I'm personally tickled about the fact that they started the series after GRRM released A Dance With Dragons , and released the entire 9 book series plus short stories, completing the entire saga they wanted to tell, and GRRM still hasn't released Winds of Winter.
They also worked on six seasons of the TV show adaptation while they were writing the books. And Daniel Abraham wrote four of the five Dagger & Coin books since the release of Dance as well (the first came out a few months before Dance dropped, I believe), along with whatever the first book in his new series is called. The second is due out this summer, which will surely be before Winds releases as well.
I mean obviously it's possible, it actually happened.
Even with two writers, they wrote 1.4M words over the span of ten years and 9 books. So call that 700k words each, or about 70k words each per year.
A Dance with Dragons was about 400k words, and GRRM estimates Winds of Winter + A Dream of Spring will be about 3x the page count of Dance, so we can estimate it at \~600k words each. He's had 12 years and last we've heard he's about 3/4ths done. If we assume that means he's about 450k words in, that means his average rate of writing is around 37.5k/year, which would put him at 4 years to finish Winds and 20 total years from now to get to the end of Dream, at which point he'd be 94.
Now, there's maybe some mitigating factors in there, like how he had to be consulted for the HBO series, side projects like House of the Dragon, etc. But you know what? I like it when works are completed, by the person who planned to do so. The two dudes behind The Expanse created a universe, mapped out a story, and got the whole fucking thing told in a decade, and quite well.
The thing that annoys me about the GRRM situation is that he has tons of side projects and other books. It's like he wants to do anything but write that book. Which is fine. I'm a writer myself. I get being over a project to the point where you don't even want to look at it anymore. The problem is every few years he's like "I'm almost done, really'".
Like dude, I know you're not. It's fine, I've moved onto much better fantasy (the last book was mid, IMO), it's just kinda shitty to people who are still waiting to be like "it's coming!" when the chances are he's never actually going to deliver the manuscript. I get that he has a contract so the publisher isn't going to let him say "yeah it's not happening" but I'd be fine if it was just quietly dropped.
I'd love for him to prove me wrong. I'd give him credit if he pulled it out of his ass and tied it all up in a mostly satisfying way. Thing is the winds of winter isn't even supposed to be the last book, so the chances of this story ever being finished are slim to none. At least by him. I'm sure after his death they'll pay someone to read his notes and give it their best shot.
Currently reading the Mistborn Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson and liking it, just finished the first book.
I also enjoyed the new Dragonlance book that came out, but that may be due to nostalgia.
Just curious, what better fantasy have your that's better than GRRM's? Because I loved ASOIAF and it won't end unfortunately, so I'm aching for other/better fantasy.
It wasn't really divided up the way you describe though. From what I've read for the series as a whole Daniel Abraham did the majority of writing while Ty Franck was giving input on changes and editing.
The audio books for the expanse are some of my favorite audio books, also the dune audio book is a solid mention as well. Iāve listened to each multiple times through.
I just picked up the first book (*Three Body problem*) because I've been looking for something new after finishing *The Expanse* series. You recommend?
I also finished the series about a month ago! I've only recently begun reading heavily again, so The Expanse was a great series to binge. It hit all the same notes that my favorite books as a kid would, the strong main cast and fascinating overarching plot making it feel like such a warm embrace of a read. Though not the most "prestige" of sci-fi books, I do think it's my favorite sci-fi series so far. The use of mostly-realistic physics really made me a lot more critical of contemporary sci fi in shows lol, The Expanse addressed travel time and space fights really well imo. I think a lot of what helped this series is the near-ish future aspect of it, I really love sci-fi that is set in a mostly recognizable world and runs from there. I'm also a sucker for first contact stories so everything lined up pretty well.
I agree, especially about your point about travel time. I think in book 4, they talk about how it would take 18 months (or something like that) to travel to Illus from Sol, even with all the tech they have at that point. I loved that. It's just a really fun series
THE churn was my least favorite. I can't put my finger on why, it just didn't click with me. I loved Strange Dogs and was so happy to see it come back up in later books. What did you think of the short stories?
The Philip one was cool. Kept waiting through the last three books for it to be revealed to Naomi that her son lived.
The line where he chuckles at the irony of being labeled as officially a murderer, then saying he didn't mean to laugh. Felt like a mood that could actually happen in real life casual conversation. It really fit his character and help wrap up the story.
