The Expanse…spoilers. (Full Version)

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Ricardo -> The Expanse…spoilers. (Jan. 20 2022 18:45:28)

For fans of the Expanse TV show or books, I thought it would be cool to open a dialogue about it, now that the show is over. Having no prospect of the next group of books being converted into the show any time soon, I have no choice but to dive in and start reading (the story is THAT good 😂). I have started with book 6, that I just finished reading, and of course I accept the two versions are slightly different, I thought we could discuss some of the general differences here? (If anybody cares). I will admit that I think the TV show was better than the book, but I know a lot of people hate that.[:D]. Of course I like the trivial detail that the books include the TV show couldn’t. Anyway lets discuss!




JasonM -> RE: The Expanse…spoilers. (Jan. 21 2022 2:25:39)

Haven’t seen it but will definitely give it a watch.

Just finished the Witcher and now feel like I need to read the books to get the “real” story.




Fluknu -> RE: The Expanse…spoilers. (Jan. 21 2022 7:57:29)

I didn't read the books, but for me this was one of or the the best Sci-fi series I've seen.




RobF -> RE: The Expanse…spoilers. (Jan. 21 2022 23:41:48)

I better stay off this thread because I’m going to watch this now. Didn’t even know about it.




Paul Magnussen -> RE: The Expanse…spoilers. (Jan. 22 2022 17:21:24)

quote:

I have started with book 6


Why not with Book 1 (Leviathan Wakes)? Trying to carry on where the TV series left off?




Ricardo -> RE: The Expanse…spoilers. (Jan. 22 2022 20:39:18)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Paul Magnussen

quote:

I have started with book 6


Why not with Book 1 (Leviathan Wakes)? Trying to carry on where the TV series left off?


Exactly. I am not much of a reader…but I love the series. I started with 6 just to clear up the majority of differences in the story line so it connects to 7 in a way that I am not confused. In all honesty, I could have just started with book 7 (the series clearly follows close to the book in part 6, in fact I sort of preferred how the TV show tied it all up at the end.)

I do have some questions now that I am into book 7. Mainly with whether there were any extra details regarding Duarte’s encounter with the Precursor artifact spacecraft. In case any details not shown in the TV series that explains a bit more about the history of the protomolecule builders….I am sure Duarte has more info than any other humans at this point, but is all that supposed to still be a mystery to the readers of book 7? Also, it is not clear yet whether Duarte knows how Marco died. I am only half way through book 7 now. I am assuming, so far, that those big ships will awaken the ring entities at some point.




mrstwinkle -> RE: The Expanse…spoilers. (Jan. 23 2022 19:32:51)

Great but very confused TV series. The books were, very simply, bad.

Having watched it all, Camina is the central character. Not beardy skinny boy.




Paul Magnussen -> RE: The Expanse…spoilers. (Jan. 23 2022 22:10:28)

quote:

The books were, very simply, bad.


FWIW, I disagree. I’ve only read the first five, but I really liked the first two; the third, not so much (I see I commented “Humans squabbling, no aliens”), and the fourth, not at all (“Too much padding, cardboard bad guy”). Five was an improvement.

I gave the TV series about 15 minutes and turned it off. Maybe I’ll give it another chance.




Ricardo -> RE: The Expanse…spoilers. (Jan. 24 2022 3:24:30)

quote:

ORIGINAL: mrstwinkle

Great but very confused TV series. The books were, very simply, bad.

Having watched it all, Camina is the central character. Not beardy skinny boy.


Not confused, but the viewer needs to really pay attention. I assume you realize the on screen drummer is an amalgam of two people at least, that play different roles in the book. In book 7 it would be problematic for the time frame if they are only ONE person…and another reason they won’t be making a 7th season is that time frame issue (everybody is much older at the start). Camina is important for sure, but the way all the characters develop was really unique IMO. I hated Amos at first, and then he became a super beloved character later on. There are details that are easy to miss, upon a second pass I noticed things that tie together smoothly…in other words the continuity is VERY well done, unlike most other sci-fi dramas.

