would keep him from taking it,” Omi says, “and he’s definitely not averse to violence for money, so what gives?” My immediate thought is that it’s just that the authors know that Protogen are the bad guys and, so, can’t put Miller in with them. But wouldn’t that have been interesting? Like, if Miller had signed on with Protogen and ended up on Eros that way? Maybe even been a part of the anti-Holden kill squad? Miller checks another ship, and then lands on the Rocinante. It’s a gas hauler, apparently. Travelling from Tycho to Pallas. But, wait. Miller knows that Tycho and Pallas are both industries that import gas, so, what is a hauler doing just travelling between two places that consume gas? And the name… Miller runs that. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty posted:He did a definition search on Rocinante. Literally meaning “no longer a workhorse,” its first entry was as the name of Don Quixote’s horse. Anyway, he calls Havelock back and says he might take the job but needs to work some stuff out first. He needs Havelock to pass him any information on the Rocinante. Nearby, something blows up. Gunshots ring out. It’s a riot, but Miller figures the police can take care of it. Which is a pretty good line to end the chapter on but it kind of keeps going. Miller goes home. Riots continue to break out. Ceres goes into curfew lockdown. The Solar system is still going to poo poo: a bunch of OPA types seized a facility on Triton and have been using it to broadcast the location of every Martian ship and facility in the system; Earth continues drawing everything it can back towards Earth and then, preferably, to the planet itself. And all Miller wants to do is find Holden so he could track down what happened to Julie. So, Miller packs up his little home, and all the while it’s like he’s going mad - he’s talking to Julie, imagining her. He has three pictures of her. He imagines sitting with her and watching the stars. It’s… a little weird, to say the least, and I can see why they cut it from the TV series. When we read this are we supposed to think 'aww, Miller' or 'eww, Miller?' I can't recall what I thought when I first read it. Miller packs everything up into a bag. He says goodbye to Muss who, to his surprise, hugs him. Then Havelock calls him and tells him that the Rocinante is heading to Eros. So, Miller heads to Eros. Omi wonders if it might’ve been neater if Miller had found some connection between Julie and Eros, instead of Holden and Eros. It’s a bit of a transitory chapter. I feel this is the weakest section of LW, where the plot is really trying to get Miller and Holden together. Oh, and if you've wondering if you've missed something about the Rocinante becoming a gas hauler, don't worry. Our timelines are a little bit out of sync again, I'm afraid. Next chapter will have Holden come up with the idea. Flight path couldn't have been logged before that happened. TV Adaptation In the adaptation, it’s a different character - Sematimba - who calls Miller and passes on the information that leads him to Eros, not Havelock. And funnily enough, it’s not information on the Roci, but information on a shuttle from the Anubis. So, it’s a Julie thing, not a Holden thing. So, it's more like the plotlines converging at the same place and less like Miller is trying to catch up to Holden. Miller is definitely a shadier cop in the TV series. He takes Julie’s necklace from her apartment and uses his many bribes to cash in passage to Eros. Muss tries to come to Eros with him, but Miller refuses her, saying he has to do it alone. Something to note here is that Muss and Miller are, like, former lovers or something like that. At the very least, they’re attracted to each other. It's a very different dynamic.
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Apr 6, 2020 09:26
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Chapter Twenty-One – Holden The chapter opens with Holden reflecting about ship space in space ships. Everythings cramped, no one can be claustrophobic, etc. etc. and getting off at a space station can lead to a professional sailor being giddy enough to, well, get off. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-One posted:Like all professional sailors, Holden had sometimes ended long flights by drinking himself into a stupor. More than once he’d wandered into a brothel and left only when they threw him out with an emptied account, a sore groin, and a prostate as dry as the Sahara desert. Omi says: “Holy poo poo. TMI, dude.” We both wonder, thought, if Holden is really a ‘booze and whores’ kinda guy. Omi never got the impression and I can’t say I ever have, either. Like, what we saw with Ade is that he’s basically a tragic romantic. Doesn’t Naomi later on mention that Holden was always in a semi-serious relationship with someone on the Cant? Okay, maybe it meant during his navy days, but it just doesn’t feel like it matches the mental image we have of Holden, either in the text as a first-time reader or on a second readthrough. It’s kind of up there with Holden’s thoughts about Naomi in the previous chapter. They’re like character beats that got thrown in and then weren’t really examined. I’m just going to say that I’ve never watched much Firefly. I think I’ve seen two episodes and the movie. Does Mal visit brothels? Because when I first read Leviathan Wakes, even though I read it third, I got the distinct impression that the characters may’ve been based on or inspired by (or existing in that nebulous creative grey area) of the Firefly cast. I know I've mentioned it, and the player who created Naomi said that comparisons were made during the game itself. Case in point: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-One posted:So when Amos staggered into his room after three days on station, Holden knew exactly what the big mechanic felt like. It’s a minor thing, but a part of my mind lights up when we have Holden, Amos, and Alex on the catch and Naomi is the one - quite literally - putting food on the table. Oh, it’s lampshaded as ‘her turn’ to get the food, but it’s just… Y’know. Then it’s kind of like Holden remembers there’s a story that needs to go on. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-One posted:Holden felt a sudden and irrational annoyance at his crew for being so comfortable. One of the things I really like about books is being able to compare what a character says and does with what they’re thinking. It’s why I compliment the neo-noir cynicism in Miller’s stuff but am kinda ‘eh’ on how Holden’s chapters are presented. Whenever a character says something like this, I like going back and seeing if it holds up. I’m not sure Holden is being accurate. If I had to sum up how he was feeling when he arrived and spoke to Fred, it would be relief. Then a bit of sadness or melancholy when he’s out with Naomi. Then he has a brief bit of daydreaming about vengeance before he goes to sleep. So, it’s a little bit weird, but I think it’s easily enough read as Holden just suddenly getting on his ‘everyone but me is an idiot’ high horse about things. Holden is a fine character, but I’ve never really been sure if the audience is supposed to be on his side or not, especially in the early novels. The writers have said that he’s supposed to be a bit of a dick and not right all the time, and I think that comes across much better in the TV series, but in the novels? Alex points out that they have no idea where the stealth ship is and have nowhere to find it. Holden claims that not doing anything about it is driving him nuts, but he seemed pretty content up until, oh, let’s say twenty seconds ago. Naomi says they deserve some time to recuperate, but doesn’t point out that Holden was okay with everything until he got a bee in his bonnet about it. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-One posted:“Besides, Fred said we’ll get those bastards at the trial,” Amos said. Omi says: “It’s a bit weird to me that Holden’s suddenly obsessed with getting away from booze and whores and charging back down the dragon’s maw. He was pretty miffed about losing the Canterbury when it happened, but he’s been so chill during the survival and Donnager bits that I honestly completely forgot he wanted to visit violent revenge on some science guys.” And that’s kind of the problem. Even though Holden had his little ‘boy, I can’t wait for Alex to ice those dudes with his torpedoes’ moment, it came across distantly. Like an academic thought. We didn’t get much of a sense for the burning rage Holden supposedly felt about it. Omi says: “The weird way that Fred has treated the crew like quasi-celebrities seems wildly disproportionate with the value they bring him. I suspect this is a direct consequence of the book’s origin as a tabletop game: Fred and Tycho Station are essentially just a major campaign hub: go out and do a mission, then come back and have the cool OPA guy shower you with rewards and tell you what rad heroes you all are.” But I think this links to something Holden says in this chapter: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-One posted:“Besides, this can be a prison. It’s a nice one, but as long as Fred controls the purse strings, he owns us. Make no mistake.” Holden comes up with a plan: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-One posted:“I’m thinking we look for work,” he said. “We’ve got a good ship. More importantly, we have a sneaky ship. It’s fast. We can run without a transponder if we need to. Lots of people will need things moved from place to place with a war on. Gives us something to do while we wait for Fred’s trial, and a way to put money in our pockets so we can get off the dole. And, as we fly from place to place, we can keep our ears and eyes open. Never know what we’ll find. And seriously, how long can you three stand to be station rats?” Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-One posted:There was a moment’s silence. The crew wants a bit more time but otherwise agrees to his plan. Holden cheers up, now that they have something to do. Amos and Alex go off to gamble. Naomi and Holden talk a bit - Fred’s handling Kelly’s body and Naomi wants to give the encrypted data cube she found to Fred, too. It’s the info Captain Yao was trying to get off the ship. From there, Naomi basically says Jim’s their CO and they’ll follow him everywhere. Omi wonders: “Naomi (and the rest of the crew) wanting Holden to be captain feels weird, given that the majority of their post-Scopuli adventure involved manipulating, threatening, and occasionally physically restraining Holden to keep him from getting them all killed. Why would you want to put that guy in charge again?” Holden goes to visit Fred’s office. We get told about how fancy it is. Coming off the chapter opening about limited space and the stuff we’ve seen so far, I wonder what we’re supposed to think about Fred’s extravagance. Real wood, in a place like Tycho Station? I think I would’ve liked to know what Holden - a military man working on a blue collar ship - thought about all of Fred’s wealth and space. Fred and Holden talk about the Mars/Belt conflict. It’s stuff we already know. The Belt tries stuff that’s pretty ineffective, but sometimes it kills some Martians, and Mars is winding up to smash the Belt to bits. Fred sent for Holden because he wants to borrow the Roci. He needs ‘someone picked’ up from Eros and Holden’s ship is the only one that can do it. It leads to exchange that reads a bit like this: FRED: I need your ship for a job. HOLDEN: [Persuasion] No. Only if you tell me all of your plans - no more secrets. (HOLDEN checks Persuasion… 17+5! Success!) FRED: Okay, here’s everything on the table. It’s impossible to know whether the exchange is pulled from the PbP transcript or if it’s just how it came out when they wrote it. I might just be jumping at shadows, in a sense. But my general feel of LW is that it’s basically what the players did, if only so they could get some nostalgic enjoyment out of it, in a sense. Anyway, Fred says he needs someone to go to Eros and retrieve a man named Lionel Polanski and then bring him back to Tycho. Okay, sure. But Lionel Polanski doesn’t exist. He’s just some fake identity in the Tycho Database, and he’s the listed owner of a ship. A ship called the Scopuli. So, the non-existent owner of a derelict ship checked into a hotel on Eros. Fred takes this to mean, quite reasonably, that someone who is intimately familiar with OPA operations needs their help. Holden says they can leave in an hour. Fred’s not sure about that - he wants the ship, not the crew. Holden will throw in video depositions and the Martian data cube. He even comes up with a plan to convert the Roci into a q-ship gas freighter. Fred okays it. Then he says he’ll even hire them on as indie contractors, keeping them on retainer until peace negotiations start. Next stop Eros. Omi raises a good point that I had never considered: “This is nitpicking, but I have a bit of a problem with the fact that Fred was okay sending Holden on his top-secret mission. Holden is a dramatically famous local celebrity in the Belt, everyone in the solar system knows that this dude causes problems. Also, that he’s supposed to be dead. His face is front and center on the distress call that became one of the sparks that ignited the powderkeg… so why would you send that guy to pick up your super-secret OPA operative that nobody knows about?” My mind went to Caliban’s War, where Holden goes undercover and accomplishes this by… growing a lovely beard that every single charatcer of note sees through immediately. TV Adaptation In the TV series, the stuff with Fred all plays out differently - what a surprise. Fred and Holden meet with a lot more tension. Fred had no idea that Holden is on-board the Tachi/Rocinate, and realizes he’s now harboring the “luckiest dipshit in the Solar system.” Holden doesn’t trust him. Like, they have guns aimed on Fred. Fred offers to dispose of the Tachi for them, because if Mars traces them here and sees a Martian warship docked out there, then everything’s screwed. Holden tries to bluff Fred with a supposed platoon of Martian marines, but Fred sees right through it. The discussion between Holden and Fred is way less of the latter just kind of explaining his whole plan. Fred even tries to take control of the Rocinante, but is thwarted by Alex and Naomi. Fred volunteers the stuff about Lionel Polanski and says he needs the Rocinante because of the danger of war. He also says that he was the one who commissioned the Scopuli on the mission. Fred also doesn't send them to Eros immediately, but rather mentions 'a set of coordinates.' Things go a bit differently from here on in. Another big difference is that Holden basically goes ‘If you take the Roci, I’m going - and you can keep the other three here as witnesses.’ The others make it clear that Fred is shifty and Holden’s being a bit of an idiot by accepting the job and especially if he’s accepting Fred Johnson choice to pick the Roci’s new crew. Like, what if they space him once they’re gone from Tycho? There’s a bit I really like where Holden reveals he’s so hellbent on this because he was the one who logged the distress call, which means he is the one who got the Cant blown up. Amos doesn’t take it well, but Naomi, attempting to ameliorate him, tells him that she knew as well which drives cracks through their intimate friendship.. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Amos wonders. “...You were afraid of me.” There’s a nice bit where Amos and Alex are hanging out in a bar, and I’ve been waiting to hit it because it ties right into my drum of how LW treats the character of Amos versus who he became. So, Amos and Alex are drinking in a bar or brothel or club. It’s a seedy spot, anyway. A male prostitute comes up to Amos and Amos tells him he’s not interested, but then to watch out because that guy who is interested in him has a knife hidden on his left hip. Alex cracks a joke about it, calling Amos the ‘union rep.’ Amos says he grew up in “places like this.” Alex jokes about how Amos must’ve been happier than “a puppy with two peckers” and Amos gives him a flat, vaguely threatening look. Alex apologizes. Amos doesn’t get what he’s apologizing for. Amos goes on to say it’s an honest living, that you can tell a lot about a place by how it treats its people, and that Alex should go and spend some cash. Like, Alex isn’t married. “What makes you say that?” Alex asks. “Like I said,” Amos replies, “I grew up in places like this.” From there, we find out a bit about Alex. Yeah, he was married, now he isn’t. We also get his motivation for coming along - he just loves flying the Roci. I think it’s interesting that, when the writers essentially revisited and revised Leviathan Wakes with the first season of the TV series, Amos was the most heavily affected. The difference is night and day. The only way I can personally account for the difference is that the supporting cast were all different. Like, when they were writing LW, Amos didn’t really have his particular background, Alex wasn’t divorced, and Naomi didn’t have her family. But the novel doesn't really have any moments like 'You were afraid of me' or the aforementioned bit with Amos and Alex, and it really does kind of suffer for it. Maybe the closest moment I can think of is when Miller overhears Holden's confession of love to Naomi. However, what is interesting is that this episode does bring up Naomi's family. At the end of the episode, Naomi asks Fred if he can help her track someone down in exchange for her assistance with the Julie Mao thing. While we never find out who this is, it's always been assumed to be a reference to either her son or former partner. Probably the former. Another small change is that Fred is the one who comes up with the gas freighter disguise plan. He also retrieves the data cube from Lopez’ corpse surreptitiously. Another change, perhaps larger, is that a new character is introduced. His name is Kenzo and he's played by Elias Toufexis, otherwise known as Adam Jensen. There's a whole new subplot going on here, and this post is already pretty long, so a good point to talk about it might be the next Holden chapter, where it can be summed up as a whole. Either way, between Kenzo and Fred sending them to a set of coordinates and not Eros, things are about to diverge.