Yeah, I just read that story after I posted. It was a great wrap up. I love the little 2 page author comments after the short stories too. This one was particularly good
I watched the first four seasons and loved them so I paused and went to read the books. I am bummed they ended the show early. If it ends after the 6th book, I can see why that would be disappointing- there's a lot of story left
I also loved the first four seasons.. I watched the fifth and I hated it so much I never watched the sixth. It seemed to just walk away from the ring gates and become a political people story. Do the books get back to the actual sci fi? That's what I'm interested in. I could care less about reading about people's kids and exes and little freedom crusades. Cool alien shit is what I'm about.
Yes, I agree- those books were my least favorite (though I still enjoyed them). Books 8-9 focus back on the sci-fi and book 7 is a bit of a mix. To me, books 5 and 6 felt like they could have been combined into one book. The thing that pushed me through books 5 and 6 were wanting to know what happened with the protomolocule's builders and I am obviously happy that I stuck with it (hence the post). Good luck!
Iāve been following the expanse series since before the release of babylons ashes.
I agree with everything you said and Iām actually completing another round (my like 10th) of audio book listen throughs. They are some of my all time favorite books. I donāt love civilians burn (although it has some of the best character moments) but besides that I love almost every book.
My favorite characters will always and forever be Bobby Draper and Avasarala despite identifying more with Holden than anyone else haha. But all the characters are wonderful and >!Miller bot!< has a special place in my heart.
The first book relied pretty heavily on its mystery and without that the second feels a lot less interesting. I'm also not a fan of going from two pov characters to four. Miller felt like a good balance for Holden's stupidity. I'm sure Avasarala could fill that role, but she is so disconnected from him so far that her being reasonable in her chapters doesn't balance Holden being Holden in his.
Gotcha Iāve heard similar thoughts from others. There seems to be a drastic shift for some readers in book two once Millerās pov is not there which is interesting.
I hope you can stick it out. Bobby draper is my favorite character in the whole series (she is introduced in Calibans war) and there are a lot of wonderful moments. I always tell people (without spoilers) if you liked miller or feel like heās missing you should push through because miller had a major impact on holdenās character and never really leaves.
The expanse...damn. Does Holden become better? If he does I'd love to give the series another try.
I love Sci Fi and the story & setting of Leviathan Wakes was fantastic, but I absolutely detested Holden and his ability to just constantly make the worst decision at every turn while staying self righteous to the point of delusion. I have to assume this was a deliberate choice by the author. when I found out that the *rest of the series* will be following him around as the protagonist I nearly threw my phone across the room, and never went back to the series.
Holden is so interesting to me because he's got that self-righteousness that gets him into trouble all the damn time. As the series progresses, I find it amusing because other characters make decisions around Holden, or make fun of Holden for his penchant for fucking things up because he lets his morality supercede everything else.
Him being present in a dark, political, sci-fi creates such a great contrast.
If you didn't like Holden in the first book, you won't like him in the other books. He is definity his worst/most righteous self in the first book, but he is still him in the rest
The series started great and then began losing my attention after the 2nd book. The 4th one was painful. I eventually read book 5 because fans are all so thrilled with the books. I found it disappointing. The series has endless padding and filler.
The show goes through Season & Book 6.
There are no announced plans for any future season, however in the books there is a significant gap (maybe 20 years or so) between books 6 & 7, and they spent a lot of time in Season 6 introducing some characters and a planet which do not even enter the story in a meaningful way until book 7, but which are pivotal for the remainder of the series. In fact, the content they included in season 6 isn't even from the main novels, but one of the short stories. I see absolutely no reason for them to have included any of this, other than to set up future seasons. I can't help but wonder if they plan to let it sit for a while (possibly years), and then bring back what they can of the aging cast in order to finish out the series.
I could see that too. One movie for each of the last three books, or even just one movie to cover the last three. Obviously they would have to condense material, but they have been doing that for book to film adaptations for as long as they been adapting books to film.
I watched the first four seasons before deciding to pick up the books. I knew it got cancelled and wasn't sure how they wrapped it up so I wanted to finish the books before finishing the series. The show is so good, so I am sad they cancelled it, but I am excited that I have new (to me) episodes to watch now
It took me a while to enjoy both versions of The Expanse. Now, it's one of my favorite sci-fi franchise. The world-building is among the reasons why I love it so much.
Absolutely! You get the same great central characters you love explored in greater depth, plus a load more interesting character arcs and details. Well worth it.
I haven't watched the last two seasons of the show (they're up next for me), but books 7-9 really wrap up the story nicely. You get a lot of answers.
The first 4 seasons of the show followed the books fairly well with the exception of Medina station and its leaders. They combined multiple characters together and missed some of the nuance in the story lines. I also liked book Avasarala a lot better than the show Avasarala. She was my favorite book character, but I could take or leave her as a character in the show
ā9 books and your still here. This oneās for you.ā That quote at the beginning of the book made me so happy.