I was hoping to discuss details and not defend the show or books, but I know opinions are gonna come either way. The reason I enjoyed the show is because it played out more or less how I envisioned the human race realistically colonizing the solar system post excellent films like Contact or 2001. (If you hate those movies then of course you might be ambivalent about the Expanse). For me that “growing past the adolescent” stage of humanity in order to enter into some type of Galactic fraternity of technological species at large, has always been an important day dream. It was frankly very fun to watch that play out very closely to how I imagined it.

In all honesty the first couple episodes are NOT that interesting or even entertaining, they rather are just setting the stage for the adventure. It is really in Season 3 that the story gets interesting and exciting. If not for my deep interest in the time period in question, I might have gotten bored and turned it off too. When I was young I hated 2001 for example, but today I see it as a masterpiece.




mrstwinkle -> RE: The Expanse…spoilers. (Jan. 24 2022 10:21:01)

I tried one of the books and didn't enjoy at all, while I really enjoyed the TV series, despite raising plotlines and then just dropping them without any real explanation (the alien dog things spring to mind).




Ricardo -> RE: The Expanse…spoilers. (Jan. 25 2022 13:54:56)

quote:

ORIGINAL: mrstwinkle

I tried one of the books and didn't enjoy at all, while I really enjoyed the TV series, despite raising plotlines and then just dropping them without any real explanation (the alien dog things spring to mind).


Right…those sort of subplots are filler based on the novelas. While they don’t necessarily add to the main story, the TV producers thought to include some of those in the show to complete the picture of the entire universe the book readers might have had in their heads. You are correct that they don’t always need to be included (although the Amos “Churn” back story was interesting). The strange dogs thing sets up the future book “trilogy”–7,8,9–of which I am now on book 8. There is an another side novella that fits between 7 and 8 that I am actually skipping….and again if the tv show picks up ever again (28 years in the future it is supposed to be [:D]), I am sure they would try to include whatever that stuff is as well. In the end that weird Dog story ties in to Duarte and Laconia and the protomolecule tech that (obviously) relates to extending life artificially. The parallel to Pet Semetary there was maybe silly, but it might have something to do with the main story later on.




Ricardo -> RE: The Expanse…spoilers. (Feb. 1 2022 19:01:02)

Spoilers!!!!!!!!!!!



Well I finished book 9. It has a decent ending, meaning the decisions made at the conclusion were believable and in line with the characters involved… but unfortunately, all that cool realistic science and feeling of believability that the TV show pulled me in with, sort of flew out the window in the final book. I mean I was still all in the game with Book 8 which I felt was very well written, exciting and disturbing all at once. But all of a sudden I got a feeling in book 9 of redundant violent characters (relentless Tanaka was a little over the top), and almost superhero comic book fantasy kicking into overdrive, starting with the Mork and Mindy Egg ship that used what seems like from the verbal description as your stereotypical “warp drive” … as if the writers suddenly needed magic to move the plot along. Come on, if the Proto builders had that tech (power to warp space and travel, what had to have been FTL since that is what warp tech implies….circumventing the c restrictions of mass increase at high velocity), then they did not even need the Ring gates at all.

And all the unanswered questions I was ok with throughout the show, suddenly are left unanswered? Why were the rings so damn big? What where their bodies like? How could they “borrow” energy from the higher dimension to power the gates before even building one? Was that diamond their home world? If not, which of the 1300 was it? Why did they destroy solar systems, because of the bullets? Who set the neutron star booby trap and how??

I know a lot is meant for interpretation, but some things had vague answers…Or badly answered as interpretations from the single biologist of the human race permitted to interpret the “dream sequence” poetic descriptions of the ring builders??? I was not cool with that. I was perfectly ok with the ring entities not being fully explained, that was fine. They are “outside” so that is fine. The analogy of our super biologist of a us being a virus hurting the large entity body (inner space typical concept) was fine, but still, her singular interpretation. Where are the real physicists in the story??? [:D]

The epilogue was fun, even if super cheesy but it fulfilled expectations for the Amos character that were built up since the start of the show. I saw it coming of course but it was still fun.




