Leviathan Wakes

The start of the Expanse series - a fast-paced and thoroughly gripping new space adventure.

"Leviathan Wakes" is set in a future in which humanity has colonized much of the Solar System. Earth, governed by the United Nations, and the Martian Congressional Republic act as competing superpowers, maintaining an uneasy military alliance in order to exert dual hegemony over the peoples of the Asteroid belt, known as "Belters". Belters, whose bodies tend to be thin and elongated owing to their low-gravity environment, carry out the gritty, blue-collar work that provides the system with essential natural resources, but they are largely marginalized by the rest of the Solar System. The Outer Planets Alliance (OPA), a network of loosely-aligned militant groups, seeks to combat the Belt's exploitation at the hands of the "Inners", who, in turn, have branded the OPA a terrorist organization. The story is told from the point of view of Belter detective Joe Miller, and Earther Jim Holden.