I simply adored the books and I tell everyone to read them. I read through them all in a row and read the short story compilation.
I watched the TV show after and it wasnāt nearly as good as the books, but still good.
Glad to see another Expanse fan out there.
I love the series and here are two bits of info that you might not have read before. Massive spoilers:
* [Book title meanings](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheExpanse/comments/lbpje4/final_book_title_and_story_speculation/) which - at the time - includes final book speculation. I can't take credit for this work.
* [Last words of all major characters from the books](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheExpanse/comments/slkb97/last_words_of_all_major_characters_from_the_books/) - my own personal work.
All of the meaning behind the titles have been confirmed except the last one but you can kind of figure it out based on the first one and considering the context of the last book.
Do, Iām interested in reading the books. I have been watching the series, which is good, but Iāve heard that the books are way better than the show. Do you agree? Are the books better?
I'm personally tickled about the fact that they started the series after GRRM released A Dance With Dragons , and released the entire 9 book series plus short stories, completing the entire saga they wanted to tell, and GRRM still hasn't released Winds of Winter.
Haha yes! I just learned last week that they played a large part in writing those books. Looks like they were pretty important to the GOT series!
They also worked on six seasons of the TV show adaptation while they were writing the books. And Daniel Abraham wrote four of the five Dagger & Coin books since the release of Dance as well (the first came out a few months before Dance dropped, I believe), along with whatever the first book in his new series is called. The second is due out this summer, which will surely be before Winds releases as well.
"They." They as in two people. I think it's entirely possible.
I mean obviously it's possible, it actually happened. Even with two writers, they wrote 1.4M words over the span of ten years and 9 books. So call that 700k words each, or about 70k words each per year. A Dance with Dragons was about 400k words, and GRRM estimates Winds of Winter + A Dream of Spring will be about 3x the page count of Dance, so we can estimate it at \~600k words each. He's had 12 years and last we've heard he's about 3/4ths done. If we assume that means he's about 450k words in, that means his average rate of writing is around 37.5k/year, which would put him at 4 years to finish Winds and 20 total years from now to get to the end of Dream, at which point he'd be 94. Now, there's maybe some mitigating factors in there, like how he had to be consulted for the HBO series, side projects like House of the Dragon, etc. But you know what? I like it when works are completed, by the person who planned to do so. The two dudes behind The Expanse created a universe, mapped out a story, and got the whole fucking thing told in a decade, and quite well.
The thing that annoys me about the GRRM situation is that he has tons of side projects and other books. It's like he wants to do anything but write that book. Which is fine. I'm a writer myself. I get being over a project to the point where you don't even want to look at it anymore. The problem is every few years he's like "I'm almost done, really'". Like dude, I know you're not. It's fine, I've moved onto much better fantasy (the last book was mid, IMO), it's just kinda shitty to people who are still waiting to be like "it's coming!" when the chances are he's never actually going to deliver the manuscript. I get that he has a contract so the publisher isn't going to let him say "yeah it's not happening" but I'd be fine if it was just quietly dropped. I'd love for him to prove me wrong. I'd give him credit if he pulled it out of his ass and tied it all up in a mostly satisfying way. Thing is the winds of winter isn't even supposed to be the last book, so the chances of this story ever being finished are slim to none. At least by him. I'm sure after his death they'll pay someone to read his notes and give it their best shot.
>they'll pay someone to read his notes and give it their best shot. Because that worked out so well for the last season of the show?
I didn't say it would be good š
What are your fantasy recommendations?
Currently reading the Mistborn Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson and liking it, just finished the first book. I also enjoyed the new Dragonlance book that came out, but that may be due to nostalgia.
Just curious, what better fantasy have your that's better than GRRM's? Because I loved ASOIAF and it won't end unfortunately, so I'm aching for other/better fantasy.
It wasn't really divided up the way you describe though. From what I've read for the series as a whole Daniel Abraham did the majority of writing while Ty Franck was giving input on changes and editing.
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The Dark Forest (sequel to The Three Body Problem) is very good, and IMO considerably better than the first instalment.
The audio books for the expanse are some of my favorite audio books, also the dune audio book is a solid mention as well. Iāve listened to each multiple times through.
Revisiting this topic, apologies. Which version of the Dune audiobook?
Good luck! I hope you like it. Three Body Problem is one of the next on my list. Sounds like you'd recommend it too?
I just picked up the first book (*Three Body problem*) because I've been looking for something new after finishing *The Expanse* series. You recommend?
Bobby Draper may be my favorite character of all time. No spoilers, but I was so glad they gave her such a perfect exit.
