The Expanse (novel series)

The Expanse

Leviathan Wakes (2011) Caliban's War (2012) Abaddon's Gate (2013) Cibola Burn (2014) Nemesis Games (2015) Babylon's Ashes (2016) Persepolis Rising (2017) Unnamed novel 8 (2018) Unnamed novel 9 (2019)
Author	James S. A. Corey
Country	United States
Genre	Science fiction Space opera
Publisher	Orbit Books
Published	June 2011 – present
Media type	Print Audiobook E-book

The Expanse is a series of science fiction novels, novellas and stories by James S. A. Corey, the pen name of authors Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck. The first novel, Leviathan Wakes, was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2012. In 2017 the series as a whole was nominated for the 'Best Series' Hugo Award.

Publishing history

As of 2017, The Expanse consists of seven main novels and five shorter works (two prequel short stories, one prequel novella, one novella set between Caliban's War and Abaddon's Gate and one set around the events of Nemesis Games). Two more novels are planned, as well as two more novellas. The series has been adapted for television by the Syfy Network, also under the title of The Expanse. The series premiered on streaming services on November 23, 2015 and on Syfy on December 14, 2015.

Novels

#	Title	Pages	Publication date	ISBN
1	Leviathan Wakes	561	June 15, 2011	ISBN 978-0-316-12908-4
2	Caliban's War	595	June 26, 2012	ISBN 978-1-841-49990-1
3	Abaddon's Gate	539	June 4, 2013	ISBN 978-0-316-12907-7
4	Cibola Burn	583	June 17, 2014	ISBN 978-0-316-21762-0
5	Nemesis Games	544	June 2, 2015	ISBN 978-0-316-21758-3
6	Babylon's Ashes	608	December 6, 2016	ISBN 978-0-316-33474-7 (UK: ISBN 978-0-356-50426-1)
7	Persepolis Rising	560	December 5, 2017	ISBN 978-0-316-33283-5
8	Unknown		forthcoming 2018
9	Unknown		forthcoming 2019

Novellas

Four novellas have been published.

• "Gods of Risk" (September 15, 2012). The story takes place between Caliban's War and Abaddon's Gate.
• "The Churn" (April 29, 2014). Prequel to the series.
• "The Vital Abyss" (October 15, 2015 ).
• "Strange Dogs" (July 18, 2017 ).

Short stories

• "Drive" (November 27, 2012 in Edge of Infinity, July 9, 2015 online)
• "The Butcher of Anderson Station" (October 17, 2011)

Audiobooks

All of the novels up to Persepolis Rising and all the novellas have been released as audiobooks, with Jefferson Mays as the narrator for all novels and the novellas The Vital Abyss and Strange Dogs. Erik Davies is the narrator for the first two novellas that were released (Gods of Risk and The Churn).

Digital comics

Four digital comics based on the books and tying into the television series were published by ComiXology.

• The Expanse Origins #1: James Holden (February 1, 2017)
• The Expanse Origins #2: Naomi Nagata (April 19, 2017)
• The Expanse Origins #3: Alex Kamal (May 24, 2017)
• The Expanse Origins #4: Amos Burton (July 12, 2017)

Plot

The books follow various characters through the political, cultural and economic change brought on by contact with the remnants of a powerful but presumably extinct, ancient civilization.

Setting

The Expanse is set in a future in which humanity has colonized much of the Solar System, but does not have interstellar travel. In the asteroid belt and beyond, tensions are rising between Earth's United Nations, Mars and the outer planets. The series initially takes place in the solar system, using many real world locations such as Ceres and Eros in the asteroid belt, several moons of Jupiter, with Ganymede and Europa the most developed and small science bases as far out as Phoebe around Saturn and Titania around Uranus. There are also well established, domed settlements on Mars and the Moon.

As the series progresses, humanity gains access to thousands of new worlds by use of the ring, an artificially sustained Einstein-Rosen bridge or wormhole, created by a long dead alien race. The ring in our solar system is 2 AU from the orbit of Uranus and passing through it leads to a hub of starless space approximately one million kilometers across, with more than 1,300 other rings, each with a star system on the other side. In the center of the hub, which is also referred to as the 'slow zone', there is an alien space station that controls the gates and can also set instantaneous speed limits on objects inside of the hub as a means of defense.

Characters

There are two main point-of-view characters in the first book (plus two for the prologue/epilogue) and four main characters for the following four books. In the sixth book, Babylon's Ashes, the number of POV characters jumps to 15, with several only having one or two chapters from their point-of-view.

