PREMISE: The Expanse primarily tells the story of the crew of the gunship Rocinante over more than four decades as they navigate criminal plots, solar-galactic politics, wars, and an alien mystery. The book series is made up of nine novels and nine novellas.
Man, I love sci-fi. And yet, relatively speaking, I hardly read any at all. It’s a strange paradox which could easily be dramatised in a sci-fi book or film. The Sci-fi Paradox, it shall be called. One man, alone in the blogging universe with only a handful of readers to hear him, wants to read more sci-fi books but never does, and he just can’t figure out why. It’s got instant bestseller written all over it.
I’ve read some Peter Hamilton and quite a few Iain M Banks and a few other sci-fi books here and there but nothing has comes close to The Expanse books for me. They are pitched absolutely perfectly in terms of story and characters and then all the spacey tech stuff to keep the geeks happy. The good guys and gals are all so likeable, the bad ones absolute bellends. There’s alieny creatures and gore, fast spaceships with big guns, interesting and colourful and dangerous worlds and mind-blowing extraterrestrial entities. These books literally have everything and – most importantly – have a cracking story that runs through all 9 books and within the novellas and finishes just as good as it started.

I wholehearted agree with your assessment of The Expanse. The authors were able to end the story on their own terms, and I felt like I had lived an entire lifetime in a parallel universe before it was over. A superb, popular entertainment that will one day be taught in university courses.
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Completely agree Firewater65 and thanks for your comment. Absolutely spot on. I wonder how many other authors could get support for a 9-novel series and have it seen all the way through exactly how they want it. It’s a pretty stunning achievement when you think about it.
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