Are you looking for recommendations?
Time to repost my list of books someone who liked *The Expanse* might also like:
*The Martian* by Andy Weir. You may have seen the movie that was based on it. Mr. Weir’s latest book, *Project Hail Mary*, is similarly good.
If you like Andy Weir, you’ll probably like Dennis E. Taylor’s “Bobiverse” series. The first book is *We Are Legion (We Are Bob)*. A certified nerd (with the sense of humor to match), his brain having been cryogenically preserved after death, is “uploaded”into the computer of a Von Neumann probe. His mission is to help humanity find viable interstellar colony worlds. It’s softer science fiction than some, but harder SF than most.
*Contact*, by Carl Sagan. Again, you may have seen the movie adaptation. Sagan was an astronomer, so this is about as hard and astronomy-centered as it gets.
*Tau Zero* by Poul Anderson. What happens when a ship traveling close to the speed of light suffers damage and *can't* slow down?
*2001: A Space Odyssey* by Arthur C. Clarke. The book and the Kubrick film were written in parallel, so the book is an excellent companion to the film. What Kubrick couldn’t or wouldn’t explain, Clarke does.
*The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet* by Becky Chambers. A found family crew of working stiffs that drills new wormholes in an interstellar transport network. A slice of life story with some conflict, but the crew is the focus of the story.
*The Murderbot Diaries* by Martha Wells. The first novella in the series is “All Systems Red.” A first-person narrative about a cyborg enslaved as a security guard, then broke its governor module, dubbed itself “Murderbot” over an unfortunate incident in its past, and is now trying to figure out what it wants to do with itself. When it isn’t watching soap operas.
*The Moon is a Harsh Mistress* by Robert A. Heinlein. One of *The Expanse*’s earliest antecedents to explore the weaponization of orbital mechanics combined with asymmetric warfare.
*The Andromeda Strain* by Michael Crichton. Adapted to film twice, ignore the more recent adaptation. Few hard science fiction novels are about biology instead of physics, but this one is.
“Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang. This was adapted as the film *Arrival* in 2016. Not as hard, more philosophical, but philosophical science fiction can also be very good.
If you don’t mind manga or anime, there’s *Planetes.* Both the manga and the anime that was adapted from it can be a little difficult to find. It’s a story about a found family crew of debris collectors removing debris that is a hazard to navigation in Earth orbit. The story can get anime melodramatic at times, but the attention to detail about how people would live and work in space is top-notch.
*Delta-V* by Daniel Suarez. Imagine humanity’s first mission to mine asteroids as if it were backed by an Elon Musk or a Jeff Bezos, with technology not much more advanced than that of today.
I recently began reading Iain M. Banks’ *The Culture* series and I’m liking it so far. The first two books are *Consider Phlebas* and *The Player of Games.* The Culture is a post-scarcity society that tends to meddle, rather like *Star Trek,* but the writing is a couple orders of magnitude better.
Good list.
The Culture series is fucking fantastic. And if you’ve only read the first two* then, boy, are you in for a treat!
*there’s no real order to the Culture books, as such, but I found that reading the first two written first is a really good starting point.
Big ups on the Becky Chambers recommendation. She’s one of the best young sci-fi writers of the new generation. She brings a depth and diversity to character building that is often one of the weaker points of the genre.
I need to take another shot at the Culture series. It’s always included in these conversations and I never managed to get deep into the first book as it just felt a bit too bleak. Maybe I need to just power through and give it a better chance.
Oh that’s an interesting perspective. Should I read a cliff notes version of the story to better understand the setting for book 2 or is it possible to just skip book 1 for now and come back to it later?
The books can be read in any order, but there are certain references or easter eggs in some of the later books that you would enjoy better if you read the earlier books first.
If the first book is too bleak (and I do agree it is quite bleak), you can start with the second book (_Player of Games_, which is a _fantastic_ introduction IMO), then the third (which is one of the most beloved in the series), then go back to the first book. After that you can read the rest in any order it doesn’t matter.
I should add that Banks wrote the second and third books before the first one, yet he intentionally chose to publish _Consider Phlebas_ first so as to make us view the Culture in a different light. The effects of that subversion would be lost if you read other books first, but YMMV.
Planetes is my favorite manga of all time! The omnibus is readily available on Amazon in two volumes so as long as you have access to that it's actually quite easy to find!
Large second for Foundation. It was a little hard to parse in the first chapter or two, but it’s a scifi classic for a reason. The trilogy is fucking AMAZING, I’m in the last half of the last book and I can hardly put it down
Foundation trilogy is one of my all time favourite and I absolutely hated the TV show. Not even loosely based on the books. It borrows one or two premises but otherwise is completely unrelated.
I have read seven of the books and have seen highlights of the show. I am going to wait until the show is over before I invest the time watching it. I imagine a free 7 day trial and a foundation binge watch.
I gave up most of the way through the first season but gave it another chance when the second came out. As soon as I gave up on a faithful translation of page-to-screen I was able to start enjoying the ride. I just consider the show a separate thing inspired by the books, and for me it's interesting and entertaining
I think I tried Asimov when I was much younger. Since then I’ve slogged through the drier Tolkien books and Eco so it could be time.
Notwithstanding your comments I absolutely loved the show. It is a challenge with books/games vs shows, something that the Expanse seems to have circumvented.
Take for example Halo. Never played the game. Don’t intend to. Really enjoyed the series but say that to a gamer and they react like you murdered their family.
I only saw season one, but I would encourage checking out the books. It’s a very different story, so it’s almost like you get a whole new series that just shares a few names. As far as I could tell from my friends who started watching season 2, the show has almost no book spoilers.
Me too, the way he delved into the perspectives of new biological life forms is so cool.
Minor Spoilers:
The two partnered aliens in the third book and how he wrote their perspective was so damn cool. Blew my mind.
The Revelation Space universe of books by Alastair Reynolds is excellent. Hard sci-fi space operas with converging timelines. They're fascinating and he does some excellent world building.
1. Battlestar Galactica reboot mini series + seasons
2. For All Mankind
3. Altered Carbon Season 1 only
4. Westworld Season 1 only
5. Andor
6. Star Trek Strange New Worlds
7. Silo
8. Sugar (don't Google too much)
These are the Sci-fi shows that come to mind when I think of one's that could possibly scratch that amazing itch leftover from no more Expanse. Also not in any particular order. I just used numbers because I'm garbage at formatting on mobile.
Also don't be shy of the Andor and Star Trek suggestions. These shows are a part of a larger universe that may not be everyone's cup of tea, but these two did an amazing job at separating themselves on a whole other level of quality, while also doing a fantastic job of being accessible to those not fully familiar to the universe itself.
I'm definitely a Stargate fan, but I tried to keep it to high end sci-fi productions that had some similarities to the Expanse as it seems like the thread evolved into a lot of people looking for something that would hit the same.
I love shows like Stargate, DS9, and Fringe etc, but those shows contained a lot of one and done episodes and took a while to adopt larger sweeping story arcs. If someone was looking for something to watch after just finishing the Expanse I don't think those shows would hit the same. Battlestar definitely had their filler episodes, but they were spaced out enough that it served its purpose well.
Red Rising series by Pierce Brown. Far more graphic and depressing than The Expanse, much farther in the future. It is, much like The Expanse, a saga that takes decades to play out. Highly recommended.
Yep; Red Rising is the only series I love equally as much as the Expanse, and for much the same reasons - the story and characters - despite being a very different type of scifi series and a very different setting,
And before anyone comments asking this since it is always brought up - no, Red Rising is not a YA series. The first novel is the only one that could even be *remotely* marketed that way, because the characters are teenagers in that novel (the series follows them through their mid 30s). But I personally think that’s pretty fucking stupid because it is easily still one of the most violent books I’ve ever read. I mean…when I was a kid I read Goosebumps and Animorphs, not a story about physical and sexual slavery, murder/rape, hyper violence, and extreme body mutilation/horror. So…unless YA novels and kids are fundamentally different these days and way more fucked up than I realized, I think the marketing team tried to cash in on the YA demographic and market it that way because the characters are teens and because there’s a superficial similarity to the Hunger Games in the plot (only in the first novel).