Ricardo -> RE: The Expanse…spoilers. (Mar. 24 2022 14:40:25)

Last week the new book came out “memory’s legion”, which is a collection of the short stories that fit in between the main books and tell back story. The TV show actually covers the gist of all these through the strange dogs, which I guess sets up the Trilogy that comes after. There is only one other during the trilogy and the final short story goes AFTER the end of Book 9 (before the epilogue obviously). It ties up a loose end from before the final trilogy that was on everybody’s mind I guess, and wasn’t bad as a story, but not a super interesting end to the whole expanse series IMO.




Miguel de Maria -> RE: The Expanse…spoilers. (Apr. 19 2022 21:45:26)

If you like that kind of stuff, Alasdair Reynolds (author) does a bang-up job with space opera. The Revelation Space series as a TV series would be increible.




Ricardo -> RE: The Expanse…spoilers. (May 12 2022 19:13:33)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Miguel de Maria

If you like that kind of stuff, Alasdair Reynolds (author) does a bang-up job with space opera. The Revelation Space series as a TV series would be increible.


Thanks I went ahead and read that one. It was pretty cool, but gets a little far out for my tastes. I can see the Expanse writers might have been influenced there, regarding power suits and neutron star traps. My main issue with both stories is that as the story gets along with solid believable physics, at a certain point this BS concept of “consciousness” and that it is a “thing” that can be shared between entities just rubs me wrong. Like it is a necessity in order to tell the story about anything “Alien”. Somehow the Miller thing didn’t rub me wrong, but at the end with Duarte and of course in Revelation space the “magic” pool of algae convenient thing…eh…not my thing.

The other thing about Revelation Space is that as grandiose as the Galactic topic is, the whole experience is around like 4 characters, which makes it all too small for me.




Arash -> RE: The Expanse…spoilers. (May 15 2022 13:37:55)

Hey! How is everyone doing? Long time no see.

I was looking for something sci-fi to watch, never watched the Expanse. I will give it a go.

I just finished "foundation" season 1, which was pretty good.

One of my favorite sci-fi book series I read recently was The three-body-problem trillogy, by Cixin Liu. https://i.imgur.com/6pGx3ca.jpeg

It is hard, somewhat depressing sci-fi (not to say horrifying) but also liberating at the same time in a weird way.
The author is chinese. I won't give any spoilers, in case you are interested in this kind of sci-fi and haven't read the series yet.
I also heard netflix is in the making of a series based on the books.




Piwin -> RE: The Expanse…spoilers. (May 19 2022 14:56:52)

quote:

The three-body-problem trillogy


I enjoyed that trilogy as well. Some fun ideas to play around with, though indeed a rather bleak view of the universe. The high point for me was the end of book 2.

The last sci-fi I've watched was the 2021 Dune remake. I liked it quite a bit. Some changes of course, some for the better (some of the content of Paul's visions) and others for the worse (Jessica a rather weak character compared to what she is in the book; Arrakeen for some reason turned into a dead city (I noticed Villeneuve did the same thing in Blade Runner 2049. Compared to Ridley Scott's movie, everything was just empty and dead)), but overall I was sold on it, enough to look forward to part 2.

That and the movie Space Sweepers, which was largely unremarkable. A few colorful characters (but drowned out by the sheer amount of bad acting from the rest of the cast) and I appreciated the fact that a variety of languages were spoken in the same movie. But the plot was boring and predictable. Like those movies where 10 minutes in, even if nothing has happened yet, you've already guessed that the surprise ending will be something about Nazi gold...

I've heard some good things about the series For All Mankind, which posits a world in which the USSR landed on the Moon first and the space race continues. But I haven't had the chance to watch it yet.

I tried watching The Expanse when it first came out, but I didn't manage to make it through the first few episodes. Based on the conversations here I might give it another try, or perhaps try reading the books.




Arash -> RE: The Expanse…spoilers. (May 19 2022 16:06:30)

I watched the first episode of expanse yesterday and this is really not the type of sci fi I like, BUT I know that things can change and one shouldn't judge and give up fast. Just like some books, you can hardly make it over the first 50 pages cause of whatever reason, but then it all of a sudden changes and you get hooked, so I will continue watching. Specially since of the comments you guys made (agree with Piwin).

