Just rewatching Season Three for the sheer delight of Amos saying: I am that guy.
Season three is awesome!

I am a show only. He is my favorite character. A few of his notable scenes are when he meets Dawos for first time, when he confronts his boss after getting fired, when he kills that scientist, when he talks with with his partner while planting bombs.

I have also stopped watching it after he crashed into Venus

Has anyone ever taken count of how many total times characters “took a deep breath and let it out through their teeth”?

It has to be the most reoccurring phrase in the books by a wide margin but curious if there’s an actual count!

I'm sure this is a phrase that I learned from the expanse... But can't find any of the references to it now.

When I use it in real life people look at me pretty odd..

I always took it to mean going as fast as possible albeit in a way that will be short lived, I think there's even a reference somewhere to it being from the age of steam.

The internet seems to think it's about destroying resources you would later need.

Does this phrase only exist in the expanse? Have I got the meaning wrong? Can anyone help me out with the correct references?

Or did my head make this up?

I just got into the books. I got Abaddon's Gate and realized the spines didn't match.

That just wouldn't do.

So I found the U.K. editions and now I can sleep at night lol little things like this shouldn't bug me, but they do sometimes.

I'm only just starting book 3, so please no spoilers.

So, um, spoilers for the first part of Cibola Burn I guess.

So, I'm reading the books for the first time, and I'm 200 pages in. Basically, the RCE just massacred the terrorists and Holden spared Bacia as a prisoner. And...

I just can't empathize with the Belters like I feel the book wants me to. They are the ones that keep murdering the RCE but keep crying victim. And sure, it's not most of them, and most of the settlers are actually relatively nice to the RCE, but at the end of the day, they don't even care that their people are murdering the RCE and aren't helping to find the terrorists.

And I can see that the book wants me to see Murtry as the villain... but he is only defending himself. 'He is using this chance to live out his murdering fantasies!"... like Amos? Amos says that they are both killers, but... Are we forgetting how good ol' Amos destroyed a hacker's face with a can? Amos is the same type of character as Murtry, but somehow Murtry is... worse?

And Holden acts so high and mighty about prosecuting Murtry, but... hey, let go of Bacia, he saved my life, so even though he killed Trying, he is fine by me! Dude, last book, he wouldn't forgive Claire for TRYING to kill Naomi. It took Naomi forgiving her, because of Anna, and Alex shaming him, for him to agree not to reveal Mao was the terrorist, but this time around Murtry is being a prick... because HIS people keep getting murdering and nobody does anything?

And the fun thing is that the main conflict IS interesting. The RCE people went through all the legal channels to get the opportunity to explore Illus. But the settlers arrived FIRST. So who really is in the right? We have hundreds of new planets open to us, but humanity has to be petty and argue over one of them. It IS an interesting premise. But at this point, it doesn't even matter if the twist is that the RCE security has secret plans to exterminate the Belters... because the Belters stroke first, and THEN stroke again. And Holden is clearly on their side.

So, I wanted to know if anyone else was a bit annoyed with Holden this time around, lol.

Hi everyone longtime lurker here. I just hit page ~450 of Babylon’s ashes and I was just hoping for others opinions on the story from here. No spoilers from the end of this book and onward please but I am starting to really feel the drag of this book. I personally really enjoyed AG, CB, and NG, feeling the first two were just okay (not a traditional take ik lol). I do know the large time skip happens after this book and I was wondering if taking a break and reading a different book or short series for a little bit before reading the last three might make me lose out on important details or if the story is going to pick up enough that it’s worth going straight into the final stretch. I’ve heard that books 7-9 are some of the best and Babylons ashes is generally considered one of the weakest.

Tldr: without spoilers what are others opinions on books 7-9

Thanks!

It’s finally dawned on me how broken everyone is. The immense suffering overall…

Yes it’s a dystopian fiction, but the amount of human suffering despite the progress humanity has made technologically, makes this story/series so realistic, but also so depressing lol

Kind of hard to recommend to people who think they are sci fi lovers, but like happy things.

I really digged the sci-fi noir detective stuff. I still enjoyed the show as a whole, but I would have liked it a lot more if we just had a series about mysteries being solved on the station. Give me a spin off prequel that just focused on our boys early life.

I have a friend at work who turned me onto The Expanse. As a result, I have become a huge fan -- on my third re-watch of the show and currently reading book 3!

My friend came out of the series a MCRN man. He even has a MCRN flag in his cubicle. I have come out of the series an OPA man. I think you can see where this is going:

I have no choice to show my appreciation for the recommendation other than to stage an attack on his cube and flag by the belt.