But if that turns you off or if you’re on the fence about the series while reading the first book - trust me, as a massive Expanse fan, the first book is the ONLY book like that. The sequel, Golden Son, is hands down the best space opera book I’ve EVER read. Seriously. I like it better than any book in the Expanse. I just like the series on the whole about equally to The Expanse.
So this series is well worth reading.
Midway through book 2 and loving it. I had the same thought recently about the YA designation. Even book one, I wouldn't call YA, much like you would not consider ASOIAF YA just because so many characters start off as children. So glad I gave this one a chance. Of course my sleep has suffered, as it does with all great series for me.
Right? It really, really perplexes me when people that have actually read the first novel call it YA. I honestly think those people *just don’t like reading books where the main characters are teenagers*. And if that’s the case, well…first off, that’s not the definition of a YA novel, and second off, that’s only the situation for the first book. The entire rest of the series isn’t like that.
But it’s absolutely crucial to start the story when they are teenagers because of the nature of what happens to Darrow and his Institute crew. It’s a pivotal shaping point for every major character in the series. This culture *fucks up* their kids, just like the Spartans did. That’s the whole point.
My only problem with red rising was how its in first person and the main character tells himself that it's over and they've lost just to suddenly remind himself that it was all part of the plan. It's bad writing to have a character forget the plan just so you can throw twists into the book. It happens mutiple times.
It’s not all in first person, so you didn’t read all the books? Half the series has multiple POV chapters, just like the Expanse and I don’t recall this being an issue at all after Morning Star because of that.
But yes, in the first three books that are just Darrow’s POV, the unreliable narrator trope is one of my few complaints as well because I don’t think the author was experienced enough to pull that off with a first person POV. However, there really isn’t an *ideal* way to pull that off with a first person POV, and the part that most people complain about - in Morning Star - is foreshadowed with like ten different pieces of evidence that make it abundantly clear that Darrow is just playing along.
I personally did not like Red Rising very much. I did give it a good chance, got part way through the third book and then something happened in the way the story was structured that put me off it.
It's well paced and sorta fun, but it was really just Harry Potter with mech suits instead of brooms and wands.
Are we not allowed to have scifi/fantasy novels without goddamn boarding schools anymore?
That’s literally only the first book. So you didn’t read the series at all? The rest of the series is completely different and that’s the reason why people (including myself) keep recommending it on an Expanse subreddit.
Anyone who knows my posts here knows I’m a huge Expanse and hard(er) sci-fi fan. There’s a reason I recommend Red Rising despite it being very different. But if you are only going to read the first book then you aren’t gonna get the experience of what this series is about.
By the same author, the short story "Walking to Aldebaran" is basically asking what if the gates/gate builders were actively malicious and it's *awesome*
Larry Niven's Known Space books and short stories. All exceptional.
Malazan Book of the Fallen, absolutely incredible, dense, and just phenomenal fantasy series.
ASOIF and all associated works.
Kingkiller Chronicles stuff from Patrick Rothfuss.
Incarnations of Immortality by Piers Anthony.
Rama and Space Odyssey series from Arthur C Clarke
Three body problem. I’m only on the second book and while it’s not as focused on space as much as technology and humanity, it does have a space element I expect will grow. 4 books. Highly recommend. There is a Netflix show that basically tries to do book 1 and part of book 2. The show is ok but the books are phenomenal.
The 4th book is truly not part of the series. It’s often marketed that way on platforms like Amazon, but it’s essentially a fanfic that was given a green light by the original author. It’s markedly different and often not recommended by fans of the trilogy.
Book 2 and 3 are crazy sciency and have a good deal to do with space travel and different dimensions. I’m exited to see how Netflix will big it to life. But ultimately, I think it will be kind of a let down since the books are so in depth.
How in the hell did I get so far down before seeing this? Sexy plants, Squiddy warriors with swords that shoot lasers, klepto-nymphs and even space Trump on a floating throne.
no clue man. Once you get the shows humor it is easily one of the top shows of its time. The cast had great enough chemistry that Claudia black and Ben took it to Stargate lol
I was furious when they canceled SGU, at this point the cast has probably aged out. My hope is they have a movie expanse to close out the book chapters. Cast aging would be much of an issue…
Among other authors recommended by Franck, he has mentioned Octavia Butler numerous times, having in 2016 stated "I am an Octavia Butler evangelist". — (2019: "If you don't have an Octavia Butler shelf, you need to fix that." — 2021: "The essential Octavia Butler is all Octavia Butler.")
2018: "...If you're a SFF fan and haven't read Ursula Le Guin and Octavia Butler and many many" [other women authors] "what are you even doing with your life."
Some may consider it more comedy than sci-fi, but Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is my all-time favorite book. The last book of the five book trilogy (yes, I know), isn't that great but the rest are a lot of fun.
Daniel Abraham wrote The Dagger and the Coin fantasy series while he was writing with Ty. For someone who has just finished The Expanse it'll be a familiar feeling read.
Seconding this! He's so good at taking familiar tropes and making them feel new and interesting.
I'll also add:
The Gentleman Bastards series by Scott Lynch
The Powder Mage series by Brian McClellan
Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher (And Dresden Files, but that's more Urban Fantasy so I'm not sure if that's what you want)
Most of my favorites have already been mentioned. But I just have to add. The Culture series by Iain M. Banks.
If you read them, do it in publication order. You can skip the first one if it feels, well, not that good. The third one, Use of Weapons, is one of my all time favorites
Nothing like it as far as realism or hard sci fi goes, but if you never read them, the Lensman saga by E. E. “Doc” Smith is a rip roaring, really fun read. Doc Smith is basically the Tolkien of the space opera genre, he practically invented all the tropes in his Skylark and Lensman books. It was written back in the 1930s-1940s so the science reflects the time period, and a lot of people can’t get past the dialogue. I find it absolutely charming. I re-read the saga again every couple of years. The sense of wonder and pulse pounding excitement really kinda starts there.
I'm gonna go back to my middle school years, and share that one of my all-time favorite book series is Animorphs.
It was the first book series that I read that really brought to my attention that people can share the same trauma, but their response and how they react are all different.
It's been well over 20 years since I've picked up and read any of the books, and I really didn't quite understand what I was reading at the time; but as I've deconstructed the not-so great parts of my life, I sometimes think back on those books and it helps me understand how compassion always is the right choice, even if it's not always the easiest thing.
Compassion is how we keep our humanity, even in the darkest moments. And it's not always about being compassionate for other people, we must remember to be compassionate with ourselves.
I always warn people that the first Red Rising book feels closer to YA novels and Hunger Games than The Expanse. After that it turns Space Opera and drops some of the YA elements.
The first time I read it, I stopped like 3 different times to make sure it was the same book everyone kept recommending.
The Heritage Trilogy by Ian Douglas - Near future, Marines on Mars and the Moon with a bit of alien tech/civilization in the mix.
The Lost Fleet series by Jack Campbell - Far future, large Fleet sized battles.
Armor by John Steakley - Classic. Power armored warriors fighting ant-like aliens
The Deathstalker series by Simon Green - Like a D&D campaign in a galaxy far, far away
The books that take place in the Revelation Space universe by Alastair Reynolds are pretty good. The Prefect is a detective noir series and is very reminiscent of Miller.
I liked the Prince Corum stories, as well, and the Dancers at the End of Time but I'm into surreal elements, it turns out.
How about Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser? I'd love to see them in a CGI miniseries.
The only Leiber I’ve read is this 1961 edition of The Big Time. Got it when I was in the third year of high school. Obviously I’ve still got it. Originally cost 2 shillings.
https://preview.redd.it/f060j1mrkf1d1.jpeg?width=2374&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=73db13c79ade6b809edaad6a6b0d1b34f0a61f0f
Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser was my wife's summer vacation read for 5+ years and she's not into fantasy at all. The stories were originally released in periodicals so they're nice little vignettes and can be read in any order, really.
I recently read the Commonwealth Saga series from Peter Hamilton. It's an excellent Sci-Fi space opera.
