this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2023
310 points (99.1% liked)
Science Fiction
13728 readers
108 users here now
Welcome to /c/ScienceFiction
December book club canceled. Short stories instead!
We are a community for discussing all things Science Fiction. We want this to be a place for members to discuss and share everything they love about Science Fiction, whether that be books, movies, TV shows and more. Please feel free to take part and help our community grow.
- Be civil: disagreements happen, but that doesnβt provide the right to personally insult others.
- Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, ableist, or advocating violence will be removed.
- Spam, self promotion, trolling, and bots are not allowed
- Put (Spoilers) in the title of your post if you anticipate spoilers.
- Please use spoiler tags whenever commenting a spoiler in a non-spoiler thread.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I haven't read this one yet, but I read another one by Andy Weir (Artemis) and I thought the exact same thing despite the character being female. At this point, I think Weir only writes one type of protagonist, which is disappointing because I loved The Martian.
Edit: also, you didn't mention Leviathan Wakes in your rundown of the other books. If you haven't read it yet and you enjoyed the others on your list, I'd highly recommend finding a used copy, because I've thoroughly enjoyed all of The Expanse novels (although I haven't started the last two yet)
Yeah, I've watched The Expanse, and it's kinda weird for me to read what I've already watched. I prefer to read first, watch later, otherwise the TV imagery influences the reading too much and there isn't so much space for imagination.
The books are FAR FAR better than the TV show (which was better than most adaptations). It is WELL worth reading in my opinion. Edit: Forgot to mention that there is a lot more story in the books as well. The closest point where the show ends, there are one or two more books and they are bangers.
I agree completely, and I made the same mistake. However, in this case, I took a chance on a cheap used copy of book 1 from a thrift store and I still enjoyed reading the books. Sure, it's a bit annoying that the character voices are already occupied in my brain, but the casting and writing for the show was done pretty well, so there's not too big an issue there.
Reading the books after seeing the show did mean that some parts were a bit of a slog, but there are a few major deviations that make the books worth reading if you liked the show (mostly the show cutting good but unnecessary exposition as well as combining some characters for continuity and messing with the timeline to fit the actors' ages). Plus, getting chapters written from the different characters' perspectives is a nice insight into their personalities and it's done pretty well. I thought the characters were pretty one-dimensional in the show, but IMO they are much more believable and well-rounded in the books.
Also, the show left some significant dangling plot threads, so I'm looking forward to reading the conclusion of the book series. I just finished book 7 (which is the first one where the premise was only hinted at in the show) and I'm glad I took the time.
If you wanted to jump straight into book 7 from the show, there's probably a recap or something out there to cover the gaps in what you missed (or DM me, I guess, and I can give you a few paragraphs to get you started)
While this wouldn't be as bad for the Expanse than some other series, skipping would miss out on a lot of little things and characters that either didn't exist or were combined with others for the TV show. Either way it is still worth reading, but reading them all is superior.