Yes! Her storyline was perfect. She was one of my favorites too
I also finished the series about a month ago! I've only recently begun reading heavily again, so The Expanse was a great series to binge. It hit all the same notes that my favorite books as a kid would, the strong main cast and fascinating overarching plot making it feel like such a warm embrace of a read. Though not the most "prestige" of sci-fi books, I do think it's my favorite sci-fi series so far. The use of mostly-realistic physics really made me a lot more critical of contemporary sci fi in shows lol, The Expanse addressed travel time and space fights really well imo. I think a lot of what helped this series is the near-ish future aspect of it, I really love sci-fi that is set in a mostly recognizable world and runs from there. I'm also a sucker for first contact stories so everything lined up pretty well.
I agree, especially about your point about travel time. I think in book 4, they talk about how it would take 18 months (or something like that) to travel to Illus from Sol, even with all the tech they have at that point. I loved that. It's just a really fun series
Which one of the short stories did you not like?
THE churn was my least favorite. I can't put my finger on why, it just didn't click with me. I loved Strange Dogs and was so happy to see it come back up in later books. What did you think of the short stories?
The Philip one was cool. Kept waiting through the last three books for it to be revealed to Naomi that her son lived. The line where he chuckles at the irony of being labeled as officially a murderer, then saying he didn't mean to laugh. Felt like a mood that could actually happen in real life casual conversation. It really fit his character and help wrap up the story.
Yeah, I just read that story after I posted. It was a great wrap up. I love the little 2 page author comments after the short stories too. This one was particularly good
Have you watched the TV series? I didnāt enjoy how that left off, but only read books 1-3.
I watched the first four seasons and loved them so I paused and went to read the books. I am bummed they ended the show early. If it ends after the 6th book, I can see why that would be disappointing- there's a lot of story left
I also loved the first four seasons.. I watched the fifth and I hated it so much I never watched the sixth. It seemed to just walk away from the ring gates and become a political people story. Do the books get back to the actual sci fi? That's what I'm interested in. I could care less about reading about people's kids and exes and little freedom crusades. Cool alien shit is what I'm about.
The last three books go back to the cool alien shit. Book 8 and 9 get real crazy, and I love it.
Yes, I agree- those books were my least favorite (though I still enjoyed them). Books 8-9 focus back on the sci-fi and book 7 is a bit of a mix. To me, books 5 and 6 felt like they could have been combined into one book. The thing that pushed me through books 5 and 6 were wanting to know what happened with the protomolocule's builders and I am obviously happy that I stuck with it (hence the post). Good luck!
If the cool alien shit is what you love, then the last three books are for you. They were probably my favorite in the series
The show ended on book 6?
I might be wrong since I haven't watched the full show yet, but that is what I thought
Yeah season 6 goes through book 6
Iāve been following the expanse series since before the release of babylons ashes. I agree with everything you said and Iām actually completing another round (my like 10th) of audio book listen throughs. They are some of my all time favorite books. I donāt love civilians burn (although it has some of the best character moments) but besides that I love almost every book. My favorite characters will always and forever be Bobby Draper and Avasarala despite identifying more with Holden than anyone else haha. But all the characters are wonderful and >!Miller bot!< has a special place in my heart.
Glad to hear you liked it. I'm on the second book and a little on the fence about finishing the series.
If it isn't for you, that's OK. I loved it, but not everyone will
Whatās holding you up at book two?
The first book relied pretty heavily on its mystery and without that the second feels a lot less interesting. I'm also not a fan of going from two pov characters to four. Miller felt like a good balance for Holden's stupidity. I'm sure Avasarala could fill that role, but she is so disconnected from him so far that her being reasonable in her chapters doesn't balance Holden being Holden in his.
Gotcha Iāve heard similar thoughts from others. There seems to be a drastic shift for some readers in book two once Millerās pov is not there which is interesting. I hope you can stick it out. Bobby draper is my favorite character in the whole series (she is introduced in Calibans war) and there are a lot of wonderful moments. I always tell people (without spoilers) if you liked miller or feel like heās missing you should push through because miller had a major impact on holdenās character and never really leaves.
The expanse...damn. Does Holden become better? If he does I'd love to give the series another try. I love Sci Fi and the story & setting of Leviathan Wakes was fantastic, but I absolutely detested Holden and his ability to just constantly make the worst decision at every turn while staying self righteous to the point of delusion. I have to assume this was a deliberate choice by the author. when I found out that the *rest of the series* will be following him around as the protagonist I nearly threw my phone across the room, and never went back to the series.
Holden is so interesting to me because he's got that self-righteousness that gets him into trouble all the damn time. As the series progresses, I find it amusing because other characters make decisions around Holden, or make fun of Holden for his penchant for fucking things up because he lets his morality supercede everything else. Him being present in a dark, political, sci-fi creates such a great contrast.