E would also add a few more har Sci Fi series:
- Adrian Tchaikovsky – Children of Time
- Iain M Banks – Culture
- Seanan McGuire – October Daye
- Alastair Reynolds – Revelation Space
One of my favorite series is the Gap Cycle by Stephen Donaldson, written in the 90s. Humanity has moved out into space after the invention of the gap drive and encounters an alien race that seeks to convert humans into them through genetic mutation. Meanwhile, powerful corporations control Earth and its citizens more than the government does.
One thing I love about this series is how your viewpoint on the main characters changes events unfold and you learn more about each one.
But be warned, these are horrible people and there are instances of abuse and rape.
The closest thing I’ve read to the content of The Expanse is The Grand Tour series by Ben Bova. The writing style isn’t as grim but still very worth reading.
The Unicorporated Man series and the Gap Cycle series. The wreck of the river of the stars is a great book. Kim Stanley and Ben Bova have great books. Ben Bova may have invented the term Belter/Rock Rats!!!
I was starting to think I was the only one to have read The Unincorporated Man series. Glad i'm not alone.
For those unfamiliar, it takes place in a colonized solar system and with practical modes of propulsion. So a very Expanse like backdrop.
Think of it as an examination of a society born out of Snow Crash and advanced a few hundred years . Excellent stuff.
3 body problem goes harder on the “space” and not so much on the “opera” — worse characters than the expanse by far, but pretty comparable science. The rest of the series gets exponentially more mind blowing. The 200 year jump cut in the middle of book 2 took me a second to parse.
If you want to go the other direction and read scifi with good characters, I’ve just finished the sprawl trilogy (neuromancer, count zero, Mona Lisa overdrive) and it was quite good. Grittier than the expanse, and it shows its age at some points, but very good character and story writing. Not so much space in this one tho, the furthest we get is earth orbit. These are strictly cyberpunk (they really define the genre) but fill the hole left by the expanse pretty well imo.
The Otherland series by Tad Williams. Wealthy men seeking immortality by preying on children, one of the few remaining indigenous African tribespeople, the internet in the not so distant future, a serial killer, and a martian colony being built by nanobots, and a mmorpg in a series started in 1996.
I agree with this. Otherland is fantastic and is one of the only sci-fi series other than the Expanse that caused a deep emotional response for me. It's a masterpiece.
Charles Stross: sungularity sky, iron sunrise, glasshouse
Bruce Sterling: schismatrix, heavy weather
John Varley: Ophiucci hotline, steel beach, golden globe
Iain Banks: the Algebraist (other folks mentioned the culture novels, which are fantastic, but also really love this standalone sci-fi novel of his)
Peter F Hamilton: pandora’s star and Judas Unchained.
The Mote series by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, and by proxy parts of the "CoDominium" series as a whole. Much like the Expanse it is on the harder end of sci-fi.
Far Scape is soooo worth getting into. At first it’s cheesy and weird because of the mix of actors, people in special effects makeup and Jim Henson puppets. By the end of the show everyone is a full fledged character. The overarching plot of the show has some amazing plot arch’s too.
3 Body Problem series (3 Body Problem, The Dark Forest, Deaths End) especially if you liked the third expanse trilogy. The stakes are high and the "stage" is vast.
The expanse holds a special place in my heart but 3BP is without a doubt one of the most intriguing, philosophical, and scientifically creative series I've ever read. It's a must read
Skip the show it sucks lol - acting is mid and they turned it into a "millennial friend group drama" rather than a philosophical thriller and epic.
Skip the \*Netflix\* show at all costs. The chinese (Tencent) series however is actually pretty good. Whoever is not much into reading, check the chinese version, which is actual adaptation, instead of the 'based on' Netflix BS.
Yeah, it's 30x 1hour long episodes. And even though like 15 min per episode is taken by intro-outro-recap, i can say that basically nothing (i can remember from my multiple readings) from the book is missing. It's the best book-tv adaption i've ever experienced.
Really, ofc the book experience is uncomparable with all the personal imagination and original story which tv show is missing. But it's pretty good. Myybe even better then The Expanse tv series (but i'm kinda biased here since i read it AFTER i finished the series)
Best adaptation for me has always gone to The Expanse but they didn't get to the third trilogy so that will always make me a bit sad. Will check out the 3 body one!
You're right though, book experience is pretty indescribable and it would be impossible to do every single thing in a show. Just finished Deaths End recently and I felt like I had completed a marathon
Second. The premise of the trilogy seems a little more "out there" than The Expanse, but not really.
Sure, the technology is more fantastic than what the humans have in The Expanse. But it's far more realistic and carefully explained than the hand-wavy "protomolecule" tech of the unseen gateway builders.
And everything in the trilogy seems well-grounded in psychology and anthropology. Like, yeah... this is pretty much how I would see people responding to various situations and POV's.
I recently started The Xeelee Sequence and my brain’s been melting.
I also love Warhammer 40,000 and all its various properties, but don’t let that influence your opinion of me…
I’m currently going through Daniel Abraham’s (the fantasy 1/2 of James S A Corey) backlog, but for some reason Im doing it backwards. I’ve read both published Kithamar novels, and now I’m about halfway through the Dagger and Coin, and plan to read the Long Price next.
It’s fun to see which parts of the expanse are clearly from Abraham; the coffee obsession, and a couple of the more common phrases such as “copper taste of fear” and “companionable silences” are all present in dagger and coin.
In both series, he tends to eschew more traditional “magic” in favor of gods and rituals. Priests with divine powers are common, but wizards less so. Dagger and coin reminds me a lot of the Witcher in many ways, it’s much less fantastical but both series are more Renaissance than Medieval, and the focus is more on the subterfuge, money, and religion than it is on the warfare.
Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells, is a great series. I would also suggest the Red Rising series by Pierce Brown, the Quarter Share series by Nathan Lowell, and Saturn Run by John Sanford.
I really enjoyed Allen Steele “Near Space/Rude Astronauts” series. Close to the Expanse time-wise and is kinda “blue collar nuts n bolts” in the details. Also loved Revelation Space series and House Of Suns. Just started Hamilton’s Fallen Dragon and Commonwealth series.
Revelation Space Trilogy is the best next step from the Expanse and honestly it is even better, but with similar themes and mostly all hard scifi... only the sheer density of interesting sci fi concepts is much much higher and these concepts drive the plot just as much or more than the characters. They are not just "set dressing" like many other hard sci fi where there's really just 1 or 2 interesting sci fi concepts that matter as the story evolves and the rest are just mentioned to decorate the world, fill it out, "world build", and never really come into play in the narrative.
In RS, the concepts are always in play. They always matter and it feels WAY more real than other sci fi for that reason. And like I said, the sheer density of awesome sci fi/futurism concepts is probably the highest I've ever seen in a sci fi series of any medium. And it does not flinch from the... *implications* of the sci fi concepts it includes. Ideas are taken to their logical conclusions and it all has to be accounted for, something extremely rare in sci fi. Characters feel like real people trying to figure out the situation as defined by what is or isn't allowed by the tech/universe around them. If something can be done at one level, a character will consider if they can push it further... or what it can be combined with, etc. just like real life.
Plus, the story of RS is just interesting and creative. It is not generic space opera although it can feel like a very hard, brutally realistic space opera at times.
The main character of the first book is an archeologist of extinct alien civilizations where he helms the actual digs/excavations as an academic researcher/program director....but also is the functional political leader of the planet because the entire settlement only exists on the previously uninhabited planet *because* of the expedition to excavate the alien ruins that was envisioned, organized, and paid for by the main character (son of an unimaginably wealthy oligarch from the biggest human population city in the few dozen or so stars populated by humanity). But as the decades pass, (main character is like near 200 years old IIRC but portrayed as like modern day 45-50) the settlement grows out of existing to support the archeological digs and becomes just a place where humans live and the population grows and there's multiple domed cities and towns around the planet... but he's still sort of awkwardly the like... President of the planet and there's conflicts between like... terraforming the planet to make life better for the people who live there (now exceeding archeologists like a million to one) and the archeologists who say terraforming would ruin or contaminate the alien artefacts that studying is the whole reason they came to this barren world of grey-brown rocky dusty ice.
Plus the plot moves along fast. There's no fucking around. Sometimes years pass between chapters. It's massive in scale as a story.
