The Expanse!

So I powered through the first four books of the Expanse series as quickly as I can recall book-reading in the past. I got through the first four books of the Harry Potter series in about two weeks back when I first started plowing through them; I think I might've gotten through all of the Expanse books even more quickly than that. My Kindle records show that I bought the first book on July 20th, the second on July 22nd (!), the third on July 27, and the fourth on July 30th. These aren't exactly short books (2300 pages between the four of them), and I'm a busy guy, so hopefully it says something to their readability that I managed to get through them all at such a pace.

It's interesting to read well-done hard sci-fi, especially in a relatively low-tech setting like the Expanse books. There aren't any warp drives or phasers or teleporters here; everything is pretty tightly constrained to the laws of relativistic or newtonian physics. Passengers on ships without thrust deal with the inconveniences of zero-gravity; radiation is still something that needs to be worried about; individuals brought up on Mars or in the asteroid belt are effectively prevented from ever visiting Earth due to the crush of its gravity well. Obviously there are narrative hiccups here and there (how many times can Amos appear to be dead at the end of a chapter, only to find himself miraculously fine when the action returns to him?), and the last couple of books indulge in the villain-of-the-week kind of Star Trekianisms that I was hoping the authors were better than. Still, the books managed to be compulsively readable.

Not to overstate the import of these books; they're mostly fluff, but sometimes a bit of fluff is all you really want out of a good three-hour reading session. These books aren't exactly Kim Stanley Robinson novels, but then, that's probably a good thing: KSR's where I turn for Serious Business, and sometimes I just want to read something that keeps me clicking the next page button. The Expanse books are definitely that. Sorry if I'm not being specific w/r/t plot or anything like that; if you think this sounds like something you'd be interested in, feel free to grab a Kindle sample and go to town.

Anyone read their Honor Among Thieves Star Wars book? It looks like it's around half the length of an Expanse novel, which doesn't strike me as an awesome deal.

I like good, gritty sci-fi so I may have to check this out. I think it's what I liked about some of the Ender's Game series of books when I read them in high school. The technology was there but it wasn't perfect and clean. It felt more real that way.

I've heard Honor Among Thieves is pretty good and that Han Solo is given some depth and inner dialogue that matches his character well. I'm always very wary of Star Wars novels since some of them can get very dime novel. I got into the Clone Wars novels back when the prequels were being released and those weren't the greatest.

I'm almost finished with Game of Thrones so maybe this will be my follow up. Thanks for the recommendation!

I haven't read Honor Among Thieves but I sure as hell fell into a 2 month 7 book long Star Wars EU reading frenzy a few months back. They're stupid fun but I ended up with a "smoke the whole pack" feeling at the tail end of it. I've been looking for some easy reading and this series sounds like something that may fit the bill. Thanks Rorie~ =D

Honor Among Thieves is a pretty decent Star Wars novel. I'd say it's in the top 30% or so, and I've read at least 40 of them over the years. I did get through it in two short evenings of reading, though...it's one of the shortest Star Wars novels I've ever read, somewhat on par with the Young Jedi Knights series if you have ever read any of those. Worth reading but not at full price. There are far better (and lengthier) Star Wars books that you can get for just a few bucks, and there are so many out there that I think it's safe to wait until the paperback comes out and just read Honor then.

I have a copy of Caliban's War sitting here, but I haven't read Leviathan Wake yet and everything I'm seeing says I should definitely read the latter first. Hoping to star the series soon, heard nothing but good things.

Would Mardock Scramble be considered hard sci-fi?

Based on Rories recommendation I started reading the first in the series and I'm enjoying it. There are some great moments as well as some cringe-worthy cliches, but I think it balances out in the end and keeps turning the pages.

I especially enjoy the hardcore sci-fi setting that serves up detailed explanations for propulsion etc without reaching Neal Stephenson levels of analysis. The Mars series (Red Mars, Green Mars..) were a little too serious for me but this seems to hit the sweet spot.

