Reviews with content warning for Body horror - Leviathan Falls

Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

Leviathan Falls by James S.A. Corey

9 reviews

bibliocat's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

First thought having just finished this book: This was a weird one.

Besides the grand sweep of the space opera over far flung distances in the galaxy, connected by the Ring Gate system , we have the found family of the independent ship Rocinante finally all back together again. This was the good part of the book. Happiness is never meant to last, though...We've got a war going on against vengeful non-corporeal aliens who hate us for some unclear reason, and they are slowing figuring out how to intrude into our normal space to destroy everyone.

One human has a plan to stop this. The man who would be God Emperor of Humanity, Winston Duarte, the former High Consul of Laconia, seems to have come back to himself after spending most of Book 8 catatonic and transforming due to experiments of grafting the Protomolocule into himself to reach this God-like status. So, what does he do? He disappears.
We now have our main antagonist, Laconian Colonel Aliana Tanaka charged to find him, and we spend most of the book with her hunting Duarte's daughter, Teresa as the best bet to get to him. Tanaka is a dangerous woman. She's sharp, determined, and very ruthless. We are not meant to like her much at all.
Teresa has been apprenticed on the Rocinante as a mechanic for a year or so now, which was the only way she was going to get off Laconia and not be used as a pawn or figurehead in keeping the Empire together.

So here's one of the weird parts: Duarte's plan to beat the non-corporeal aliens that have already destroyed the Builders of the protomolecule is to

assimilate all of humanity into a hive mind, because then we'd be far more efficient in dealing with their incursions. For whatever reason, our "meat sacks" were going to be more robust at repelling the aliens, whereas the Protomolecule Builders were wispy and paper-like despite being SO FAR IN ADVANCE OF US.

Ok, so he wants to

turn us into the Borg. We all know how sick everyone is of the Borg showing up in Star Trek. Although, come to think of it, this would be a pretty cool Borg origin story....

So the authors went with that.
Where it tripped up for me, is that The God Emperor never really did much of anything in the last 2 books, but is still supposed to be the most powerful man alive. We never really get his thoughts or point of view. I felt so bad for Teresa at the end of the books, seeing what happened to the father she loved, and she was not going to be able to reach him emotionally or physically.

The other weird part that bothered me is the voices of the Roci crew just didn't seem to be the same. Naomi especially. As a peaceful person, she had to be the "admiral" of the resistance navy. Her relationship with Jim Holden after getting him back from Laconia just wasn't the same, either.
The exception to this was Amos Burton, the mechanic. I think the authors LOVE writing him, because he still seemed to be so similar to what he was in the earlier books, despite the profound changes that happened to him over the last 2 books. And Amos fans will be happy with the end of the story.

And Holden, well....he does something so Holden-like to resolve the plot. He's the one that had to go pressing all the buttons to set everything in motion back in, I think it was Book 2. When he got the vision of what happened to the Protomolecule Builders. He did something similar now, and I just knew what was going to happen

the moment he injected himself with protomolecule. He fought so hard to eradicate all of this stuff the moment he understood what it could do to humanity, and he became his own enemy in order to save humanity. I absolutely knew he would end up replacing Duarte in the Ring Station to repel the invaders.

Wow. I don't know why Naomi had such a quiet acceptance of this and didn't rail against him for making unilateral decisions.

I haven't read all the reviews, but I got a feeling there was a lot of disappointment from fans in how it ended. I need to see if the Tightbeam Podcast did an episode on this.

The Roci family broke up. Alex went off to the system where his son was. Jim was gone after destroying the Ring gates to prevent the non-corporeal aliens from destroying everyone. (Or what really happened to him?? ) Naomi, Amos, and also Teresa and her dog stayed in the Sol System.

It was sad. The authors said they were done with the story, and the end had that finality.

It was definitely an entertaining ride going through these nine books. I would have liked a somewhat happier ending, though.

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tashka89's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

A brilliant and devastating end to the series. I cried like a baby

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gnomeguy1138's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This book starts out with the slowest, weakest pacing of the series. But it redeems itself halfway through and returns to the normal, tense pace you'll have come to love.

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hobbithopeful's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

This series is one of my favorites, start with Leviathan Wakes , you're in for a wild ride.

Wow. Just wow. It's really hard to describe the feeling when you finally finish a 9 book series that you've read over the years. I can't believe the stories of these characters are over.
I really wish this book hadn't ended, I feel like I had so many questions, or I just wanted to spend more time with characters that I had grown to know and love. When the next page was the epilogue I was like "Wait what?" I wanted to see more of what happened after

Holden destroyed the ring gates. I wanted to see Alex reuniting with his family, how Amos dealt with his new "children", and how Naomi recovered.

I had a small wish the characters would get when the books ended, one that lessened as each book came to pass and our beloved Roci crew went through more and more. I know it is unreasonable to say that I wanted

Holden and Naomi to end up on a peaceful farm somewhere and just relax and be happy,

but I can dream okay! As I was reading Leviathan Falls I knew what was coming. There was really no other way this series could end. Each book I read I had braced for this exact event,

Holden sacrificing himself for the greater good

and each time it didn't happen I let out a sigh of relief, but my dread increased because I knew it would be an even worse gut punch. Honestly as much as this made me cry I really don't think it could have ended any other way. One of the main themes of this series has been hope, perseverance, and Holden's incredible ability to hold on to his belief and actions of goodness. In all actuality the way the series ended was probably one of the best outcomes for everyone. I only hope that humanity will get it right, at least once.

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iono's review against another edition

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adventurous hopeful sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

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kerttuli's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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mar's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

is there even anything to say. god

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0bscuri's review against another edition

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emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This is a tough one to rate. It’s not as great as I’d hoped, but then again, what did I hope? The ending was not very emotional for me at this point - maybe I’ve been out of it for too long. I did enjoy reading it but it was a struggle at times (especially with the heavy science stuff and Elvi‘s perspective).

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ominousevent's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

This entire series has been superb, and the authors stuck the landing. Incredibly impressive.

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