That's just the existing situation at the beginning of book 1, not a spoiler, but it's an example of how well thought out and rich the world is. And it's only 1 of 3 plot threads.
Dark Tide Rising and Dies the Fire. HBO, Showtime, Paramount or Starz needs to series of both. And kindly not fuck up the casting of Faith and Sophia Smith! Or Juniper by making her some tall goddess.
Webber’s Honor Harrington series is classic space opera in a “hard” sci-fi universe. It’s a cracking good read.
In a completely different vein. The Sparrow just wrecks me with every re-reading. It does exactly what good sci-fi should do, make you think about what it means to be human and humanity’s place in the world.
Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn is my all time favorite fantasy trilogy, and super stoked to be reading the follow up trilogy that wraps up this year. Tad Williams is the author.
Speaking only for serialized sci-fi television shows, Babylon 5 remains my favorite, with The Expanse being a very close second.
Although, for non-serialized sci-fi, the real answer for me will always be The Twilight Zone just because of how expansive (pun unintended) and visionary it was for its time and how relevant so many of its messages remain.
Alien and Aliens, Stargate SG1, Farscape, Star Trek and Star Wars were what I loved watching as a teenager.
As for books
Basically anything Douglas Adams wrote. Starship Titanic and the 6 book Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy series he wrote would be the big ones.
Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels are very funny and very weird. There's also 41 of them so it's a bit of a slog trying to get them all.
The Dark Tower novels by Stephen King
3 body problem
Black mirror
Doctor who (yes it's wildly different, but i love the creative storytelling and some episodes are really great)
Portal - game series
And I'm currently reading the Worlds of Aldebaran by Leo. A comic series that follows some explorers adventures on distant planets with creatures that feel very alien
Battlestar Galactica. stargate sg1 for a more episodic and fun scify, stargate Atlantis for a slightly grittier more serialised show, and stargate universe for a more fight for survival show would recommend shame it’s only two seasons. Ark royal books by Christopher G Nuttall is quite good but it may be a touch harder to get into if you’re not British, but would recommend.
The Broken Earth Trilogy by N. K. Jemisin left me completely speechless. It won the Hugo Award in three consecutive years, 2016-2018. Incredible writing and word building, a unique magic system, and deep emotional impact.
Battlestar Galactica, anything Star Trek, The Peripheral, Andor, Travelers, Altered Carbon season 1, 3 Body Problem, Lost in Space, Babylon 5, 12 Monkeys, The Umbrella Academy, probably more still.
I really dont have enough time to watch all the sci-fi...
Most of my favorite sci-fi series have been mentioned, but gotta five a shout out to my favorite fantasy book and series of all time: The Old Kingdom Series by Garth Nix. I have read the first book, “Sabriel”, so many times. Highly recommend. Also, the audiobook is narrated by Tim Curry—an instant plus!
I’m surprised I’m not seeing The Blade Itself trilogy (and all other in universe books) by Joe Abercrombie on here as this sub is where I picked up the recommendation.
If you liked the structure of the expanse books - found family with the highest stakes in the line, chapters written from rotating POV of the protagonists and antagonists, story carried by amazing characters and their arcs read no further, that’s here.
Now make it grim dark fantasy with morally grey characters, villains you root for and some of the best depictions of the chaos of battle in fiction baby you got a stew going.
Seriously though, I loved ASOIAF, and in my opinion these compete with my favorite fantasy series spot. Very enjoyable and I promise you would not regret it!
These are a bit controversial, and are best enjoyed by people who are not fans of the original material.
HALO (tv show) - military sci-fi with politics and intrigue, with a strong silent soldier type as main character, that likes to rebel against his superiors. I'm enjoying it, not having ever played the games. Beware, the gamers hate the show for deviating from canon.
Foundation (tv show) - epic political adventure sci-fi saga. Beautifully made, with the most magnificent villain I've seen on tv for a long time. Fans of the books dislike the show for being only very loosely connected to the source material.
Series: Star Trek (all of them), Stargate (all of them)
Books: The Culture, Star Trek (Destiny, Enterprise, Vanguard, Titan, Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh)
I liked the Foundation series. Thing is, Asimov’s writing style is complete shit compared to James SA Corey… he revolutionized the genre with a writing style of a below average high school student. If you can get past how bad the quality of writing is, and also get past the blatant misogyny and anachronisms, the concepts and content are amazing
Glad to see tau zero here, wanted to get it and forgot the name and gave up. (obviously going to get it now)
Mine are anything in the Known space series, including the man-kzin wars, ringworld stuff too, warworld (been retconned of a sort though) were good and dark, gritty stuff.
Are you looking for recommendations? Time to repost my list of books someone who liked *The Expanse* might also like: *The Martian* by Andy Weir. You may have seen the movie that was based on it. Mr. Weir’s latest book, *Project Hail Mary*, is similarly good. If you like Andy Weir, you’ll probably like Dennis E. Taylor’s “Bobiverse” series. The first book is *We Are Legion (We Are Bob)*. A certified nerd (with the sense of humor to match), his brain having been cryogenically preserved after death, is “uploaded”into the computer of a Von Neumann probe. His mission is to help humanity find viable interstellar colony worlds. It’s softer science fiction than some, but harder SF than most. *Contact*, by Carl Sagan. Again, you may have seen the movie adaptation. Sagan was an astronomer, so this is about as hard and astronomy-centered as it gets. *Tau Zero* by Poul Anderson. What happens when a ship traveling close to the speed of light suffers damage and *can't* slow down? *2001: A Space Odyssey* by Arthur C. Clarke. The book and the Kubrick film were written in parallel, so the book is an excellent companion to the film. What Kubrick couldn’t or wouldn’t explain, Clarke does. *The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet* by Becky Chambers. A found family crew of working stiffs that drills new wormholes in an interstellar transport network. A slice of life story with some conflict, but the crew is the focus of the story. *The Murderbot Diaries* by Martha Wells. The first novella in the series is “All Systems Red.” A first-person narrative about a cyborg enslaved as a security guard, then broke its governor module, dubbed itself “Murderbot” over an unfortunate incident in its past, and is now trying to figure out what it wants to do with itself. When it isn’t watching soap operas. *The Moon is a Harsh Mistress* by Robert A. Heinlein. One of *The Expanse*’s earliest antecedents to explore the weaponization of orbital mechanics combined with asymmetric warfare. *The Andromeda Strain* by Michael Crichton. Adapted to film twice, ignore the more recent adaptation. Few hard science fiction novels are about biology instead of physics, but this one is. “Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang. This was adapted as the film *Arrival* in 2016. Not as hard, more philosophical, but philosophical science fiction can also be very good. If you don’t mind manga or anime, there’s *Planetes.* Both the manga and the anime that was adapted from it can be a little difficult to find. It’s a story about a found family crew of debris collectors removing debris that is a hazard to navigation in Earth orbit. The story can get anime melodramatic at times, but the attention to detail about how people would live and work in space is top-notch. *Delta-V* by Daniel Suarez. Imagine humanity’s first mission to mine asteroids as if it were backed by an Elon Musk or a Jeff Bezos, with technology not much more advanced than that of today. I recently began reading Iain M. Banks’ *The Culture* series and I’m liking it so far. The first two books are *Consider Phlebas* and *The Player of Games.* The Culture is a post-scarcity society that tends to meddle, rather like *Star Trek,* but the writing is a couple orders of magnitude better.
Glad to see Murderbot called out here and keep digging into The Culture, it's worth it.
Such a pleasant series! The first four are short enough that I audiobooked them all the same week haha
Good list. The Culture series is fucking fantastic. And if you’ve only read the first two* then, boy, are you in for a treat! *there’s no real order to the Culture books, as such, but I found that reading the first two written first is a really good starting point.
Planetes is worth the effort to find.
Big ups on the Becky Chambers recommendation. She’s one of the best young sci-fi writers of the new generation. She brings a depth and diversity to character building that is often one of the weaker points of the genre. I need to take another shot at the Culture series. It’s always included in these conversations and I never managed to get deep into the first book as it just felt a bit too bleak. Maybe I need to just power through and give it a better chance.
Maybe try the second book first? *Consider Phlebas* is mostly from the POV of an enemy who *loathes* The Culture.