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Apr 7, 2020 09:53
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Sarern posted:I've seen a few references in posts to Amos as asexual, which wasn't my reading from the books. Can I ask, was this a show thing? In my recollection of the books, there was very little explicit mention of Amos's sex life until Babylon's Ashes, when (spoiler for the intro to Chapter 35 of Babylon's Ashes): From memory, I think it's Book 2 (or 5) where it's mentioned in passing that Amos had himself chemically castrated as a consequence of the trauma of his upbringing. At the same time, it might just be a consequence of my own personality. As an asexual, my own view on my sex drive is essentially those first two paragraphs.
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Apr 7, 2020 22:12
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Sarern posted:Book 2 definitely mentions a vasectomy. Bingo, that's what was rattling around my head, mixed up with the joke that's made about Martians being chemically castrated. And, of course, castration and vasectomy aren't the same thing.
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Apr 7, 2020 22:43
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I appreciate that we have confirmed that Amos 'Beefy' Burton is a canonical sexhaver. I also just want to say also that, wow, in Caliban's War Amos' dialogue feels way more like the Amos we come to know him as. Chapter Twenty-Two – Miller Miller is on his way to Eros. He paid a third of what was left in his bank account for transport on a pretty lovely transport. Unlike a lot of the big exposition blocks that Expanse chapters kick off with, I don’t mind this one. I think it’s nice to get a feel for how transportation works in the universe and how Miller spent his time on the way to Eros. One line really stuck out to me, though: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Two posted:The bar was always open and the drinks were cheap. Not long ago Miller would have found that enticing. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty posted:Miller leaned forward and sipped his coffee. Anyway, Miller is reading his files on Julie. Meanwhile, we get another update on how the Solar system is still going to pieces. The Mars and Belt situation is escalating but everyone is more concerned about Ceres ‘seceding’ from Earth. In particular, Martian pundits and commentators are pissed because they figure Earth has betrayed inner solidarity by letting it happen and also by not handing Ceres and/or the security contracts to Mars if they didn’t want it. Remember what Shaddid said about Earth abandoning Ceres because Mars requested they do so? Assuming that's not a lie, it's kinda funny that Earth went 'Well, okay, bye' and let the OPA move in. Speaking of the OPA (and the wider Belt), their reaction varies: some are happy to see Earth’s influence receding, others are concerned because Ceres is no longer neutral territory. Some Belters even claim that Earth is fomenting the war for their own ends, which is about half true. I wonder about Earth, though. It feels like that, without Ceres, they have very little influence out past Luna. Mention was made in the last Miller chapter, I believe, that they were pulling everything back down the gravity well. It makes me think Earth doesn't have that much 'real estate' out among the Solar system, whereas mention has been made that Mars has all these little bases and ships all over the place. Of all of these events, Miller holds back judgement. He then has a chat with another passenger, a Methodist minister. It’s not a bad talk. Omi says: “Maybe I’m being really oblivious, but I went through Miller’s conversation with the Methodist minister guy several times, and I straight-up don’t see why that section is there, much less why it occupies such a large chunk of the chapter. It’s interesting, but it doesn’t feel like it gives us any information we don’t already have.” I think I see why it’s there. Similar to the line in an early Miller chapter about punches you don’t see coming (something I said is a recurring idea in the novel series), I think the entire exchange is basically summing up a bunch of ideas in the Expanse. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Two posted:“Do people talk about the war?” Miller asked. It's not necessarily bad, but there's a little part of me that feels like a story where the message is 'no matter where we go, we'll still have human issues' is just kind of... flat? Could that idea maybe be interrogated a bit further? But I think this ties more into with some of my criticisms with the later novels more than anything else. I could ramble about how 'eh, we'll always have war, it's basically an insane virus that we're stuck with' doesn't feel honest. Like, war doesn't just spring up out of nowhere. There's all kinds of things that lead to war. Economic concerns, cultural issues, whatever. It's not this malevolent demon that just springs up one day. It's part of why I'm really interested in the new space opera idea they're working on, I feel like it might allow them the opportunity to be a bit more grandiose and imaginative than The Expanse did. And, as an aside, I think the three-book outline of the Expanse had a very different ending in mind than how the series went and that the first four books constitute the strongest arc as a whole. But more on that when we get to it. Anyway, beyond the thematic aspect of it all, I don’t think the exchange tells us anything we don’t already know. We already know, for example, Miller that grew up on Ceres. Later, Miller arrives on Eros. Like I said about the earlier stuff about the transport, I don’t mind all the detail we get on Eros and its history. Given we've just come off one asteroid habitat, we need to know why Eros is different. Basically, Eros was one of the first big Belt locations and it was replaced by places like Ceres. But where Ceres is more of a rich-if-scummy trade port, Eros is an out and out shady gambling den. Miller is there half a day before the Rocinante will arrive. Omi says: “It mainly feels like Franck has some fun ideas about asteroids and industry that he wanted to share.” Basically, Eros is filled with casinos, drug dens, brothels, and fake-fighting rings. I found that last one kind of weird - like, all these other vices exist on Eros, but the blood sports are all faked? Like pro wrestling? Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Two posted:Miller imagined Julie walking with him, her sly smile matching his own as he read the great animated displays. RANDOLPH MAK, HOLDER OF THE BELT FREEFIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP FOR SIX YEARS, AGAINST MARTIAN KIVRIN CARMICHAEL IN A FIGHT TO THE DEATH! I wonder, too, if Miller is deliberately imagining Julie (ie. knowingly indulging his fantasy) or if it’s more of a compulsive/unknowing thing. I feel like the usage of ‘Miller imagined’ implies that it’s a deliberate thing. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Two posted:He’d stopped at a noodle cart, two new yens’ worth of egg noodles in black sauce steaming in their cone, when a hand clapped his shoulder. “For that matter, why isn’t there some kind of universal SpaceBux currency? It’d make trade way, way easier, especially at space stations that had frequent numbers of working-class visitors who couldn’t be expected to keep track of a zillion currencies.” The hand belongs to a fellow named Inspector Sematimba. Like Muss, I figured he was an invention of the TV series. Sematimba is an Eros space cop and Miller is - or was - a Ceres space cop and they worked together in the past. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Two posted:“Why, Inspector Sematimba,” Miller said. “As I live and breathe. You give a girl the shakes, sneaking up like that.” Mention is made that Protogen have just pulled out of Eros and that their contract has just been taken over by a new group called CPM - Carne Por la Machina (‘Meat for the Machine.’) Basically, they’re a bunch of amateurs from Luna who play at being hardcore. Miller asks Sematimba about Julie but he doesn’t know a thing. Omi: “I forgot that Protogen was Eros’s actual, contracted security force before they beat feet: that’s nice setup.” Miller says: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Two posted:“Came up the well and went native. OPA. It was an abduction case.” Sematimba tells Miller he doesn’t want him to create any trouble. Miller says he’ll keep things low profile. Sematimba goes off to attend to an emergency. Miller… Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Two posted:Miller sucked down the last of his noodles, tossed the foam cone with the thin smear of black sauce into a public recycler, Because the Rocinante arrived an hour ago. Which means, I guess, that Miller wandered aimlessly around Eros for half a day or so, imagining Julie being his cool snarky girlfriend, and so on. Well. Okay. Omi wants to bring up: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Two posted:Miller accepted a drink from a tired-looking woman in a G-string Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Two posted:Miller pretended to sip his drink and settled in to wait. TV Adaptation So, again, we've got differences. Miller's conversation with the Minister becomes a conversation with a Mormon who is looking to travel on the Nauvoo. Miller doesn't get why the Mormons are prepared to go on a century-long journey without any idea on the other side, but the Mormon says that "true faith is a risk." It's a very different conversation, all in all, with virtually nothing in common and not as thematically on-the-nose. When Miller arrives on Eros, he goes hunting through the docks for any details on the Anubis's shuttle. Miller pretends to be Julie's dad, which is pretty funny. While Miller finds out that the Anubis' shuttle is registered to a - dun dun - Lionel Polanski, he gets thrown in jail because he beat the dockworker up to do it. This is where he meets Sematimba who busts him out. I thought Sematimba was an invention of the TV series, having forgotten that he was involved with the books. In the TV continuity, Sematimba is a friend of Miller's from childhood, and even gave him his goofy hat. When they chat over noodles, Miller says he's chasing down a lead. Sematimba challenges him on it and we get a much better idea that Miller just can't resist pulling on dangerous threads. Mention is made that CPM have shut down all the public security cameras while they upgrade the system. That's a little bit more relevant than the worldbuilding info that CPM comes from Luna and they're all stupidly corrupt. Miller tells 'Semy' that his only lead is the name 'Lionel Polanski.' Sematimba tells Miller that someone with the name is registered at a hotel, the Blue Falcon. Which puts Miller right on track to collide with Jim Holden, who at this point is also on his way there, and it's all a bit neater than 'Miller goes to Eros, waits for Holden to show up and include him in the party.'  Kevin Hanchard as Semitimba Coreyisms The Belter Shrug And The Origin Thereof LW: 2.5 Big Meaty Amos LW: 1 Into the Recycler LW: 4 Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 07:00 on Apr 8, 2020 |
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Apr 8, 2020 06:45
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Khizan posted:I think the impression is supposed to be less more like unregulated boxing where some of the fights are fixed, not 100% fake straight up 'sports entertainment'. Snatch, not WWE. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Two posted:...the show fight areas where men or women pretended to beat one another senseless for the pleasure of the crowds.
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Apr 8, 2020 10:02
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Sarern posted:They really named the hotel the Blue Falcon? Amazing. What's the reference to?
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Apr 8, 2020 14:13
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Chapter Twenty-Three – HoldenLeviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Three posted:The casino level of Eros was an all-out assault on the senses. Omi says: “That’s a great opening line. It’s great enough that I wish chapter twenty-two had done a better job of articulating Eros’s ambiance. Miller being completely comfortable and at home there, then Holden holding his head to try and keep the sound and fury out, would be a great contrast that tells us a lot about the characters. But Miller was just kinda like “Eh, this is gross and stupid and nothing fits together correctly,” which feels like a wasted opportunity.” The Rocinante crew is making their way through Eros, on their way to meet with Lionel Polanski. Holden, Alex, and Amos are armed (in defiance of Eros law, funnily enough) but Naomi is not. Eventually, the crew manages to get out of the casino level. Holden and Naomi are happy to get out of it all, but the others... Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Three posted:“You kidding me?” Amos said. “I wish we had more time. Alex and I took almost a grand off those fish at the Tycho card tables. We’d probably walk out of here loving millionaires.” Holden says they can go do that if the Polanski thing turns out to be nothing. They climb onto a tube car. Then Amos says: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Three posted:“Somebody’s following us, Cap,” he said conversationally. “Wasn’t sure till he climbed on a couple cars down. Behind us all through the casinos too.” Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Three posted:Holden sighed and put his face in his hands. Amos continues: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Three posted:“Belter. Fifties, or maybe forties with a lot of mileage. White shirt and dark pants. Goofy hat.” So, the stories are about to (finally) converge. Honestly, it’s pretty cool, even on a reread. But then Holden says something a bit weird: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Three posted:“All right. Keep an eye on him, but no need to get too worried. Nothing we’re doing here is illegal,” Holden said. And except for something else, Omi says... “You sure about that, Holden? Because you just had the thought…” Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Three posted:The cops on Eros were pretty uptight about people walking around with guns, but there was no way he was going to “Lionel Polanski” unarmed. A screen in the tube car shows an advertisement for some resort domes on Titan. Holden fantasizes about it. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Three posted:Hell, as long as he was fantasizing, he threw in Naomi walking over to his hammock with a couple of fruity-looking drinks in her hands. Omi and I wonder about that line because it makes Holden come off as really chauvinistic. Like, okay, it’s one to have a little self-aware fantasy, and then another to be like ‘Jesus, please shut up, Naomi.’ I can only assume the Corey guys meant it more like ‘Naomi dispelled the illusion by talking.’ I bolster this assumption with the usage of “Alex ruined it by talking” back in Chapter 7. But where that was a darkly comic line - Alex stopped Holden from avoiding thinking about everyone being vaporized - it comes off much worse when it feels more like ‘Naomi is ruining Holden’s sexy fantasy by talking.’ Omi says: “Fantasizing about his beautiful, badass engineer XO hanging out in his fruity sodomy den is fine, but “She ruined it by talking” sounds way too nasty and objectifying for Holden, especially since Naomi has been the one pulling his rear end out of the fire for months.” The Rocinante crew hops off the tube, and Miller follows. There’s a funny little bit where Holden believes that Miller is going to arrest them and so he whistles loudly to act like he’s not worried about anything. Julie is not staying at a nice hotel. She’s staying at the kind of place that Holden reflects ends in people getting mugged or worse. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Three posted:Holden stopped next to the desk and turned around to look at the woman sitting on the couch. Graying hair, but good features and an athletic build. In a flophouse like this, that probably meant a prostitute reaching the end of her shelf life. I guess this is a point in ‘Holden is an idiot’ column because, while his back is turned, the woman stands up and aims a gun at Alex’s head. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Three posted:Her weapon was small and plastic and had some kind of battery pack. Amos pulled his heavy slug thrower out and aimed it at her face. A phallic joke might be funny around the RPG tabletop, so to speak, but it sticks out badly in anything trying to be a serious work. Anyway, then half a dozen other people storm in and the woman - who we are told in passing that she only has a taser - gets gunned down. The Rocinante crew fire at the mysterious people, who might be cops by their commands for people to drop their weapons. Holden figures it’s a death squad. A man in a weird hat - who we know is Miller - flanks the attackers and kills at least one. A few things bother me about this scene, while it's overall okay, and I've mentioned them in the adaptation section. Once the shooting has stopped, there’s a bit with a wonderfully ambiguous line. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Three posted:The man in the hat stood, considering the corpse at his feet, then looked up as Holden came near. We end on: “Name’s Miller.” Omi provides a summary: “Miller joining the party in the middle of a firefight feels tired and clichéd - I assume this is partly because Holden doesn’t now and never will trust Miller or want him around, but it feels just about as subtle as a muscly gun guy walking through the ruined door and going ‘Come with me if you want to live.’” TV Adaptation Okay, so, there’s a few divergences between the novels and the series. The most obvious is that there’s a whole new episode (Windmills) that takes place between the Roci leaving Tycho and arriving at the coordinates provided by Fred. In thie episode, the crew discovers that they have a stowaway - the aforementioned new character Kenzo. Kenzo is a spy for Errinwright, a character who has not featured in the books yet, but is involved in the Protogen conspiracy. A key difference between Leviathan Wakes and the first season of The Expanse is the inclusion of scenes and stories on Earth, which I think does a lot to tie things together and fill the story with a bit of intrigue. So, the crew apprehend Kenzo - well, Amos beats the poo poo out of him and throws him in an airlock. Close enough. Then, they have to sneak past a Martian patrol. They do this by tricking the Martians with a series of codewords, including ‘ubiquitous’ which is a little nod to Fred’s idea earlier in the novel. They also use the phrase ‘donkeyballs.’ Kenzo helps them out with this. The Rocinante then arrives at the coordinates provided by Fred - and it’s not Eros. It’s an asteroid designated BA-834024112. And one of the mystery stealth ships, the Anubis, is parked on it. This is actually something that, in the novel, happens after Eros. We’ll compare that when the novel hits it, but, long story short, the Roci crew find out that the Anubis was headed from Eros to Phoebe Station when something went wrong. Given that one of the Anubis’ shuttles is missing, they determine that Eros is the next best place to look for Lionel Polanski. So, the crew wander through Eros, which seems like a much less fancy place than the books make it seem. While Kenzo provides some worldbuilding stuff about how there’s some restaurants on Eros he really likes, Holden glances around at all the derelicts - people and equipment both. The hotel gets a name - the Blue Falcon. The crew head inside, but Kenzo has secretly called in a tac team with the notice that police will not respond! Dun dun! Anyway, it leads to one of my favorite scenes in the first season: the shootout at the Blue Falcon. It’s got so many good bits in it. This tense energy. Kenzo being visibly nervous because he knows what's coming. Holden being weird and suspicious. Naomi gazing at a painting of a planetside sunset. Amos picking up on the tension and eyeing every single person, while getting to show off his underworld side (“It’s his birthday.”) But probably my favorite part of it is how Amos figures out everything is going to turn into a gunfight about five seconds before it does. I appreciate that there’s way less talking during the action. In the book, it’s a little bit absurd how much the Rocinante crew talks during this mortal ambush. It's very RPG where, like, talking is a free action. It’s a pet peeve of mine in books where, during fight scenes, characters just kind of spend way too much time talking - it erodes tension! Talking is not actually a free action! I also appreciate how Naomi comes off a little bit less stupidly terrified. It also feels like the identity of the attackers is less penned in retroactively. Sure, the next chapter has the character suppose that the shooters were waiting to ambush Holden and such (albeit hastily assembled), and therefore we can infer that they are agents of the conspiracy, but I like how the TV series flat out makes it clear that, yes, they're agents of members of the conspiracy of Earth. It also feels a little less muddled. Like, in the novel, is the woman who pulls a taser on Alex part of the conspiracy? She appears to be, and Miller later assumes as much - but then why did the death squad gun her down immediately? Were they bad shots? Why was their plan first to drag Alex away with a taser? To blackmail Holden into compliance? Why not just kill him, which they attempt to do, like, because Amos pulls a gun? Why even attempt any of this at all, given Eros is about five minutes from being turned into a hellscape? Why does one of the death squad shout for them to cease fire - is he trying to trick Holden? Why does the death squad bug out? I believe later on, Miller will claim that the 'death squad' was trying to find out what Holden and co. were looking for. From memory, there's a chapter coming up where they all sit down and try to figure out what was going on with that gunfight, which is certainly a way of handling my immediate thoughts, but... Anyway, enough nitpicking. ...No, I have to get one more in. The taser! It bugs me how Holden makes the weapon sound like something he doesn't recognize for dramatic effect, but then pegs it as a taser the next time he sees it. I feel like navy officer brothel visiting Holden should know a taser when he sees one. And why does she point it at Alex's head? Is that where you normally tase people? Did the death squad give the taser to the one person who'd immediately reveal she didn't really know how to use it? “James Holden... poo poo just follows you around, don’t it, kid?” “Are you a cop?” “Not anymore.” Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 14:02 on Apr 9, 2020 |
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Apr 9, 2020 10:19
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Chapter Twenty-Four – MillerLeviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Four posted:Miller looked at the dead man – the man he’d just killed – and tried to feel something. Miller reflects on the ambush, and basically figures it for an improvised, slapdash effort. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Four posted:The ambush had been set by people who either didn’t know what they were doing or didn’t have the time or resources to do it right. Now, look. This has been our first major incident between our protagonists and the mysterious conspiracy, and the bad guys have sent their finest Keystone Cops who flat out kill one of their own with their opening salvo. It feels counter-productive to any idea of tension or suspense. And, personally, I dislike any story that explains something away with ‘the bad guys were just kinda idiots that one time.’ I mean, compare it to the TV adaptation. There, it’s pretty clear that the ‘death squad’ may’ve been assembled on short order but they’re still really dangerous and, if not for Miller, may’ve killed some or all of the Rocinante crew. Omi has similar thoughts: “I honestly forget exactly how this went down, but the clumsiness of the ambush seems weird. Like, did they know that Holden was looking for Julie? They must’ve, because otherwise Protogen doesn’t care about Holden - he can’t help or hurt them more than he already has. But if they knew what was up, why ambush him when he walked into the hotel instead of waiting for him to walk back out with Julie’s body? “Hell, do they even need her body? If I recall correctly, Holden’s arrival was what prompted Protogen to initiate Operation gently caress The World (well, Eros Station). So why do they even care? Why not just hit the lockdown and let nature take its course?” I believe - and I try not to skip ahead - that in a chapter or two, the characters will sit around and talk about the fight. Miller or Holden mentions that the death squad didn’t know what they were looking for and were trying to capture them to find out what. Which, again, raises questions as to the competency and/or operational knowledge of the people involved. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Four posted:The four survivors of the Canterbury stood in the remains of the firefight like rookies at their first bust. Omi wants to draw attention to something, however. “Note that Amos is acting like a rookie here, and not like an apathetic, hardened killer who should’ve twigged Miller’s Crime Sense™ instantly. A few sentences later he does mention that Amos moves like someone who’d seen serious action, but that only underlines how weird this initial take is.” Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Four posted:The other man - thinner, taller, East Indian by the look of him It’s about half-right. Alex is thinner and taller than Amos (I think mention was made in one of the first chapters that Martians tend to be taller than Earthers) but the usage of thinner is a bit strange given that one of the first things we learn about Alex back in Chapter Three is that he has a gut that stretches his jumpsuit tight. So maybe not short, but with a bit of a gut. Holden asks: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Four posted:“Aren’t you the cops?” Miller calls Sematimba and tells him about the scuffle. Sematimba comments that he hasn’t seen anything, which Miller finds odd as there should’ve been thousands of alerts going on. I like the bit afterwards where Miller realizes that he’s not a part of the justice machine anymore. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Four posted:“Okay,” Holden said. “Who was that?” Miller reflects that Amos was, of course, the one to figure out he was tailing them. Miller, Naomi and Holden start talking about the Scopuli. Alex blurts out: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Four posted:“Holy poo poo,” the shaky one behind the couch said. It was the first thing he’d said since the firefight ended, and he repeated it five or six more times in quick succession. From that point on, the various parties all just kind of tell each other what they’re doing on Eros. Omi points to a particular bit. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Four posted:”I had a contact in the OPa who told me you didn’t die on the Donnager,” Miller said. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Four posted:The silence was broken only by the sound of recyclers laboring to clear the smoke and particulate dust of gunfire. Eventually, it comes out that Holden is looking for someone from the Scopuli. Someone who is in this hotel right now. Miller starts thinking it’s Julie. The group moves up towards Julie’s room. Omi says: “I like how Miller is catching himself doing all sorts of sloppy stuff and bad habits, but it’s unclear to me whether this is a drying up Miller seeing bad habits he’s had for years, or the stress of the new situation making him sloppy. I wish it was just a tiny bit more explicit, because each one says different, interesting things about the character.” However, it wouldn’t be an Expanse book if there wasn’t some strangely timed exposition. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Four posted:The flophouse corridors were thin and cramped. The walls had... Omi: “The time to establish this was last chapter before the gunfight started, not as a speedbump between “Oh poo poo, Julie’s in the flophouse” and “Aaagh, alien flesh monster.”” Then, when they reach the room, there’s this great bit where Miller is standing there, reflecting on the tactical nightmare of it all and how it’d be better if Havelock was with him to storm the room, and there could be attackers everywhere- And Holden just walks up and knocks on the door. “Like a dumbass,” Omi says. Miller looks at Naomi whose facial expression indicates that she’s not comfortable with how Holden just keeps doing things like this. I like it, it’s fun. So, Amos kicks the door down and they go into the room. All the lights are off and won’t turn on - in fact, everything has been smashed. The long paragraph describing the room actually feels okay. What’s going on in here? A bit of detail that slows the pacing down works really well. I like this whole bit generally, too. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Four posted:The fluid marked a thin path toward the bathroom. Miller raised a hand, pushing the others back as he crept toward the half-open door. Inside the bathroom, the nasty background smell was much stronger. Something deep, organic, and intimate. Manure in a hothouse, or the aftermath of sex, or a slaughterhouse. All of them. And what’s inside the shower stall…? Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Four posted:In the shower stall, Juliette Andromeda Mao lay dead. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Four posted:She was nude, and barely human. Coils of complex growth spilled from her mouth, ears, and vulva. Her ribs and spine had grown spurs like knives that stretched pale skin, ready to cut themselves free of her. Tubes stretched from her back and throat, crawling up the walls behind her. A deep brown slush had leaked from her, filling the shower pan almost three centimeters high. He sat silently, willing the thing before him not to be true, trying to force himself awake. Omi and I both have the same thought here: this is a heck of a wham moment. The last mention of weird bio-horror was the talking head in the prologue, so, this feels like it catches you off-guard in just the right way. It feels suitably horrific, however… “Both the mention of her nudity and the specific attention drawn to the fact that the alien amoeba goop is growing out her vulva feels really gross - I honestly think they could’ve just said, like, ‘She was lying in the shower, alien goop growing out of every pore and orifice.’” To me, the specificity has the desired effect of making it feel horrible, but it is a little bit strange to draw attention to that particular part of anatomy, and I've always been on the fence as to whether I found it cheaply crude or appropriately disgusting. “That having been said, I also feel like they buried the lede here - ‘Julie was dead, and she barely looked human’ is the reveal you’re going for here. You can either hit the reader with both in one sentence, or go for a one-two, like, ‘Julie Mao lay dead. Her face was unmistakable, but the rest of her barely looked human.’ In the actual text, it feels like they put the most important information third. ‘Julie was dead. Here is what she looked like. She was infected with an alien virus because aliens are real omfg guys.’” The crew bail out of the room and… hang around waiting for Sematimba in the corridor. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Four posted:”Ohmygod,” Naomi said behind him. We also think it’s a little bit strange that the crew just kind of hang out in the corridor. I don’t think I’d be so calm. I mean, for one, who knows what all that black stuff is, who knows if they’re infected, etc. An unknown and really aggressive pathogen/organism/thing has done something to Julie and you’ve all been in the room she had basically sealed herself into. After the big Julie reveal, which is pretty effective, the chapter just kind of continues on to a fairly lifeless ending where Miller tells Sematimba everything the reader already knows. The sort of thing you could, and maybe should, fill in with a bit of exposition between chapters. The thrust of it is just that Sematimba will cover things up but the group can’t leave the station for a while. Were it up to us, Omi and I would’ve both decided to end the chapter on the Mao reveal. TV Adaptation It’s a bit different but mostly the same. There’s a bit more tension between Holden and Miller, instead of them feeling pretty chummy so quickly. Miller points out that Kenzo alerted the bad guys, then calls Sematimba to let him know something went down at the Falcon. Miller goes to head up to Julie’s room on his own and Holden lays a hand on him, demanding to know who that is. Miller turns about and remarks, quite coolly: “I'm going up to room 22. Now, any second, there's going to be another group of thugs coming through that door, this time with badges. You touch me again, there's gonna be another body on the floor.” Holden looks back to Amos, as if for support, and Amos just kinda nods like ‘Yep, that’s what’d happen, Cap, sorry.’ It’s a great bit. So, they wander up there, Miller leading instead of Holden. There’s a good bit where Alex, shaky and tense, pulls his gun on a dude opening a door. Speaking of doors, when they reach Julie’s room, it’s Miller who kicks it down instead of Amos. We also lose the bit where Holden just knocks on the door. The tense investigation of Julie’s busted room works really well on camera. Julie looks appropriately horrifying but I wouldn’t say it quite matches the description from the novel. And the reveal that she’s dead and infected with something is what that particular episode ends on. Something the adaptation includes which the novel does not is a sequence from Julie’s perspective of the protomolecule taking over her body and the pain and trauma and horrible stuff. Well, perhaps I misspoke - we do get it, but it’s just entries in her diary. Suffice to say, showing it is more effective than being told it. I like that everyone is a bit more disturbed by what they find in the shower. I like that the conversation involving Sematimba is more tense. The crew find him in the lobby and they pull guns on each other. The crew push past him and Sematimba is left there basically begging for Miller to stay on Eros until they can talk.