I've been in a reading slump lately, having started the Altered Carbon after all the praise and finding it somewhat juvenile. William Gibson it is definitely not, but then again nothing really is. While Leviathan isn't exactly amazing reading either, it does a good job of masking it's shortcomings with a good pacing.

As for Star Wars - I don't want to be a prude but I read a bunch of those books and apart from the Timothy Zahn Thrawn trilogy I found most of them ranging from awful to mediocre at best.

Hmm, maybe I'll add this series to my list. I finally finished all the Hyperion/Endymion books a couple of months ago and they are by far and away the best thing I've ever read. Now I'm cranking through Dune, which started real slow but seems to be picking up, and already have a copy of Consider Phlebas and the first three books of the Uplift universe in an omnibus sitting by (although I've heard mixed things about Sundiver).

What's the distinction with "hard" sci-fi?

@bollard: Hard sci-fi is stuff that's supposed to be based on actual science and somewhat believable...something like 2001: A Space Odyssey. Soft sci-fi would be Star Wars, Star Trek, Dune, stuff like that.

@bollard: Hard sci-fi is a lot more grounded in reality and tends to be somewhat technical in writing. Writers will build on existing technology of today and envision how it might evolve in the future. In Leviathan especially there is a lot of talk about gravity and space travel in general. For instance people born outside of Earth are much taller with elongated limbs and features as a result of growing up in lower gravity. Ships are generally shapeless boxes as aerodynamics have no meaning in space travel. Stuff like that.

@humanity: @mb: Gotcha. Thanks for the explanation duders.

@rorie I'm super glad to hear you enjoyed it! I did not realize the 4th book was out, I need to pick that ASAP. there is something really really addicting about the writing. I flew through the first three in a handful of days, its such a good feeling completely losing yourself in a book. Obviously, some campy moments in there but I love how it straddled the intersection between hard sci-fi, noir and a space opera. I really enjoyed the description of combat and the political strife of the first two books. It is definitely 'fluff' but I put it in the same category as game of thrones, solid writing and excellent world building.

Are you going to read any of the novellas?

I wish there was a better forum to talk about this and Ancillary Justice (just finished based on your twitter recommendation) so we didn't have to worry about spoilers. Giantbook club?

Huh, might have to read this. I think the only other hard sci-fi I have read was "The Forever War", which was great. Is it a lot of time dilation in these books as well? Because that whole concept intrigues me.

The problem with that line of logic in books is that while aerodynamics might have no meaning in space travel: mass, thrust and inertia distributions still very much do. So the shapeless box design is likewise technically wrong. Even aerodynamics only don't matter in the instance if the ship is designed purely for interstellar travel with no atmospheric entry functionality at all. Thus generally also has to be assembled in space.

(hmm, deja-vu?, think i've posted this exact sentiment sometime recently already, my bad if that's indeed the case)

I don't know much about science in that regard but I was always under the impression that there is no friction in space and since you're moving through a vacuum there is no need for streamlined design. I don't really know enough to comment on how mass and thrust relate to the general shape of a ship - a giant ball of mass X should accelerate just as quickly as a giant bomb of the same mass should it not?

I always found the idea of enormous ships being built in city sized space construction yards really cool.

Well, if the mass is distributed unevenly then it would surely affect the handling of the ship, even in space. Plus, if you built your enormous shapeless blob on a planet, you need to find some way to launch it into space (and overcome all that friction)!

@rorie just out of pure curiosity ... did you ever try to read a discworld novel?

@humanity: Imagine billiards. If you hit (thrust) the ball dead in the middle it'll go straight, if you hit it on the side it will not only travel at an angle but also spin. But on billiards you have friction the spin will stop, having no friction in space so your thrusters just created an infinite increasing spin that has to be corrected somehow. Mass distribution has be be carefully calculated as well as where the thrust is applied in order to properly control your movement. Which is why more technically correct space craft still maintain a degree of symmetry, easier to calculate mass/stress/thrust all that shit and to maintain uniform controlled movement, or to stabilize it if necessary.