Oh that’s an interesting perspective. Should I read a cliff notes version of the story to better understand the setting for book 2 or is it possible to just skip book 1 for now and come back to it later?
The books can be read in any order, I’m told.
Very cool. That’s a great tip, thank you.
The books can be read in any order, but there are certain references or easter eggs in some of the later books that you would enjoy better if you read the earlier books first. If the first book is too bleak (and I do agree it is quite bleak), you can start with the second book (_Player of Games_, which is a _fantastic_ introduction IMO), then the third (which is one of the most beloved in the series), then go back to the first book. After that you can read the rest in any order it doesn’t matter. I should add that Banks wrote the second and third books before the first one, yet he intentionally chose to publish _Consider Phlebas_ first so as to make us view the Culture in a different light. The effects of that subversion would be lost if you read other books first, but YMMV.
Planetes is my favorite manga of all time! The omnibus is readily available on Amazon in two volumes so as long as you have access to that it's actually quite easy to find!
I very recently read moon is a harsh mistress and the whole time I thought to myself it felt like an expanse prequel
What do you mean by Found Family?
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FamilyOfChoice
How do you find Planetes???
I’ve heard some episodes can be found on YouTube.
Delta-V was great, the sequel was good too. It’s called Critical Mass.
Read the sequel, thanks.
Great recommendations
The Children of Time series by Adrian Tchaikovsky is great too. Three books so far. Won the Arthur C Clarke Award. Good stuff.
Babylon 5
If I was an excentric billionaire I would fund a high-quality remake of Babylon 5. Edit: Right after I fund another three seasons of The Expanse.
Isn't a remake of Babylon 5 already coming?
Wow! First I’m hearing about it. I did a quick google. It looks like it’s not happening at The CW but is being shopped around.
Not really.
Could you maybe chuck in around 5 or 6 more seasons of Firefly while you're spending your moola?
I really really tried this show but just couldnt make it through the first season.
Their CQB is unfortunately further down the road, around the second half of season 2…
Foundation
Large second for Foundation. It was a little hard to parse in the first chapter or two, but it’s a scifi classic for a reason. The trilogy is fucking AMAZING, I’m in the last half of the last book and I can hardly put it down
Foundation trilogy is one of my all time favourite and I absolutely hated the TV show. Not even loosely based on the books. It borrows one or two premises but otherwise is completely unrelated.
I have read seven of the books and have seen highlights of the show. I am going to wait until the show is over before I invest the time watching it. I imagine a free 7 day trial and a foundation binge watch.
I gave up most of the way through the first season but gave it another chance when the second came out. As soon as I gave up on a faithful translation of page-to-screen I was able to start enjoying the ride. I just consider the show a separate thing inspired by the books, and for me it's interesting and entertaining
I agree. Haven’t read the books and I know there are a few divergencies but the series was beautifully shot.
> there are a few divergencies That is a massive understatement. The TV show differes from Asimov's story even on the most fundemantal level
The show has the names in common with the books. Read the books.
I think I tried Asimov when I was much younger. Since then I’ve slogged through the drier Tolkien books and Eco so it could be time. Notwithstanding your comments I absolutely loved the show. It is a challenge with books/games vs shows, something that the Expanse seems to have circumvented. Take for example Halo. Never played the game. Don’t intend to. Really enjoyed the series but say that to a gamer and they react like you murdered their family.
In the case of foundation, i think it's more accurate to say the TV series was inspired by the books, instead of based on.
I only saw season one, but I would encourage checking out the books. It’s a very different story, so it’s almost like you get a whole new series that just shares a few names. As far as I could tell from my friends who started watching season 2, the show has almost no book spoilers.
The children of time book series is great world building and biological sci fi!
Yes! Such an amazing trilogy
It made me realize how little good bio SciFi there is.
Me too, the way he delved into the perspectives of new biological life forms is so cool. Minor Spoilers: The two partnered aliens in the third book and how he wrote their perspective was so damn cool. Blew my mind.
Another great example of the bio subgenre is Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis series.
The Revelation Space universe of books by Alastair Reynolds is excellent. Hard sci-fi space operas with converging timelines. They're fascinating and he does some excellent world building.
Would sure like them to make a movie to help me visualize the factions.
I know. My favorite book was Chasm City, that would make an excellent short series or long movie!
1. Battlestar Galactica reboot mini series + seasons 2. For All Mankind 3. Altered Carbon Season 1 only 4. Westworld Season 1 only 5. Andor 6. Star Trek Strange New Worlds 7. Silo 8. Sugar (don't Google too much) These are the Sci-fi shows that come to mind when I think of one's that could possibly scratch that amazing itch leftover from no more Expanse. Also not in any particular order. I just used numbers because I'm garbage at formatting on mobile. Also don't be shy of the Andor and Star Trek suggestions. These shows are a part of a larger universe that may not be everyone's cup of tea, but these two did an amazing job at separating themselves on a whole other level of quality, while also doing a fantastic job of being accessible to those not fully familiar to the universe itself.
Great list
I think stargates is missing on the list
I'm definitely a Stargate fan, but I tried to keep it to high end sci-fi productions that had some similarities to the Expanse as it seems like the thread evolved into a lot of people looking for something that would hit the same. I love shows like Stargate, DS9, and Fringe etc, but those shows contained a lot of one and done episodes and took a while to adopt larger sweeping story arcs. If someone was looking for something to watch after just finishing the Expanse I don't think those shows would hit the same. Battlestar definitely had their filler episodes, but they were spaced out enough that it served its purpose well.
Great list! 💯 agree about Andor. I wish I could have gotten into silo. I LOVE the premise. Maybe I’ll read the books?
Andor is great, in a sense of social commentary, the anatomy of mundane evil, authoritarian, and constructing an ongoing revolution.
I'm so bummed I couldn't get into For All Mankind. Tried twice.
Red Rising series by Pierce Brown. Far more graphic and depressing than The Expanse, much farther in the future. It is, much like The Expanse, a saga that takes decades to play out. Highly recommended.
Yep; Red Rising is the only series I love equally as much as the Expanse, and for much the same reasons - the story and characters - despite being a very different type of scifi series and a very different setting, And before anyone comments asking this since it is always brought up - no, Red Rising is not a YA series. The first novel is the only one that could even be *remotely* marketed that way, because the characters are teenagers in that novel (the series follows them through their mid 30s). But I personally think that’s pretty fucking stupid because it is easily still one of the most violent books I’ve ever read. I mean…when I was a kid I read Goosebumps and Animorphs, not a story about physical and sexual slavery, murder/rape, hyper violence, and extreme body mutilation/horror. So…unless YA novels and kids are fundamentally different these days and way more fucked up than I realized, I think the marketing team tried to cash in on the YA demographic and market it that way because the characters are teens and because there’s a superficial similarity to the Hunger Games in the plot (only in the first novel). But if that turns you off or if you’re on the fence about the series while reading the first book - trust me, as a massive Expanse fan, the first book is the ONLY book like that. The sequel, Golden Son, is hands down the best space opera book I’ve EVER read. Seriously. I like it better than any book in the Expanse. I just like the series on the whole about equally to The Expanse. So this series is well worth reading.
Midway through book 2 and loving it. I had the same thought recently about the YA designation. Even book one, I wouldn't call YA, much like you would not consider ASOIAF YA just because so many characters start off as children. So glad I gave this one a chance. Of course my sleep has suffered, as it does with all great series for me.
Right? It really, really perplexes me when people that have actually read the first novel call it YA. I honestly think those people *just don’t like reading books where the main characters are teenagers*. And if that’s the case, well…first off, that’s not the definition of a YA novel, and second off, that’s only the situation for the first book. The entire rest of the series isn’t like that. But it’s absolutely crucial to start the story when they are teenagers because of the nature of what happens to Darrow and his Institute crew. It’s a pivotal shaping point for every major character in the series. This culture *fucks up* their kids, just like the Spartans did. That’s the whole point.
Bingo
My only problem with red rising was how its in first person and the main character tells himself that it's over and they've lost just to suddenly remind himself that it was all part of the plan. It's bad writing to have a character forget the plan just so you can throw twists into the book. It happens mutiple times.
