I'm so glad that The Expanse has brought great space opera to the masses. Scifi books are several orders of magnitude better than the majority of "Scifi" Hollywood movies.
The struggle of a fledgling technological species against the plight of interstellar space is a majestic backdrop for many of the best novels I've ever read. Especially with Clark, Niven, Pournelle etc. that have done some excellent mathematical investigation into the feasibility of the concepts discussed.
TBH, the masses know The Expanse mostly from TV show. But the show indeed is good, and while it has some differences from the books, it mostly stays true to science, even in very minor VFX details.
This is an unpopular opinion, because I've seen here how people like to hate on Gravity and stuff, but I feel like we're seeing a new trend in sci-fi movies/shows - Gravity, Interstellar, The Martian and now The Expanse, despite their various levels of science/plot tradeoffs, all are much more faithful to physics than what came before (with a honourable exception of Space Odyssey), and they do a great job at showing you can have a great sci-fi appealing to general population that sticks to how real space travel works.
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That saids, The Expanse novels are 11/10 Even Better Than On TV, and I highly recommend them. Can't wait for the next one coming out soon(ish).
The series is mostly true to the physics (they speed up travel times a lot, but that's kinda required for a TV adaptation), with the notable exception of a certain manoeuvre in the 11th episode of the second season (which the writers have conceded to be preposterous).
Space ship design is the other thing that regularly annoys me, it's all metal and not at all foam-padded on the inside. They're designed to look cool and futuristic, not utilitarian. They're also much too spacious, which makes it easier to get nice shots, of course, but is also a little ridiculous.
That said, it's amazingly fun and I've watched it twice and read all of the books. I think we can all agree that if the two points above are what's wrong with the series, it's pretty damn good. Highly recommended!
I wouldn't put Gravity on that list. It looks nice, but its "physics" is pure Hollywood fail. Not one single plot device makes sense from a physics perspective.
I just finished the show (season 1 and 2) and it’s the best sci-fi I’ve seen. I find it more epic than BSG. I’m so happy I watched it. I am considering picking up the books now. The science is on point. Flip and burn baby!
I wish I had read the books before I watched the TV series. Doing it in the reverse order has made me fairly unmotivated to read, I'm a few chapters a in to the second book and not sure I'll continue.
Having said that, I've been fairly unmotivated to read anything recently due to working long hours and recently having rescued a dog.
I started reading the books only after the first season, and I'm very happy that I've started with the show first - now I read all Avasarala's lines with Shohreh Aghdashloo's voice.
(In general, I find reading after watching a much more pleasant experience - if I read a book first, I form my own image of the characters, which then usually clashes with what's in the movie. If I do it the other way, I just cast the characters I saw in the movie into the book.)
That said, do continue reading - the novels only get better with time, and there's plenty of awesome waiting that the show is nowhere near reaching.
I wish show-Avasarala was as abrasive and foul-mouthed as book-Avasarala. That would make it even more fun, but would probably make the show harder to show on TV ;)
I agree. Not everyone likes it, but I do appreciate the amount of f-bombs she drops in the book. AFAIK though, the issue was not only with family-friendliness of the show, but also with the actress not liking to swear.
I am in the opposite camp with regards to The Expanse. I consider the first season a very, very good trailer for the first book.
I also consider the Dark Tower movie a somewhat okeyish trailer for the series. I just finished the second Dark Tower book, and in the books the man in black always speaks like McConaughey.
However, I understand your feel. I can't read Harry Potter, it's just not interesting enough, even after the movies.
I've read the books, and without spoiling anything, there's a lot of crazy stuff to come. You should continue reading! :) (and don't forget the novellas and short stories) Plus, the second season only covers about half of the second book, so you'll be done with the material from the series pretty soon.
>Hundreds of years in the future, things are different than what we are used to after humans have colonized the solar system and Mars has become an independent military power. Rising tensions between Earth and Mars have put them on the brink of war. Against this backdrop, a hardened detective and a rogue ship's captain come together to investigate the case of a missing young woman.
SOLD. I know what I'm watching this weekend, thank you!
I think the series is truly separate and worse than the original. Clarke even said he'd never intended the line about "Ramans do everything in threes" at the end of the book to actually lead to sequels, only to beg the question of what happens to our solar system next. The sequel books do a far worse job of answering that question than the readers' own imaginations, I think. I'd never made the connection to the co-author but it makes sense. I ripped through the first book so quickly, and then picked up the second and couldn't even finish it. I could feel it devaluing my enjoyment of the first it felt like such a different, inferior story.