The crew of the Rocinante, an independent gunship crewed by the survivors of the ice hauler Canterbury, include:

• James "Jim" R. Holden, the Earther captain of the Rocinante
• Naomi Nagata, a Belter engineer and executive officer of the Rocinante
• Amos (Timothy) Burton, the Earther chief engineer of the Rocinante
• Alex Kamal, the Martian pilot of the Rocinante
• Roberta "Bobbie" W. Draper, Martian gunnery sergeant in the MCRN, of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force
• Clarissa "Claire" Melpomene Mao aka Melba Alzbeta Koh aka Peaches, a daughter of Jules-Pierre Mao, magnate of Mao-Kwikowski Mercantile from Luna; as Melba she is a licensed electrochemical technician. After forming a bond with her, Amos gives her the nickname Peaches.

The Outer Planets:

• Josephus "Joe" Aloisus Miller, a Belter who worked as a detective for the Ceres station security firm, Star Helix Security
• Juliette "Julie" Andromeda Mao, the oldest child of Earther plutocrat Jules-Pierre Mao, former pinnace racer and Outer Planets Alliance convert
• Frederick "Fred" Lucius Johnson, a former UN marine reviled as the "Butcher of Anderson Station" and now the leader of the OPA
• Dr. Praxidike "Prax" Meng, the chief botanist of the RMD-Southern soy farm project on Ganymede and father of Mei Meng
• Carlos "Bull" c de Baca, a member of the OPA serving as chief security officer aboard the Behemoth
• Basia "Baz" Merton, a welder from Ganymede
• Rev. Dr. Annushka "Anna" Volovodov, a Methodist pastor at St. John's United on Europa
• Manéo "Néo" Jung-Espinoza, a young Belter from Ceres
• Filip Inaros, a teenage member of the OPA and son of Marco Inaros and Naomi Nagata

Mars:

• Sauveterre, the captain of the MCRN Barkeith

Earth:

• Dmitri Havelock, a security contractor from Earth & former partner of Joe Miller
• Chrisjen Avasarala, the UN Assistant Undersecretary of Executive Administration, later UN Secretary General
• Dr. Elvi Okoye, a biologist from Earth

Laconia:

• Winston Duarte, High Consul of the Laconian Empire
• Paolo Cortázar, a former member of Protogen's nanoinformatics research division, he is now the lead researcher on Laconia.
• Santiago Jilie Singh, a captain in the Laconian Imperial Navy and commander of the Gathering Storm
• Anton Trejo, High Admiral of the Laconian Imperial Navy and captain of the Heart of the Tempest
• Aliana Tanaka, Chief of Security aboard Medina Station

Inspiration and writing

Viewpoint characters
Name	Books with character's viewpoint
Jim Holden	1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
Josephus Miller	1
Julie Mao	1 (prologue)
Fred Johnson	1 (epilogue), 6
Bobbie Draper	2, 4 (prologue), 6, 7
Chrisjen Avasarala	2, 4 (epilogue), 6
Praxidike Meng	2, 6
Mei Meng	2 (prologue)
Clarissa Melpomene Mao	3, 6, 7
Annushka Volovodov	3, 6 (epilogue)
Carlos c de Baca	3
Melba Alzbeta Koh	3
Manéo Jung-Espinoza	3 (prologue)
Dimitri Havelock	4
Basia Merton	4
Elvi Okoye	4
The Investigator	4 (interludes)
Amos Burton	5, 6, 7
Alex Kamal	5, 6, 7
Naomi Nagata	5, 6, 7
Filip Inaros	5 (prologue), 6
Sauveterre	5 (epilogue)
Marco Inaros	6
Michio Pa	6
Salis	6
Jakulski	6
Vandercaust	6
Roberts	6
Namono	6 (prologue)
Paolo Cortazár	7 (prologue)
Santiago Jilie Singh	7
Camina Drummer	7
Winston Duarte	7 (epilogue)

Ty Franck began developing the world of The Expanse as an idea for a massively multiplayer online role-playing game. After a number of years the idea shifted to become the setting for a tabletop game. Abraham, who had already written several books on his own at this point, noticed the depth of the setting that Franck had created and thought they should make a book series out of it, "People who write books don't do this much research".

Writing process

James S. A. Corey is the pen name for writing partners Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, who share the writing workload. Franck writes all the Holden, Bobbie and Anna chapters, while Abraham writes the Miller, Melba, Avasarala, Bull and Prax chapters. They also meet weekly to discuss upcoming chapters and swap completed chapters for the other to edit.

Narrative structure

The novels are written in a third-person limited style. Each chapter is told from the point of view of a character central to the story, while the prologue and epilogue are told by a recurring character or a one-off viewpoint. Traditionally, each book employs four point-of-view characters (plus the prologue/epilogue viewpoints), except Leviathan Wakes which features two, and Babylon's Ashes which features sixteen. James Holden is the only character to be used as a viewpoint in all six novels.

Reception

Critical response

The series overall has been well received, with the first novel Leviathan Wakes being the highest praised.