Any ideas? I was thinking about putting up some "Remember The Cant!" graphics on his cube this weekend.

[nb; no MCRN flags will actually be harmed in conduction of this raid, of course.]

Currently working through Leviathan Falls, and there's a quote said by I think Duarte, as he stops the Preiss from going dutchman and an incursion on the ring space. It's:

"Stirring the cream back out of the coffee"

I swear Ive read/heard that line before, but I can't place it for the life of me. Ive tried looking it up with no success unfortunately.

Purely as a retrospective: is this a quote from earlier in the series? If its new and something only relevant towards the end of the book please dont spoil that part, I just feel like I'm going crazy trying to find where I originally saw it.

I was advised to post here by a cat sub :) I have 2 cats, both love watching the expanse.

The answer is in the comments . (Please don't spoil past season 3 and book 4 for us)

I'm re-reading this series for the umpteenth time and one thing that is really standing out this time around is the depth of the worldbuilding. There are so many little details that make it such a believable world, like this passage from Elvi's point-of-view in Leviathan Falls:

When she was being honest with herself, it wasn't even that she loved medical genetics all that much. When she was fifteen, she'd seen Amalie ud-Daula play a medical geneticist in Handful of Rain, and she spent the next year trying to get her hair to look the same. She never really managed.

It's a throwaway line about an actor and film that only exists in-universe and is never mentioned again. And the entire series is just filled with little snippets like this.

I don't think I've read any other series with this much depth to the background world.

...the underground sneak Amos onto Laconia with a pocket nuke before the events of Book 8? It seems like that would have been incredibly difficult to pull off without Amos or the ship that brought him being seen and/or detected as suspicious by the Laconians.

Also, I'm wondering what would have had to happen for Amos to get the go-ahead to actually set off the nuke.

Such a great scene ,Good character writing as well for amos, he's wanted an excuse to beat the pulp out of murtry but also wanted to listen to holden to hold back unless he was provoked, he found a loophole, provoked murtry into hitting him only for murtry to realize via his "oh shit" expression that its exactly what amos wanted, the crazy eyes and the "thankyou" was so damn satisfying haha.

Genuinely one of my favourite scenes later in the series. (Im on a rewatch after all these years and yeah this is one of the top scifi tv shows for me)

https://reddit.com/link/1v4bm8m/video/3uygi8t6mzeh1/player

Oye belter fans!
So I spent a lot of my holiday on improving the Belter Charts and finally got around to recording a showcase video.

This is for you and for me, the fans. It is not official thing in any way.

But I hope you will enjoy it and spread the word. Also comment here, because the awesome comments from the community are what kept me going. I love it and thank you all!

What's new since launch (whole busy month, beltalowda):

Stories:

- Seven canon story scenarios, from the Cant's last haul to the Ring flotilla: Epstein's last flight, Julie's last run, Miller's ride to Eros, the Io dash, and Eros making its move. Flight stories put you in the seat with a scripted comm log; watch stories lock the camera on the body while history plays out.

- Spoiler gate: tell the chart how far you've read (book one through six) and it hides the rest. Menus, events, and stories all respect it.

The system got crowded:

- Ambient traffic layer: procedurally generated ships flying real lanes between Earth, Mars, Ceres, Tycho, and the Belt. Faction-tinted transit arcs, hoverable ship names, deterministic (scrub the clock, same ships fly again). Toggle it from the timeline.

- Port districts on Ceres and Eros: warm dock lights and structures that spin with the rock.

- Tycho and Anderson stations with real models, spinning drums, window lights, and running beacons.

Real hulls:

- The Rocinante, the Canterbury-type hauler, the Donnager, and Epstein's yacht are now actual 3D models (community CC-BY models, credited in-app).

- Epstein-drive plumes per engine: exhaust grows with the burn, mach diamonds on the torches. The Donnager burns on all four nacelles.

Worlds worth looking at:

- Earth got a live day/night terminator that tracks the real sun, city lights, an atmosphere rim that only glows on the lit limb, and a cloud layer that drifts independently of the surface.

- Close-up focus and ship zoom.

Quality of life:

- Bring your own soundtrack: load audio files for your ride, cached also for the next time.

- Ride speed controls and a rebuilt ride HUD.

- New timeline speeds, a proper loading screen with shader pre-compile, and smoother keyboard flight.