And yes, I agree DUNE was great.




kitarist -> RE: The Expanse…spoilers. (May 19 2022 17:19:05)

quote:

I've heard some good things about the series For All Mankind, which posits a world in which the USSR landed on the Moon first and the space race continues. But I haven't had the chance to watch it yet.


I've seen season 1 and really enjoyed it. Season 2 seems weaker so I drifted away from it after a couple of episodes, but the first season was excellent.




Piwin -> RE: The Expanse…spoilers. (May 20 2022 14:21:57)

Thanks, I'll have to check it out!




mrstwinkle -> RE: The Expanse…spoilers. (May 20 2022 19:07:49)

Strangely I almost gave up os s1. Preferred 2 onwards. Never really gelled with cop with a hat character, and Holden was a bit too much young Timothy Olyphant Jnr by my tastes.




kitarist -> RE: The Expanse…spoilers. (May 20 2022 20:12:37)

quote:

Never really gelled with cop with a hat character, and Holden was a bit too much young Timothy Olyphant Jnr by my tastes.


I thought we were taking about this series: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7772588/

I don't recognize your references, though. Cop with Hat? Holden?




Ricardo -> RE: The Expanse…spoilers. (Jun. 25 2022 17:36:26)

quote:

ORIGINAL: kitarist

quote:

Never really gelled with cop with a hat character, and Holden was a bit too much young Timothy Olyphant Jnr by my tastes.


I thought we were taking about this series: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7772588/

I don't recognize your references, though. Cop with Hat? Holden?



No, this one he was referring to:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3230854/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

I really feel the creators of the show did an amazing job at creating a huge universe out of our little solar system, and the tiny containers of O2 that humans inhabit out there.




Piwin -> RE: The Expanse…spoilers. (Sep. 29 2022 18:03:35)

I tried watching some of Amazon's The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of the Power Ringlord Rings. They should've kept their money and used it to do another season of The Expanse.




Ricardo -> RE: The Expanse…spoilers. (Sep. 29 2022 21:15:33)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Piwin

I tried watching some of Amazon's The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of the Power Ringlord Rings. They should've kept their money and used it to do another season of The Expanse.

Meaning you actually got into and maybe finished the Expanse? (Last posts on the subject claim you gave up after a few episodes).




Piwin -> RE: The Expanse…spoilers. (Sep. 29 2022 23:05:41)

quote:

Meaning you actually got into and maybe finished the Expanse?


No, not yet. I did buy Leviathan Wakes though. After I get around to reading it, then I might give the TV series another go. I just meant it as a general comment. It's kind of funny how they cut short The Expanse when the fans wanted more, and at the same time started a Tolkien series when the fans didn't really want one. [8D] Maybe it'll pay off in the end, but if the rest of the season is like what I've seen up until now, I doubt all that many people will be clamoring for a second season.




Ricardo -> RE: The Expanse…spoilers. (Oct. 1 2022 19:43:24)

quote:

It's kind of funny how they cut short The Expanse when the fans wanted more,


Well “they” is the authors themselves who were closely involved in the TV show production. It just doesn’t make sense because after they end the show, there would be like 20 years or something where you would have to age the actors into grey hair etc. However, they did drop some Easter egg things that implies a condensed version of that concept (perhaps as little as 5 years?), so if they want to use the same actors in the next couple of years, they could potentially write the story that works for the last 3 books of the series. IMO, they could condense the 3 books into a long movie, rather than a drawn out series. The main issue with the time frame is the story needs a long time for the Laconian people to build up their situation. A work around could be the work they put in could be re-written as a “discovery” rather than a production. But who knows, time will tell if they ever continue it.