For Caliban's War Wired.com's Geek Dad and Publishers Weekly both praised the novel, with GeekDad citing the book's "believable human personalities and technology that is easily recognizable" as a highlight.

Publishers Weekly gave Abaddon's Gate a starred review saying "series fans will find this installment the best yet."

Publishers Weekly also gave Cibola Burn a starred review and called it "splendid" and it "blends adventure with uncommon decency.".

Reviews

• "It's been too long since we've had a really kickass space opera." - George R.R. Martin
• "The science fiction equivalent of A Song of Ice and Fire." - NPR Books
• "The Expanse series is the best space opera series running at full tilt right now." - io9
• "This is the future the way it's supposed to be." - Wall Street Journal
• "Superb...a thrill to follow." - Washington Post
• "Combining an exploration of real human frailties with big SF ideas and exciting thriller action, Corey cements the series as must-read space opera." - Library Journal

Awards and nominations

• Leviathan Wakes (2011) - Hugo Award for Best Novel nominee 2012, Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel nominee 2012
• Abaddon's Gate (2013) - Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel winner 2014, Goodreads Choice Awards, Best Science Fiction nominee 2013
• The Expanse Hugo Award for Best Series nominee. This is an additional category for 2017 only, but may become a permanent category.

Derived works

TV series

Main article: The Expanse (TV series)

The American TV channel Syfy announced a straight-to-series commitment to a television adaptation of The Expanse in April 2014, ordering the production of ten hour-long episodes for a first season and premiered in December 2015. The series stars Thomas Jane as Josephus Miller and Steven Strait as Jim Holden. The rest of the crew of the Rocinante are played by Dominique Tipper as Naomi Nagata, Cas Anvar as Alex Kamal, and Wes Chatham as Amos Burton. Shohreh Aghdashloo as Chrisjen Avasarala, Chad Coleman as Fred Johnson, and Florence Faivre as Julie Mao are the other major cast members. Frankie Adams joined the cast in season 2 as Bobbie Draper.

Board game

An Expanse board game, designed by Geoff Engelstein and published by WizKids, was released in the summer of 2017. The authors of the book series collaborated with Engelstein on its development.

List of translations by language

Translations of The Expanse series

Language	Title(s)	ISBN(s)
Bulgarian	Левиатан се пробужда Войната на Калибан Вратата на Абадон Сибола гори	978-9546552846 978-9546554086 978-9546555014 978-9546556363
Chinese	利维坦觉醒	978-7302394273
Croatian	Buđenje Levijatana	978-9538048104
Czech	Leviatan se probouzí Kalibánova válka Abaddonova brána O poklad Ciboly Hry Nemesis	978-8073877019 978-8073877248 978-8073877996 978-8073878672 978-8075532091
Dutch	Leviathan ontwaakt Calibans strijd	978-9024565160 978-9024565535
French	L'Éveil du Léviathan La Guerre de Caliban La Porte d'Abaddon Les Feux de Cibola	978-2330033118 978-2330051006 978-2330064228 978-2330079031
German	Leviathan erwacht Calibans Krieg Abaddons Tor Cibola brennt Nemesis-Spiele Babylons Asche	978-3453529311 978-3453529298 978-3453529304 978-3453316546 978-3453316560 978-3453316553
Hungarian	Leviatán ébredése Kalibán háborúja Abaddon kapuja Cibola meghódítása Nemezis játékai Babilon hamvai	978-9639861770 978-9639861664 978-6155514234 978-6155514401 978-6155514692 978-9634700029
Italian	Leviathan il Risveglio Caliban - La guerra Abaddon's Gate - La fuga Cibola Burn - La cura Nemesis Games - L'esodo Babylon's Ashes - Il destino	978-8834728840 978-8834729083 978-8834730782 978-8834730980 978-8834732441 978-8834733424
Japanese	巨獣めざめる	978-4150118983
Korean	익스팬스 : 깨어난 괴물	979-1187206156
Polish	Przebudzenie Lewiatana część 1 Przebudzenie Lewiatana część 2	978-8375747287 978-8375749045
Portuguese	Leviatã Desperta	978-8576573159
Romanian	Trezirea Leviatanului	978-6068673028
Russian	Пробуждение Левиафана Война Калибана Врата Абаддона Пожар Сиболы Игры Немезиды	978-5918780572 978-5918780916 978-5918781029 978-5918781135
Serbian	Buđenje nemani Kalibanov rat Abadonova kapija Sibola u plamenu	978-8652110629 978-8652113736 978-8652119103 978-8652122073
Spanish	El Despertar del Leviatán	978-8466660150
Turkish	Leviathan Uyanıyor Caliban'ın Savaşı Abaddon Geçidi	978-6053752790 978-6053753384 978-6053755210

External links

• The-Expanse.com