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Apr 10, 2020 05:26
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General Battuta posted:The loss of the protomolecule as a tangible biological horror is one of the things I regret most about the later books. I think they consciously chose to ditch that aspect because no one liked 'vomit zombies', but rooting the protomolecule in the intrinsically horrific repurposing of human biology is an effective way to characterize its danger. I wonder if that was a consequence of the TV adaptation? I know I had some criticisms of Book 8 that basically came down to feeling like they were writing with the budget of the TV series in mind. Chapter Twenty-Five – Holden Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Five posted:Miller gestured at Holden and headed for the elevator without waiting to see if he was following. The presumption irritated him, but he went anyway. Holden wants to know how they can just walk away from a fight with multiple fatalities without getting apprehended or even questioned. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Five posted:“Professional courtesy,” Miller said, and Holden couldn’t tell if he was joking. The crew pile into an elevator. There’s mention made of Naomi pressing the buttons with a shaking hand. It stuck out to me immediately because the last chapter went out of its way to basically point out that she and Amos were the only ones with steady hands. Sure, one could argue that mystery death plague is different to a gunfight, but it still feels a bit odd. Holden is still pissed about the gunfight. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Five posted:“This is bullshit. Being an ex-cop doesn’t give you a license to get in gunfights,” Holden said to Miller’s back. But, of course, there’s the usage of the word ‘seemed’ there. One of those words writers like to use when they’re just not sure how to put something and want the reader to do the bulk of the conceptual lifting. It’s just a weird way to say that, like, Miller looks more tired than he did earlier. Omi says: “It feels weird to me that Holden has such an issue with Miller treating his (former) badge like a license to kill. Honestly their friction never felt natural to me; it always felt like the writers wanted these two to disagree, but didn’t build it into the text in advance and settled for Holden just flying off the handle every time Miller does something morally dubious. Amos is way, way worse as far as Crime Guys go, and as far as I can tell Holden never once gives him poo poo about it.” Miller says they can’t leave the station without Sematimba’s approval. Amos points out that Miller doesn’t get to make decisions for them. Miller thinks they need to talk first. As he leads them out of the hotel, Naomi suddenly figures out that Miller knew of Julie and was shocked to find her there. It’s a weird thing to draw attention to because, like, it felt really obvious and given that the reader already knew it, I don’t think it’s important enough for the characters to reiterate among themselves. Anyway, Miller gets them set up in a hotel that’s pretty much as bad as the nameless one they found Julie in. Alex immediately locks himself in the bathroom to throw up, which makes him feel the most human of the main cast. Once Alex is out of the bathroom, the group has a big talk, essentially telling each other their half of the story so far. Miller: How did you know Julie was in the room? Holden: Someone from the Scopuli checked in there. I won’t tell you how I know that. Someone used the Scopuli to kill my ship, the Canterbury. I wanted to know why people keep trying to kill us. Miller: I was looking for Julie so I could send her home to her parents. Her family was connected to something big. I used to work for Ceres security, but I got fired for looking too hard. Holden: Okay, let’s talk about the death squad. A few things to note. It’s somewhat interesting to note that Miller thinks he got fired for investigating too hard. I also like how Holden sums up talking to Miller. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Five posted:Talking to Miller felt like digging through granite with a rubber chisel. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Five posted:”So let’s talk about the death squad in the hotel.” Miller figures that someone knew they were coming. Holden supposes they didn’t know why, or they would’ve gone up to Julie’s room before them. Then Naomi blurts out that they’re connected to Fred Johnson. I’ll let Omi handle that: “It’s weird how just a page or two ago Holden was being really cagey about who hired them or why, and then Naomi’s just like “We’re working for Fred.” I would’ve expected their roles to be reversed.” Amos wonders why they just started shooting anyone, then. Miller figures it’s down to someone overreacting because Amos pulled a gun (?) and that the calls to cease fire were genuine (??) The group recaps:
Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Five posted:”Wait a minute,” Alex said loudly. “Just wait a goddamn minute here. How come no one is talkin’ about the mutant horror show in that room? Omi also has some other thoughts: “In fact, I honestly think that Miller and Holden should’ve met up and had the “Your case and mine case are the same case” chat before they found Julie. I see the nice little pattern they’re trying to create by having both man’s stories converge on Julie, but I think “Hi I’m Miller,” “Hi I’m Holden,” “Hi I’m Julie, graaargh! *zombie noises*” would’ve been more natural pacing. It would let the character and the reader go “What the gently caress?” and seek answers at the same time.” On the state of Julie: “One thing that’s really important in any fantasy or sci-fi story is to establish the rules: what’s the setting like, what’s possible, what’s normal? In this case a bit of the oomph from the reveal is being leeched away by the fact that I’m not sure whether Julie’s thing is a known mutation/nanotech thing that people in this setting could feasibly do, or if it’s supposed to be an “Omfg bigfoot is real and he runs the Illuminati, who run the world” paradigm shift.” I get it, and I think that plays into the rather muted response everyone (except Alex) had to the sight of something that seems like a thing no one has ever seen before. Anyway, Miller took Julie’s hand terminal aka space iPhone from her room. Luckily, he sealed it in a plastic bag to prevent contamination. He wonders if they could hack into it, find out anything. Naomi says she won’t because she might catch something. No one has wondered if they catch something by being in the same room as it. Miller says they could just use the touch screen through the plastic - wow, the future truly is a thing of wonder. They get stumped by the terminal’s password. Naomi says she could hack it, if they open the bag. Miller plugs the word Razorback in, which is the name of Julie’s racing ship, and unlocks it. We get Julie’s journal entries then. Basically, after the prologue, she headed to Eros on a shuttle. Also, she thinks she has something called ‘the Phoebe bug.’ It’s anaerobic, according to Julie. She slept for three weeks of the trip, and isn’t sure why. She leaves the crew some notes: quote:* BA834024112 Perhaps most horrifyingly, she was still alive as all the bone spurs starting sprouting out her back. And that’s about it. Holden asks about the Phoebe bug. Miller brings up the science station. Naomi points out that the Scopuli didn’t have a shuttle. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Five posted:What kind of disease does that?” It’s a nice moment and a bit overdue, but everyone feels really calm about this. Like, okay, Julie says it was anaerobic - but she's also a sculpture of human flesh and unknown materials at this point. How sure could you really be that she was right? Perhaps that no one on the station had been infected, and presumably all the air is recycled, but it's also presumably filtered and scrubbed - and being a few feet away in an enclosed space is a very different prospect. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Five posted:“Where do we go from here, Jim?” Naomi asked. Omi says: “I like how human and desperate Julie’s journal entries sound, but I’m not a fan of the slightly rambling way they break down what they know beforehand - this chapter should be tight and urgent, and instead It feels like a lull after a major reveal. “The next bit where they talk about Phoebe and put together their theory feels a little underwhelming. It’s almost all correct, but it doesn’t really land for me. This is a major set of revelations about the driving mysteries of the story, and it’s more of a “Huh” moment than a “Holy poo poo!” revelation as things come together.” We had a brief chat really about how this feels like it should be near the end of the story, not the middle. We talked a bit about how, if we were writing and editing LW, we’d probably put a bit more time on the Cant and Ceres and have the stuff with Julie form the climax. Anyway, the crew figure they’ll go investigate the BA asteroid. Holden bets that the ship she stole the shuttle from is there. Miller wants in. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Five posted:Miller turned toward Holden, his face even more drawn. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Five posted:”Different case,” Miller said. “Now it’s about who killed her.” TV Adaptation At this point, it'll be easier to talk about Eros when we hit the end of it.