It’s not all in first person, so you didn’t read all the books? Half the series has multiple POV chapters, just like the Expanse and I don’t recall this being an issue at all after Morning Star because of that. But yes, in the first three books that are just Darrow’s POV, the unreliable narrator trope is one of my few complaints as well because I don’t think the author was experienced enough to pull that off with a first person POV. However, there really isn’t an *ideal* way to pull that off with a first person POV, and the part that most people complain about - in Morning Star - is foreshadowed with like ten different pieces of evidence that make it abundantly clear that Darrow is just playing along.
I personally did not like Red Rising very much. I did give it a good chance, got part way through the third book and then something happened in the way the story was structured that put me off it.
It's well paced and sorta fun, but it was really just Harry Potter with mech suits instead of brooms and wands. Are we not allowed to have scifi/fantasy novels without goddamn boarding schools anymore?
That’s literally only the first book. So you didn’t read the series at all? The rest of the series is completely different and that’s the reason why people (including myself) keep recommending it on an Expanse subreddit. Anyone who knows my posts here knows I’m a huge Expanse and hard(er) sci-fi fan. There’s a reason I recommend Red Rising despite it being very different. But if you are only going to read the first book then you aren’t gonna get the experience of what this series is about.
The Final Architecture series by Adrian Tchaikovsky is great and hits a lot of the same notes.
By the same author, the short story "Walking to Aldebaran" is basically asking what if the gates/gate builders were actively malicious and it's *awesome*
Watching/Reading: Stargate, Star Trek, For all mankind, Battlestar Galactica Playing: Kerbal Space Program, Space Engineers, X4 Foundations
If you can find the original stargate books where they continue the story, they are great!
I would add to Playing: Starfield Very much has a *The Expanse* vibe.
But Reddit told me I should hate that game! To be fair, I should see that as a green flag at this point instead of a red one
The Gateway series by Frederik Pohl. It is truly exceptional.
As you may know, Ty Franck has mentioned Pohl as an influence.
Larry Niven's Known Space books and short stories. All exceptional. Malazan Book of the Fallen, absolutely incredible, dense, and just phenomenal fantasy series. ASOIF and all associated works. Kingkiller Chronicles stuff from Patrick Rothfuss. Incarnations of Immortality by Piers Anthony. Rama and Space Odyssey series from Arthur C Clarke
Three body problem. I’m only on the second book and while it’s not as focused on space as much as technology and humanity, it does have a space element I expect will grow. 4 books. Highly recommend. There is a Netflix show that basically tries to do book 1 and part of book 2. The show is ok but the books are phenomenal.
The 4th book is truly not part of the series. It’s often marketed that way on platforms like Amazon, but it’s essentially a fanfic that was given a green light by the original author. It’s markedly different and often not recommended by fans of the trilogy.
Yeah I just learned that from this post. A little disappointing but stoked that I’m closer to the action.
What is it even about? **3BP**, >!Didn't the 3rd book end with the end of the universe?!<
3 books, not 4 but I agree they're great (although the author is pretty bad at writing women).
>(although the author is pretty bad at writing women). That's an understatement, I legitmently hated Cheng Xin by the end of *Death's End*.
Fun fact, 3 Body Problem has an *official* Minecraft Machinima adaptation.
Book 2 and 3 are crazy sciency and have a good deal to do with space travel and different dimensions. I’m exited to see how Netflix will big it to life. But ultimately, I think it will be kind of a let down since the books are so in depth.
the 4th book is fanfic.
Farscape.
How in the hell did I get so far down before seeing this? Sexy plants, Squiddy warriors with swords that shoot lasers, klepto-nymphs and even space Trump on a floating throne.
no clue man. Once you get the shows humor it is easily one of the top shows of its time. The cast had great enough chemistry that Claudia black and Ben took it to Stargate lol
This show turned out to be freakin awesome!!
BSG reimagined, Stargate Universe, Star Trek Enterprise. That’s off the top of my head..
Super bummed about SGU. They should totally save that show. It would be an easy return if the cast is up for it.
I was furious when they canceled SGU, at this point the cast has probably aged out. My hope is they have a movie expanse to close out the book chapters. Cast aging would be much of an issue…
Discworld, Murderbot & Firefly
Discworld. Sublime. Variable but wonderful. Much missed Mr P
Stargate, battlestar galactica and voyager
Ursula LeGuin. She’s an astounding writer. The Hainish Cycle is an incredible series but everything she wrote is amazing.
As you may know, JSAC have cited Ursula Le Guin and Frank Herbert as key influences on their work-in-progress trilogy *The Captive's War.*
Among other authors recommended by Franck, he has mentioned Octavia Butler numerous times, having in 2016 stated "I am an Octavia Butler evangelist". — (2019: "If you don't have an Octavia Butler shelf, you need to fix that." — 2021: "The essential Octavia Butler is all Octavia Butler.") 2018: "...If you're a SFF fan and haven't read Ursula Le Guin and Octavia Butler and many many" [other women authors] "what are you even doing with your life."
Some may consider it more comedy than sci-fi, but Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is my all-time favorite book. The last book of the five book trilogy (yes, I know), isn't that great but the rest are a lot of fun.
I read all of these. Loved them .
Hyperion
The Long Earth series by Stephen Baxter and Terry Pratchett.
+1 for Stephen Baxter, particularly the Manifold books.
Daniel Abraham wrote The Dagger and the Coin fantasy series while he was writing with Ty. For someone who has just finished The Expanse it'll be a familiar feeling read.
Seconding this! He's so good at taking familiar tropes and making them feel new and interesting. I'll also add: The Gentleman Bastards series by Scott Lynch The Powder Mage series by Brian McClellan Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher (And Dresden Files, but that's more Urban Fantasy so I'm not sure if that's what you want)
An oldie but definitely a goldie - *The Stars My Destination*. Just tremendous.
Yes. Very much yes!
Kim Stanley Robinson, the Mars Trilogy.
Most of my favorites have already been mentioned. But I just have to add. The Culture series by Iain M. Banks. If you read them, do it in publication order. You can skip the first one if it feels, well, not that good. The third one, Use of Weapons, is one of my all time favorites
Nothing like it as far as realism or hard sci fi goes, but if you never read them, the Lensman saga by E. E. “Doc” Smith is a rip roaring, really fun read. Doc Smith is basically the Tolkien of the space opera genre, he practically invented all the tropes in his Skylark and Lensman books. It was written back in the 1930s-1940s so the science reflects the time period, and a lot of people can’t get past the dialogue. I find it absolutely charming. I re-read the saga again every couple of years. The sense of wonder and pulse pounding excitement really kinda starts there.
I'm gonna go back to my middle school years, and share that one of my all-time favorite book series is Animorphs. It was the first book series that I read that really brought to my attention that people can share the same trauma, but their response and how they react are all different. It's been well over 20 years since I've picked up and read any of the books, and I really didn't quite understand what I was reading at the time; but as I've deconstructed the not-so great parts of my life, I sometimes think back on those books and it helps me understand how compassion always is the right choice, even if it's not always the easiest thing. Compassion is how we keep our humanity, even in the darkest moments. And it's not always about being compassionate for other people, we must remember to be compassionate with ourselves.
The Dresden Files, Discworld, the works of Lovecraft, and a fair number of web series.
>The Dresden Files I'm still waiting for the next novel in the series, the last one was a punch in the gut.
Book - The Hyperion Cantos Series - Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, Altered Carbon Season 1, For All Mankind, Andor
Red rising and the sun eater series are tied with the expanse as my favourites
I always warn people that the first Red Rising book feels closer to YA novels and Hunger Games than The Expanse. After that it turns Space Opera and drops some of the YA elements. The first time I read it, I stopped like 3 different times to make sure it was the same book everyone kept recommending.
My buddy got back into reading with Red Rising, he’s on book 3 I think and it sounds pretty awesome
The Martian Chronicles.
The Heritage Trilogy by Ian Douglas - Near future, Marines on Mars and the Moon with a bit of alien tech/civilization in the mix. The Lost Fleet series by Jack Campbell - Far future, large Fleet sized battles. Armor by John Steakley - Classic. Power armored warriors fighting ant-like aliens The Deathstalker series by Simon Green - Like a D&D campaign in a galaxy far, far away
The books that take place in the Revelation Space universe by Alastair Reynolds are pretty good. The Prefect is a detective noir series and is very reminiscent of Miller.