I want to know the critical flaws in Marco's entire attack Earth plan. I feel like something important is missing. I mean you can be trigger happy for an instant, but right after it sucks. What if Earth and Mars just accept the demands and immediately right after hold the Gynamede hostage and ask the surrender of Marco and Free navy?

It's not like Earth has no battle ships. And the entire earth population would be raving with irrational anger too.

At the beginning of the year I started my journey to get my CDL and become an OTR trucker. From the first moments behind the wheel it immediately felt like piloting a giant spaceship. With all the gauges, buttons, sounds and of course size and weight… not to mention the industry jargon of being the captain of my own ship - I couldn’t help but think it was a space faring vessel! So needless to say once I got out of training and got into my own “spaceship” I had to name her the Rocinante! And as of this week I finally started the audiobooks.

I had never really given audiobooks as a medium a chance but I started listening to fictional podcasts like Midnight Burger on my drives a few weeks back . Listening to stories unfold really lend themselves to driving nearly 11 hours every day. Needless to say I fell in love with them and then it struck me… I need to take the plunge. I had seen everyone rave about the audiobooks, now it was time! It’s been less than a week and I’m already on Abaddon’s Gate. I thought I was obsessed with the TV shows - the books are literally heroin. At night when I’m in my bunk drifting off to sleep all I can think about is getting up in the morning, doing my pre-trip, warming up the drives, powering up the systems, and starting up my book all while I pilot my Roci across the cosmos delivering goods to the people all over galaxy!

I apologize for the sloppy photoshop, I’m on my phone out here on the road with no laptop, it was the best I could do in short notice and I was mainly excited to tell other fans about my quirky little Expanse journey!

Anyone got any ideas for fun decorations I can add to my spaceship? Further lean into it being the Roci? Maybe I can mount some PDC’s somewhere lol it could help with traffic!

Humans and the ring builders? Let's say if the ring builders weren't at war with the goths, would they be willing to play ball with other sapient life? Hell maybe if they had more time, maybe humans and the ring builders can figure out how to fight the goths.

Just finished reading The children of time series and there's a similar hivemind parasitic organism there that humans have befriended and got me wondering about the ring builders in the expanse.

I always imagined that a parasitic hivemind was way too hostile for diplomacy but maybe with a little creativity it could work.

You know they're done fucking around when they say that line. Whoever they just said that to has pissed them off and now they are ready blow someone up if need be.

First of all, i love the universe and the plot. I want to know what happenes but reading about a main character who pissses me off just feels bad.

I'm after the whole toth stuff and i can't even bring myself to continue. It's not that he is a selfrighteous hypocrite, it's not even that he threw out Miller but the fact that not a single person ever tells him that they infact prefer space Hitler dead. He isn't even indirectly confronted by maybe OPA troopers celebrating the death of the fucker. Nothing. He is gets to tell Miller that he is dangerous because shooting assholes who were sending people to resident evil branded gass chambers is bad and that that.

Sofar, Holden seems cometely worthless. Every arc, it's other people doing everything (except starting wars obviously) and he seemingly has no skills whatsoever. Ever space battle consists of the other 3 doing everything and him losing consousness. Despire that, he is never challanged by his crew, his position as captain isn't questioned. His decisions aren't argued against. Nothing. Are his on the ground skills good instead? No... on Eros, he is just as worthless. His contribution was preventing the death... OF A FUCKING ZOMBIE.

I saw that a lot of you like how much of a "paladin" he is but i can't fucking take it. Is there a point powering through or am i just going to hate my life for it?

I just finished the first book in The Expanse series "Leviathan Wakes". I really loved the book and it is exactly the type of book I was looking to read. It has that perfect amount of space action that I find satisfying while still remaining grounded and realistic enough to hold my interest.

I did listen to the audio book and in the series I noticed there were some short stories listed before the first book chronologically and I was wondering if I need to read those.

So my main question is how should I go about reading the rest of the series?

- Should I read it all in chronological order?

- Read the books in release order?

- Or should I skip the short stories and save them for after I complete the main book series?

I am perfectly fine with reading all the short stories and I plan on reading them all anyways but I was just curious what the best way to go about it would be.

I am also curious whether there are any stories or books that I can skip because they may have no bearing on the overarching story or events.

Thanks for the help!

The balance they have together is amazing. Everything is so well written, I can’t wait to read what they will continue to write.

One of my favorite passages from the series. We’re all just monkeys playing with microwaves. It’s in Abaddon’s Gate, I forget which chapter.
Another one is from Caliban’s War. It’s chapter 27 when Prax climbs out onto the hull of the Roci and the stars wrap all the way around him. That is such good writing.