Piwin -> RE: The Expanse…spoilers. (Oct. 2 2022 5:40:02)

I guess that makes sense. Not sure why changing the cast would be that much of a problem though. Plenty of series have done that when there's a big time jump in the story (latest example that I've seen was HoTD just this week, and it worked fine).




estebanana -> RE: The Expanse…spoilers. (Oct. 2 2022 6:51:20)

[8D]



Images are resized automatically to a maximum width of 800px




Piwin -> RE: The Expanse…spoilers. (Dec. 21 2022 15:58:40)

Finished Cibola Burn.

To get my opinions on the books out of the way: book 1 was great. 2 and 3 are good but start to feel a bit repetitive, since many of the plot mechanics are the same as in book 1 (someone does a false-flag attack, someone is looking for a single person across the entire solar system, etc.). Book 4 marks a low point. Uncharitably I'd call it Riddick but boring. They also made their universe feel small by bringing back both Havelock and Basia, as if there were just a few dozen people in the world and they keep on running into each other. So, boo book 4, but other than that, an enjoyable read so far. Now:

- So far I can't really speculate on the whole rings subspace thing. It's just something that's there and that's that. The only thing I know for sure about these aliens is that Apple didn't make their machines. They still work after billions of years when I can't even get my fúcking laptop to last a decade... What I don't really understand is the logistics of seeding the protomolecule on a planet. The problem is the fact that they apparently didn't find anything on Phoebe except the protomolecule. My thinking is that it had to be either a manned mission or there were at least machines and whatnot on Phoebe. For starters, the protomolecule can't drive itself. And if you're going to just shoot it at a planet, you're not going to use a 200km-diameter rock that'll wipe out all organic material upon arrival, since that would defeat the purpose of sending the protomolecule in the first place. Plus you'd probably want something there that could distinguish between forms of life, to avoid the kind of accident that happen on Eros (imagine the same thing happening to a civilization far more advanced... they could've accidentally started a war doing that). Also, you could always just load up organic material on the thing before launch to avoid that kind of mishap, no? But assuming it was a manned mission or that there were at least machines on Phoebe, why didn't they find anything? Maybe they did and it'll come up in later books with one faction having secretly developed some weapon or something? Just seems strange. Also, part of me wonders if Phoebe "landed" exactly where it was supposed to, and the idea that it was aiming for Earth is just the protagonists being self-centered.

- The Belter creole is garbage. It reads like they just glued together random words they looked up on Google. Da this man ein Kartoffeln pour qu'il stop hablar. As Marco Twain geschrieben hat, callar sei mieux than quitar Duden that tú baka desu, sabes. I gather for the show they had someone with experience conlanging come up with something better, so hopefully the language in the show is better than what's in the books. Still, I don't find the idea of a single creole shared by dozens of millions of people across the outer solar system to be convincing at all. They probably didn't explicitly think about it, but the model they're following is Schuchardt's monogenetic theory of pidgins and creoles. He postulated that all Atlantic creoles came from one local pidgin, "West African Pidgin Portuguese", and that it then spread as slaves were sold and deported to the Americas. But he had to contend with the fact that Atlantic creoles come in all shapes and colors, so he then imagined various mechanisms that could explain the observed differences. The authors of the Expanse point to this by saying the Belter creole was the language of "the first settlers of the Belt". But even assuming a monogenetic theory of pidgins and creoles is plausible (and that's a big if), you still end up with a wide variety of creoles, and not just the one. So, from my perspective, there's no reason why Belters from X place should speak the same language as Belters from Y place. The end result is that they're all a bit flattened out as characters. The only metric to differentiate a Belter from another Belter is just how much they hate the inner planets, ranging from fairly robust hatred to burn-motherfúckers-burn. But culturally, linguistically, etc., they're all the same. A limited analogy, but it's kind of like if you wrote a story set during the Cold War, and wherever the protagonist goes in the Third World, "they speak Third Worlder here". So dunno, I'd personally have imagined a lot more complexity, and potentially conflict, between different areas of the Belt. Or if they do all share the same creole, I'd need a good explanation as to how something so unlikely ended up occurring.

- FWIW, I'd totally go on Basic and just play guitar all day.

Anyway, happy holidays. Live largo und prosper kudasai, roflcopter sa sa.




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