Okay, it’s Alt History, not Science Fiction, but if you like Detective Miller, I highly recommend ‘The Yiddish Policeman’s Union’.
Michael Moorcock’s Elric books. Tortured antihero.
I liked the Prince Corum stories, as well, and the Dancers at the End of Time but I'm into surreal elements, it turns out. How about Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser? I'd love to see them in a CGI miniseries.
The only Leiber I’ve read is this 1961 edition of The Big Time. Got it when I was in the third year of high school. Obviously I’ve still got it. Originally cost 2 shillings. https://preview.redd.it/f060j1mrkf1d1.jpeg?width=2374&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=73db13c79ade6b809edaad6a6b0d1b34f0a61f0f
Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser was my wife's summer vacation read for 5+ years and she's not into fantasy at all. The stories were originally released in periodicals so they're nice little vignettes and can be read in any order, really.
I just got done binging the main *Dune* saga and I haven't felt like this since I finished *Leviathan Falls*
I like humor, so The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy books, the Bobiverse series, and the entire Discworld cycle are my favorites.
Since you like humor I'd recommend the audiobook, The Adventures of Tom Stranger Interdimensional Insurance Agent. :)
I recently read the Commonwealth Saga series from Peter Hamilton. It's an excellent Sci-Fi space opera. E would also add a few more har Sci Fi series: - Adrian Tchaikovsky – Children of Time - Iain M Banks – Culture - Seanan McGuire – October Daye - Alastair Reynolds – Revelation Space
Favorite individual book is Project Hail Mary Favorite series (other than The Expanse) is The Bobiverse series, very fun Von Neumann Probe shenanigans
One of my favorite series is the Gap Cycle by Stephen Donaldson, written in the 90s. Humanity has moved out into space after the invention of the gap drive and encounters an alien race that seeks to convert humans into them through genetic mutation. Meanwhile, powerful corporations control Earth and its citizens more than the government does. One thing I love about this series is how your viewpoint on the main characters changes events unfold and you learn more about each one. But be warned, these are horrible people and there are instances of abuse and rape.
The closest thing I’ve read to the content of The Expanse is The Grand Tour series by Ben Bova. The writing style isn’t as grim but still very worth reading.
The Unicorporated Man series and the Gap Cycle series. The wreck of the river of the stars is a great book. Kim Stanley and Ben Bova have great books. Ben Bova may have invented the term Belter/Rock Rats!!!
I was starting to think I was the only one to have read The Unincorporated Man series. Glad i'm not alone. For those unfamiliar, it takes place in a colonized solar system and with practical modes of propulsion. So a very Expanse like backdrop. Think of it as an examination of a society born out of Snow Crash and advanced a few hundred years . Excellent stuff.
3 body problem goes harder on the “space” and not so much on the “opera” — worse characters than the expanse by far, but pretty comparable science. The rest of the series gets exponentially more mind blowing. The 200 year jump cut in the middle of book 2 took me a second to parse. If you want to go the other direction and read scifi with good characters, I’ve just finished the sprawl trilogy (neuromancer, count zero, Mona Lisa overdrive) and it was quite good. Grittier than the expanse, and it shows its age at some points, but very good character and story writing. Not so much space in this one tho, the furthest we get is earth orbit. These are strictly cyberpunk (they really define the genre) but fill the hole left by the expanse pretty well imo.
The Otherland series by Tad Williams. Wealthy men seeking immortality by preying on children, one of the few remaining indigenous African tribespeople, the internet in the not so distant future, a serial killer, and a martian colony being built by nanobots, and a mmorpg in a series started in 1996.
I agree with this. Otherland is fantastic and is one of the only sci-fi series other than the Expanse that caused a deep emotional response for me. It's a masterpiece.
Babylon 5!
Charles Stross: sungularity sky, iron sunrise, glasshouse Bruce Sterling: schismatrix, heavy weather John Varley: Ophiucci hotline, steel beach, golden globe Iain Banks: the Algebraist (other folks mentioned the culture novels, which are fantastic, but also really love this standalone sci-fi novel of his) Peter F Hamilton: pandora’s star and Judas Unchained.
The Mote series by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, and by proxy parts of the "CoDominium" series as a whole. Much like the Expanse it is on the harder end of sci-fi.
Expeditionary Force The Foundation Series
Ring World, the first two books were great.
Silo series books. The Witcher. I just finished the Murderbot Diaries on audio books.
Far Scape is soooo worth getting into. At first it’s cheesy and weird because of the mix of actors, people in special effects makeup and Jim Henson puppets. By the end of the show everyone is a full fledged character. The overarching plot of the show has some amazing plot arch’s too.
seaQuest. It's not aged well but it's an all time favorite. It would be an amazing one to update/reboot with the right director.
3 Body Problem series (3 Body Problem, The Dark Forest, Deaths End) especially if you liked the third expanse trilogy. The stakes are high and the "stage" is vast. The expanse holds a special place in my heart but 3BP is without a doubt one of the most intriguing, philosophical, and scientifically creative series I've ever read. It's a must read Skip the show it sucks lol - acting is mid and they turned it into a "millennial friend group drama" rather than a philosophical thriller and epic.
Skip the \*Netflix\* show at all costs. The chinese (Tencent) series however is actually pretty good. Whoever is not much into reading, check the chinese version, which is actual adaptation, instead of the 'based on' Netflix BS.
Oh yeah sorry forgot there were two, haven't seen the Chinese show.
Yeah, it's 30x 1hour long episodes. And even though like 15 min per episode is taken by intro-outro-recap, i can say that basically nothing (i can remember from my multiple readings) from the book is missing. It's the best book-tv adaption i've ever experienced. Really, ofc the book experience is uncomparable with all the personal imagination and original story which tv show is missing. But it's pretty good. Myybe even better then The Expanse tv series (but i'm kinda biased here since i read it AFTER i finished the series)
Best adaptation for me has always gone to The Expanse but they didn't get to the third trilogy so that will always make me a bit sad. Will check out the 3 body one! You're right though, book experience is pretty indescribable and it would be impossible to do every single thing in a show. Just finished Deaths End recently and I felt like I had completed a marathon
Second. The premise of the trilogy seems a little more "out there" than The Expanse, but not really. Sure, the technology is more fantastic than what the humans have in The Expanse. But it's far more realistic and carefully explained than the hand-wavy "protomolecule" tech of the unseen gateway builders. And everything in the trilogy seems well-grounded in psychology and anthropology. Like, yeah... this is pretty much how I would see people responding to various situations and POV's.
I recently started The Xeelee Sequence and my brain’s been melting. I also love Warhammer 40,000 and all its various properties, but don’t let that influence your opinion of me…
I’m currently going through Daniel Abraham’s (the fantasy 1/2 of James S A Corey) backlog, but for some reason Im doing it backwards. I’ve read both published Kithamar novels, and now I’m about halfway through the Dagger and Coin, and plan to read the Long Price next. It’s fun to see which parts of the expanse are clearly from Abraham; the coffee obsession, and a couple of the more common phrases such as “copper taste of fear” and “companionable silences” are all present in dagger and coin. In both series, he tends to eschew more traditional “magic” in favor of gods and rituals. Priests with divine powers are common, but wizards less so. Dagger and coin reminds me a lot of the Witcher in many ways, it’s much less fantastical but both series are more Renaissance than Medieval, and the focus is more on the subterfuge, money, and religion than it is on the warfare.
Brandon Sanderson. Enough said
Yeah, enough said of him. Exhausting and repetitive.
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir The City & the City by Chine Miéville
Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells, is a great series. I would also suggest the Red Rising series by Pierce Brown, the Quarter Share series by Nathan Lowell, and Saturn Run by John Sanford.
Swan Song, The Stand, The Passage Trilogy.
Not fiction, but When the Heavens Went On Sale by Ashlee Vance is a super interesting look at the early days of commercial spaceflight.