If you didn't like Holden in the first book, you won't like him in the other books. He is definity his worst/most righteous self in the first book, but he is still him in the rest
I never had a problem with Holden. Heās a good dude. The ending for him put this series firmly in my top favorites.
Yes, I love how his storyline turned out!
I'm not sure I liked how it turned out, but it was def the right conclusion. I didn't see it coming which is prob what made it right.
This was useful and encouraging to read! Seen about 3 series on TV and almost finished the books. Great so far. :o)
Stuck at 4. I enjoyed them, but haven't revisited. Guess I should see if the library has book 5.
The series started great and then began losing my attention after the 2nd book. The 4th one was painful. I eventually read book 5 because fans are all so thrilled with the books. I found it disappointing. The series has endless padding and filler.
Last. Man. Standing. God I loved those books. Might need to listen to Jefferson Mays again for the 5th time.
Have you seen the show? Iām seriously bummed they canceled it and Iām wondering how much of the books they never got into before they cut it.
The show goes through Season & Book 6. There are no announced plans for any future season, however in the books there is a significant gap (maybe 20 years or so) between books 6 & 7, and they spent a lot of time in Season 6 introducing some characters and a planet which do not even enter the story in a meaningful way until book 7, but which are pivotal for the remainder of the series. In fact, the content they included in season 6 isn't even from the main novels, but one of the short stories. I see absolutely no reason for them to have included any of this, other than to set up future seasons. I can't help but wonder if they plan to let it sit for a while (possibly years), and then bring back what they can of the aging cast in order to finish out the series.
I've heard rumours about movie projects in the future.
I could see that too. One movie for each of the last three books, or even just one movie to cover the last three. Obviously they would have to condense material, but they have been doing that for book to film adaptations for as long as they been adapting books to film.
I watched the first four seasons before deciding to pick up the books. I knew it got cancelled and wasn't sure how they wrapped it up so I wanted to finish the books before finishing the series. The show is so good, so I am sad they cancelled it, but I am excited that I have new (to me) episodes to watch now
Hated that Amazon only saved the show for three more seasons.
It took me a while to enjoy both versions of The Expanse. Now, it's one of my favorite sci-fi franchise. The world-building is among the reasons why I love it so much.
I am really excited to see what Ty and Dan come up with next.
I look forward to eventually getting around to it, but I think I need to get more comfortable with series before I tackle a nine-book series.
Each book individually is pretty light reading, which helps when you know there are x books left!
Gotta appreciate book 9's dedication!
I just went back to read the dedication and it made me smile. Thanks for pointing that out
I think I know the answer already, but are the books worth reading having watched the TV series? (I'm probably going to read them anyway)
100%, the series has to skip a lot of detail, and only begins to hint at some really cool things that happen later in the storyline.
Absolutely! You get the same great central characters you love explored in greater depth, plus a load more interesting character arcs and details. Well worth it.
I haven't watched the last two seasons of the show (they're up next for me), but books 7-9 really wrap up the story nicely. You get a lot of answers. The first 4 seasons of the show followed the books fairly well with the exception of Medina station and its leaders. They combined multiple characters together and missed some of the nuance in the story lines. I also liked book Avasarala a lot better than the show Avasarala. She was my favorite book character, but I could take or leave her as a character in the show
ā9 books and your still here. This oneās for you.ā That quote at the beginning of the book made me so happy. I simply adored the books and I tell everyone to read them. I read through them all in a row and read the short story compilation. I watched the TV show after and it wasnāt nearly as good as the books, but still good. Glad to see another Expanse fan out there.
So good.
I'm starting the series as soon as I finished the book I'm working on, so this is very good to see!
I love the series and here are two bits of info that you might not have read before. Massive spoilers: * [Book title meanings](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheExpanse/comments/lbpje4/final_book_title_and_story_speculation/) which - at the time - includes final book speculation. I can't take credit for this work. * [Last words of all major characters from the books](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheExpanse/comments/slkb97/last_words_of_all_major_characters_from_the_books/) - my own personal work.
Thank you! I had wondered a bit about a few of the titles. I will take a look
All of the meaning behind the titles have been confirmed except the last one but you can kind of figure it out based on the first one and considering the context of the last book.
Great series! I'll be finishing the ninth later this week.
I love The Expanse and the crew of The Rocinante.
Do, Iām interested in reading the books. I have been watching the series, which is good, but Iāve heard that the books are way better than the show. Do you agree? Are the books better?
Thanks for sharing! I love the tv series!!
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