Now imagine putting a jet engine (thrust) on a wing of a plane that instead of being bigger and structurally stronger at the joint and lighter at the tip (like it is in reality), was instead tiny at the joint and big and heavy on the outside. The stress of the thrust could rip the wing clean off before even takeoff. Stresses on structures and them maintaining integrity when force (thrust) is being applied against them is still relevant be it in space or in gravity with an atmosphere, (just different calculations but they still exist) or your spaceship is just gonna break apart, or bits of it will.

So yes you don't need a streamlined design, but it still has to be some kind of design that makes sense, is balanced and looks like it can take stress and not just a haphazard jumble of structures. Unless your sci-fi tech level is so incredibly advanced that such petty concerns stop mattering entirely, but by that time you can also then go for aesthetic for the hell of it generally :P

Ooh, Now I got something to start on when I'm done with the last Witcher novel. Thanks for the tip Matt. If you ever find time, I'd reccoment the Witcher novels to you again, I'm deeply in love with how Sapkowski manages to be original within the fantasy genre, using tropes and even characters we might know from works that came before.

@tennmuerti: cool - thanks that was enlightening!

Thanks Rorie! I was really looking for another set of books to get into. This looks right up my alley.

Here's a pic of my pup as thanks.

Far out!

@fobwashed: Would you recommend any of those? I've dabbled in the EU but some of those novels are really hit or miss.

I did read the Churn and the Butcher of Anderson Station: the Churn is good and long, but the Butcher one is a bit short and only relates to an ancillary character (Fred Johnson, whose name I always find amusingly generic). Just started on the third one, hopefully it's good.

Forever War's pretty great. I didn't realize it was as old as it was when I read, but it being written in 1974 makes a lot of sense when you consider it as a reflection of Vietnam War fatigue.

I really enjoyed the Thrawn trilogy. Start there =]

I really enjoy the series but feel they're going downhill a bit. The 4th I'm in the middle of now, but super bummed about it because I like the series as a "we are bunch of peeps doing whatever in space" and it's seriously gets away from that in the 4th.

I'll keep reading them though because I haven't found anything else that seems to have as much fun with their near future, this solar system space stuff. Also the writers seem like SyFy is doing good by them on the new show.

Spoilery talk:

@rorie Never read a book by Kim Stanley Robinson, what do you recommend by him?

This one is a disappointment for me and wasted potential. It was initially planned as a trilogy. Books 1 and 2 are paced with that in mind. Then book 3 happens. It's not a trilogy anymore. And apparently it's not going to be, ya know, good anymore either. My impressions expressed as score:

Book 1: 8/10

Book 2: a generous 7/10

Book 3: 3/10

Book 4: 3/10

@ozzie: Hmm, he's pretty heavy. The Mars Trilogy still holds up really well. He's kind of trilogy-heavy, so I'm not really sure what I'd recommend as a one-off taster. Maybe Pacific Edge, but then I like that book probably a lot more than it merits.

I'll check this out. I need a good hard sci-fi after that garbage, Gardens of the Sun, turned me off the subgenre for four years.

Never be fooled by cover art, guys.

That's a pretty great cover though.

Daniel Abraham is one of the writers for the Expanse series and I would recommend his Long Price Quartet, starting with the book below. The first book has barely any magic at all if that's a barrier to entry. It's much more about character relations and what choices they make within a bigger overarching plot.

And since I'm a nerd for Fantasy, I'll recommend Blood Song by Anthony Ryan as well. Sounds generic. It is not. Great read and the reviews are through the roof.

It is a really beautiful cover though isn't it.

ALSO I've been listening to this audio sample on Audible, and Matthew Rorie, please tell me this book isn't some secret front by a whizzard to push his fetishes into hard sci-fi. (All joking aside I'm sure the book is fine but that audio sample they have for it is terrible)

Just wanted to pop in here and thank @rorie for the recommendation. Blew through the first two books in 5 days, can't wait to start on the third.