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Apr 11, 2020 02:52
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Chapter Twenty-Six – Miller After being upset that they got out of the hotel without being apprehended and questioned, Holden opens our chapter by being very upset that the Rocinante has been put under lockdown. Omi ponders: “I wonder if this is supposed to be a clever viewpoint thing, where Holden sounds way more loud and emotional to outside eyes than he does in his own head?” In the very last chapter, Miller told the crew that they couldn’t leave without Semi’s approval. He reminds Holden of this. Miller reflects that Alex is ‘the pilot’ and I genuinely don’t think he’s been informed of that. Sure, maybe it got handled between pages, but it’s notable. It’s especially strange because, as Omi points out, he could just call him “the Martian” for the same effect. He refers to Naomi as the XO, but that’s actually something Alex lets slip in the last chapter. Miller wants a berth on the Roci. Holden isn’t a fan of it. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Six posted:“Are you saying that unless I let you on my ship, your friend is going to keep us here? Because that’s blackmail.” Anyway, Miller says he can’t really do either of those things. He just wants to be on the Roci when it leaves, because they’re going to Julie’s asteroid. Holden still doesn’t want to let him on the ship. He also says: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Six posted:“But I’ve been shot at a lot recently, and the machine guns yesterday were the least lethal thing I’ve had to deal with.” Miller says he can go get money to pay them if he goes and shakedown some rackets in the Eros docks. Holden is incredulous. Omi feels that “a lot of the interaction between Holden and his buddies feels vaguely off - presumably because the guy writing Miller hasn’t had an awful lot of practice with their voices.” To me, it feels like they’re actually a little bit closer to how they feel in the later books. Omi also says: “I’m glad that the story agrees with me that Miller’s gambling plan is frigging insane.” Before they can continue, a message hits all four of their hand terminals. The message contains two bits of information:
Then: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Six posted:The vibration was a slight, small thing, less than a transport tube’s braking stutter. “Corey’s Law: when you run out of ways to move the plot forward, set off an explosion on a space station.” The PA system informs the crew that Eros is now under emergency lockdown and everyone is to report to the casino sector for radiological safety confinement. Alex thinks someone blew out a ship drive or a nuke. Holden thinks they’re trying to destroy Eros to get to them, but Miller points out that they didn’t do much damage - if any at all. Eros still has atmosphere, after all. Alex tells a fun story about spending a month in a radiation shelter and the fighting and loving is interesting and fun but it doesn’t feel like the right place for it in the chapter. Eros security shows up - remember, the CPM corrupt dudes - and they’re jerks. They act like thugs and tell people that if anyone shoves anyone else, they’ll be shot and killed. I appreciate that the story doesn’t stop to, like, remind us that Eros’ security is run by CPM. Except then it does, so, oh well. But we also close out a particular subplot with a pretty nice bit. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Six posted:Miller knew him. A year and a half ago, he'd arrested him for assault and racketeering. And the equipment - armor, batons, riot guns - also looked hauntingly familiar. Dawes had been wrong. Miller had been able to find his own missing equipment after all. TV Adaptation Summing up at the end of Eros.
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Apr 12, 2020 08:11
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Chapter Twenty-Seven – Holden We pick up immediately where the previous chapter left off. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Seven posted:What do you mean, don't go?" Holden asked, yanking his elbow out of Miller's grasp. "Somebody just nuked the station. This has escalated beyond our capacity to respond. If we can't get to the Roci, we're doing whatever they tell us to until we can." Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Seven posted:"I don't get it," Holden said. Then Miller points something out: his hand terminal isn’t displaying any radiation warnings, so, whatever happened outside isn’t a threat to this level of Eros. Omi and I wonder why the various people on Eros haven’t thought to do so. “Instrumentation failures are way, way more common than actual emergencies, so if it was possible to check local environmental levels on your hand terminal wouldn’t everyone hear the alarm, check their own readout, then shrug and (correctly) ignore it as a false alarm?” Alternatively, why not have the conspiracy guys fake an alarm through everyone’s hand terminals and have Miller recognize it's some Ceres code, or something? In a nice bit of earlier worldbuilding becoming relevant, Miller points out that they have to go through the casino level to get to the Roci. And if they do that, they’ll be beaten and thrown into the radiation shelters. They elect to hide in a electrical maintenance corridor. I liked this bit between Amos and Holden: Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Seven posted:"Can you get that door open quickly?" Holden said, looking at Amos. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Seven posted:"History lesson later," he said. "Let's figure a way off this rock." The crew figure out what to do. In contrast to a lot of his other LW appearances, I think Amos shines true in this little scene. The crew will have to sneak their way to the Roci, but they can’t use the maintenance tunnels to do it. I’ll quote the next chunk in its entirety because it’s pretty entertaining. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Seven posted:"Why do you think a bunch of Ceres mobsters are moving everyone to radiation shelters when there's no actual radiation danger?" Holden finally said. "And why are the Eros cops letting them?" Omi says: “Holden and Miller wanting to leave the relative safety of their hidey hole to go explore what’s up with the mobsters and the radiation warning is frigging insane. I get that it’s necessary to move the plot forward and makes sense in tabletop logic, but I’m pretty sure both characters would be hauling rear end for their safe, cozy torpedo boat at this point.” So, Holden and Miller head out. They find out that their hand terminals can’t make calls. They go to find a radiation shelter and ask to be let in. Weirdly enough, the not-cop refuses until Miller puts a gun to his head. It gets a little bit shaky there. Miller threatens to blow the man’s brains out in really descriptive fashion. Holden tells the not-cop that he should do what Miller says, since he’s “not a very nice person.” Omi wonders: “It’s weird that Holden already knows that Miller isn’t a very nice person - all he’s seen Miller do is rescue his rear end, have breakfast, and be a cranky, bitter dude. Or is this supposed to be a good cop/bad cop routine to convince the guy they’re threatening?” Anyway, the guy opens the door. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Seven posted:Beyond it, the room was even darker than the corridor outside. A few emergency LEDs glowed a sullen red. In the faint illumination, Holden could see dozens... hundreds of bodies scattered across the floor, unmoving. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Seven posted:"We've been dosed," Holden said. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Seven posted:Holden grabbed Miller by the arm and led him back down the corridor toward the ramps. Holden's skin felt warm and itchy. He didn't know if it was radiation burn or psychosomatic. With the amount of radiation he'd just taken, it was a good thing he had sperm tucked away in Montana and on Europa. Leviathan Wakes, Chapter Twenty-Seven posted:Thinking that made his balls itch. Omi: “This chapter contains exactly one more reference to Holden’s sperm and balls than I was hoping to read.” Holden figures out the plan: the bad guys pretend to nuke the station, then dose the people up in radiation shelters that are more like radioactive shelters. Miller doesn’t get why. Holden figures out that the Phoebe bug feeds on radiation and that the people are all incubators. Omi wasn’t sure how Holden reached that conclusion, but the little fact about it feeding on radiation is actually provided by Julie. Albeit buried in the middle of her diary entries. While Holden is telling Miller all this, Miller gets up. He walks across the way and shoots a pair of not-cops who’ve just arrived. I like Miller is so surgical about it - I can buy it, given that it’s Ceres gear and all, which means he's probably familiar on where you shoot to get a good hit. But will the two of them make it back to the Rocinante before they succumb to radiation poisoning? Given that there’s a whole series of books ahead of them, I think we can go with... maybe.
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Apr 13, 2020 09:22
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