Sorry for the lag in my book reviews but I went on a binge, reading all 8 books of the Expanse series. (Unfortunately I have to wait another year for the final book 9.)

The Expanse is set in the future, in a time when speculative new technologies, combined with our continued environmental degradation of Earth, have lead mankind to explore habitation on Mars and the outer planet moons and asteroid belt. Corey explores the biological and social implications of the cultures which would emerge from low gravity living. Tensions between the residents of the outer planets “the Belters” and the inner planets sparks the initial conflict of the book. The Canterbury, an Ice freighter which harvests ice from asteroids and brings it to the Belt to use for water, is blown up by ships which appear to be Martian military vessels. Four crew members survive and broadcast their suspicions of Mars’ involvement to the universe, just before they are picked up by a Mars military vessel. The crew members – James Holden, Naomi Nagada, Alex Kamal, and Amos Burton – form the central cast around which the series is based.

Like any epic fiction, the narrative is pretty complex, exponentially more so in this series due to the imagined technologies, life forms from other planets, and the changing laws of physics. Like many speculative fictional novels, new technologies influence not only how we relate to people on other planets, but also how we relate to each other. New reproductive technologies radically alter the concept and function of family. For example Holden grew up with 8 parents (all somehow biologically involved); families are mixes of gender and genetics, families are constructed, not predetermined. In many ways the future is dark and frightening, but the social fabric is progressive and liberating.

Syfy channel made a series based on the books that is dark and gritty and moves at the same slow mysterious pace as the novels. I’ve only watched a few episodes but they are intriguing. The complex imagined worlds are kept visually minimal – like the novels you don’t fully understand what you are looking at and the world gradually reveals itself to you as the story evolves.

But the books are really what I could not put down, and look forward to the final chapter due to come out next year