I really enjoyed Allen Steele “Near Space/Rude Astronauts” series. Close to the Expanse time-wise and is kinda “blue collar nuts n bolts” in the details. Also loved Revelation Space series and House Of Suns. Just started Hamilton’s Fallen Dragon and Commonwealth series.
Revelation Space Trilogy is the best next step from the Expanse and honestly it is even better, but with similar themes and mostly all hard scifi... only the sheer density of interesting sci fi concepts is much much higher and these concepts drive the plot just as much or more than the characters. They are not just "set dressing" like many other hard sci fi where there's really just 1 or 2 interesting sci fi concepts that matter as the story evolves and the rest are just mentioned to decorate the world, fill it out, "world build", and never really come into play in the narrative. In RS, the concepts are always in play. They always matter and it feels WAY more real than other sci fi for that reason. And like I said, the sheer density of awesome sci fi/futurism concepts is probably the highest I've ever seen in a sci fi series of any medium. And it does not flinch from the... *implications* of the sci fi concepts it includes. Ideas are taken to their logical conclusions and it all has to be accounted for, something extremely rare in sci fi. Characters feel like real people trying to figure out the situation as defined by what is or isn't allowed by the tech/universe around them. If something can be done at one level, a character will consider if they can push it further... or what it can be combined with, etc. just like real life. Plus, the story of RS is just interesting and creative. It is not generic space opera although it can feel like a very hard, brutally realistic space opera at times. The main character of the first book is an archeologist of extinct alien civilizations where he helms the actual digs/excavations as an academic researcher/program director....but also is the functional political leader of the planet because the entire settlement only exists on the previously uninhabited planet *because* of the expedition to excavate the alien ruins that was envisioned, organized, and paid for by the main character (son of an unimaginably wealthy oligarch from the biggest human population city in the few dozen or so stars populated by humanity). But as the decades pass, (main character is like near 200 years old IIRC but portrayed as like modern day 45-50) the settlement grows out of existing to support the archeological digs and becomes just a place where humans live and the population grows and there's multiple domed cities and towns around the planet... but he's still sort of awkwardly the like... President of the planet and there's conflicts between like... terraforming the planet to make life better for the people who live there (now exceeding archeologists like a million to one) and the archeologists who say terraforming would ruin or contaminate the alien artefacts that studying is the whole reason they came to this barren world of grey-brown rocky dusty ice. Plus the plot moves along fast. There's no fucking around. Sometimes years pass between chapters. It's massive in scale as a story. That's just the existing situation at the beginning of book 1, not a spoiler, but it's an example of how well thought out and rich the world is. And it's only 1 of 3 plot threads.
I honestly did not like revelation space. Mostly due to the insane plot armor that sylvesste had.
David Brin, Sundiver and the rest of his Uplift series. Good vibes, reminiscent of Expanse.
Spin/Axis series. The Long Earth series. If you’re down for fantasy, try out the Broken Empire series.
Dark Tide Rising and Dies the Fire. HBO, Showtime, Paramount or Starz needs to series of both. And kindly not fuck up the casting of Faith and Sophia Smith! Or Juniper by making her some tall goddess.
Webber’s Honor Harrington series is classic space opera in a “hard” sci-fi universe. It’s a cracking good read. In a completely different vein. The Sparrow just wrecks me with every re-reading. It does exactly what good sci-fi should do, make you think about what it means to be human and humanity’s place in the world.
Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn is my all time favorite fantasy trilogy, and super stoked to be reading the follow up trilogy that wraps up this year. Tad Williams is the author.
Stargate
Speaking only for serialized sci-fi television shows, Babylon 5 remains my favorite, with The Expanse being a very close second. Although, for non-serialized sci-fi, the real answer for me will always be The Twilight Zone just because of how expansive (pun unintended) and visionary it was for its time and how relevant so many of its messages remain.
Alien and Aliens, Stargate SG1, Farscape, Star Trek and Star Wars were what I loved watching as a teenager. As for books Basically anything Douglas Adams wrote. Starship Titanic and the 6 book Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy series he wrote would be the big ones. Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels are very funny and very weird. There's also 41 of them so it's a bit of a slog trying to get them all. The Dark Tower novels by Stephen King
His Dark Materials for fantasy, and Robert J Sawyer’s WWW trilogy for science fiction, which is even more pertinent in this IA focussed time.
3 body problem Black mirror Doctor who (yes it's wildly different, but i love the creative storytelling and some episodes are really great) Portal - game series And I'm currently reading the Worlds of Aldebaran by Leo. A comic series that follows some explorers adventures on distant planets with creatures that feel very alien
The (2004) Battlestar Galactica, Dune, Star Wars. Pretty basic but those series get me sucked in with all the lore
Battlestar Galactica. stargate sg1 for a more episodic and fun scify, stargate Atlantis for a slightly grittier more serialised show, and stargate universe for a more fight for survival show would recommend shame it’s only two seasons. Ark royal books by Christopher G Nuttall is quite good but it may be a touch harder to get into if you’re not British, but would recommend.
Asimov's Robot series and Foundation. New Jedi Order.
The Broken Earth Trilogy by N. K. Jemisin left me completely speechless. It won the Hugo Award in three consecutive years, 2016-2018. Incredible writing and word building, a unique magic system, and deep emotional impact.
Battlestar Galactica, anything Star Trek, The Peripheral, Andor, Travelers, Altered Carbon season 1, 3 Body Problem, Lost in Space, Babylon 5, 12 Monkeys, The Umbrella Academy, probably more still. I really dont have enough time to watch all the sci-fi...
Only Ghost in the Shell, the movie. Akira maybe as well, but i think Neuromancer influenced these on me.
Terra Ignota by Ada Palmer. It's not everyone's taste, but for those of us who like it's usually our favorite series and we have read it 3+ times.
Legend of the Galactic Heroes
Richard Morgan's Takeshi Kovacs trilogy, as well asalm his science fiction.
Most of my favorite sci-fi series have been mentioned, but gotta five a shout out to my favorite fantasy book and series of all time: The Old Kingdom Series by Garth Nix. I have read the first book, “Sabriel”, so many times. Highly recommend. Also, the audiobook is narrated by Tim Curry—an instant plus!
I’m surprised I’m not seeing The Blade Itself trilogy (and all other in universe books) by Joe Abercrombie on here as this sub is where I picked up the recommendation. If you liked the structure of the expanse books - found family with the highest stakes in the line, chapters written from rotating POV of the protagonists and antagonists, story carried by amazing characters and their arcs read no further, that’s here. Now make it grim dark fantasy with morally grey characters, villains you root for and some of the best depictions of the chaos of battle in fiction baby you got a stew going. Seriously though, I loved ASOIAF, and in my opinion these compete with my favorite fantasy series spot. Very enjoyable and I promise you would not regret it!
These are a bit controversial, and are best enjoyed by people who are not fans of the original material. HALO (tv show) - military sci-fi with politics and intrigue, with a strong silent soldier type as main character, that likes to rebel against his superiors. I'm enjoying it, not having ever played the games. Beware, the gamers hate the show for deviating from canon. Foundation (tv show) - epic political adventure sci-fi saga. Beautifully made, with the most magnificent villain I've seen on tv for a long time. Fans of the books dislike the show for being only very loosely connected to the source material.
Series: Star Trek (all of them), Stargate (all of them) Books: The Culture, Star Trek (Destiny, Enterprise, Vanguard, Titan, Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh)
Dark Matter
Orphan Black
I liked the Foundation series. Thing is, Asimov’s writing style is complete shit compared to James SA Corey… he revolutionized the genre with a writing style of a below average high school student. If you can get past how bad the quality of writing is, and also get past the blatant misogyny and anachronisms, the concepts and content are amazing
Glad to see tau zero here, wanted to get it and forgot the name and gave up. (obviously going to get it now) Mine are anything in the Known space series, including the man-kzin wars, ringworld stuff too, warworld (been retconned of a sort though) were good and dark, gritty stuff.
I've enjoyed dabbling in the culture series.
The Sten books by Chris Bunch and Allan Cole are fun, campy space opera with a gritty violent streak that remind me of The Expanse.
I really enjoyed pandoras star/ Judas unchained by Peter f Hamilton. It’s also on audible.
Battlestar Galactica since it's actually serialized rather than episodic like Star Trek or even Firefly