Norwood - Charles Portis

I was anxious to read Portis after seeing "True Grit" (still need to read it), and reading about his facility with Southern dialogue.

That being said, coming off the heels of the breakneck pace of "Leviathan Wakes" and my consequent breakneck reading pace, I read this book too fast and missed (some of) the devil in the details, Portis's dialog and prose.

I didn't miss it all and it made for a nice weekend read.

"I wish Sammy Ortega was here," said Miss Phillips. "He'd break your arm."

"I'd like to see him try it," said Norwood.

"I was talking to Fring, I wasn't talking to you," she said. "But he'd get you too if he felt like it, you bigmouth country son of a bitch. He'd kick your ass into the middle of next week."

"I'd like to see him try it."

"You just got through saying that. Don't keep saying the same thing over and over again. Don't you have good sense?"

"You said you was talking to him the first time."

"You peckerwood."

Leviathan Wakes - James S.A. Corey

Even though this is a hefty tome at over 600 pages, "Leviathan Wakes" non-stop action makes the reading easy. This "kick-ass space opera" as George R.R. Martin's blurb refers to it is, indeed, a kick-ass space opera. Penned by James S.A. Corey, it is a rollicking good time with noir and horror elements thrown in. James S.A. Corey is the pen name for the collaboration of the authors Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck.

On my Goodreads review, I deliberately didn't talk about it much, but for my own edification and record-keeping, I'd like to put my thoughts down here. If you're going to read it, I'd suggest you stop reading now as the book is best enjoyed with no prior conceptions.

The book is well-paced throughout, but the second half of the book contained elements that rang a little false to me, especially the notion of using the Mormons' generation ship to push the infected space station into the sun.

An additional question I ponder is if this would have been a better book if the stakes hadn't been the highest (survival of humanity)? I understand that these stakes are a trope of the space opera sub-genre, but I wonder if a better book would have been written had the stakes been dialed down somewhat to allow less desperate measures to be used for resolution? Those desperate measures took me out of the story somewhat. Drama exists in many forms and levels - the very survival of humanity doesn't have to be at stake to create it.

My criticisms are minor and almost seem disingenuous given how much fun this tale gives to the reader. I look forward to reading the second of three in the series, "Caliban's War."