I’ve read the first two books and enjoyed them both. I enjoyed the TV series. But I see there are nine novels and eight novellas in the series, and I know the book series goes on longer than the TV series. I’m curious: is the quality fairly consistent or, like a lot of longer book series, does it degrade over time?
Edit: Thanks everyone! Sounds like the vast majority of folks enjoyed all of the books - enough that I’ll probably read them all. I have other books on my reading list, so I might take breaks and read some of those in between.
I really appreciate all the responses. Thank you all. Upvotes all around!
Some are better than others, but they’re all fairly high quality? I’ve definitely read worse than even the ones I’m not super thrilled about, so I’d say it’s worth reading them all if you have the time.
I loved the series
Some of the short stories are hit or miss but they are short and worth reading either way and only short
Could not set them down… except the last one. Jumping 25 years into the future was a strange choice and, for me, less entertaining.
Spoiler warning maybe?
That’s not a spoiler
Feels like one to me. When I get into a series I prefer to know as little about the final entry as possible. Didn’t know that was such a hot take around here.
It’s not the last book. It’s how the seventh book, Persepolis Rising, starts.
Reading book 8 right now. They’re very, very good.
I’m in the middle of book 7 and holy what a shift. I’m in the part where it’s so overwhelming, you can’t even begin to imagine how this will get resolved. Very excited to read the last two books.
This seems like an unpopular opinion, but I quit after 3 books. The first book was great, the second not as good, the third confirmed some consistent discouraging writing patterns from the second.
My biggest complaint is that I started the series for the sci-fi concepts and plotlines, but it quickly became a standard political procedural, with action and drip-reveal mystery elements, and the actual sci-fi elements felt unnecessary and incidental. Or to put it a different way, with rare exceptions, there just weren’t reliable sci-fi “big ideas” introduced after the first book, just a lot of human drama and plot that felt like it didn’t require the sci-fi setting.
I also felt like some pacing was off and there was a ton of filler. What confirmed that for me was when I noticed the chapter dividers in my reading app and saw nearly every chapter was almost identical length. My guess is the authors worked backwards from a chapter outline with a planned word count for publisher deliverables. If that type of planning sounds more like a business then it does art, I’d say that’s actually my experience reading it too.
Finally, one of my pet peeves for any type of believable drama is when conflict is created by people acting stupidly. Kind of the opposite of deus ex machina resolution, it’s a transparently artificial conflict that is just meant to give the characters something to do, but lazy writing. I felt that many many times by the second and third books.
Again, I’m in a minority I guess, but I felt it just wasn’t worth the time. Not as bad as Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson (my all time worst offender for filler and lazy plot), but lots of squeeze for little juice.
Yeah I’d say that’s unpopular, no one can keep the same amount of “new Sci fi” concepts continously. And for me it’s still worth a read, because they created a universe with a set of rules (keep protomolecule aside for now) that apply to all humans everywhere. And they never forgot that, not in any books, no stupid gravity generators, no ships appearing magically from somewhere, and they were consistent with that to the end.
That in my mind will always have a special place. And I’ll always keep recommending expanse for anyone that cares about a bit sensible physics in their fantasy.
The Expanse if the best books series I have read in years and might be the best science fiction series I’ve ever read. The quality does not diminish (in my opinion), and I am glad I didn’t watch the show beyond the first season before reading the books. But there is a lot more than the show covers. I think you can come back to the Novellas later if you like. They are great but you don’t need to read them alongside the main novels unless you are so inclined.
With most series of this length, towards the end I’ve tended to wish that the author would just wrap things up already so I could find out the ending and move on with my life.
With this series I actually got sad as I made my way through the last book because it meant that the story was going to end soon and I had been enjoying it so much that I didn’t want it to end. (Having said that, I also absolutely loved the ending, which is also unusual for me for a series that is this long!)
Just finished last month and it’s one of the best series I’ve ever read. I haven’t read the novellas so after some time I will reread the series with them included.
