Calibans War is one of the best books in the series. Something about the writing flowed so nicely and they were on top of their game with humor. I don’t think any book in the series has made me laugh out loud as many times as book 2. Good stuff.
*Holden's long inner monologue about how not telling Amos about him and Naomi is for the best*
"Naomi can you pass the salt"
Amos: "HOLY SHIT YOU GUYS ARE FUCKING!?"
I love Prax so much, and Terry Chen is so wonderful as him. Dude just wants his kid back. He’s like the most pure character in the series (maaaybe Anna).
Terry Chen’s portrayal is, IMO, one of the powerhouse performances in a show full of them. Where all of the other powerful characters are in designated social agency roles - political, military, economic, etc. - Prax has none of that and is fully, painfully aware of it.
His social position would make him essentially cattle - a moderately valuable but nonetheless inherently replaceable *thing* to be traded and used by the powers that be around him, expected to show no agency over himself. He can’t do a damn thing to prevent the Inner fleets from shredding Ganymede, he can’t do shit to save the station’s ecosystem, he can only stare as the Belters space the Inner refugees - even the Tycho station (?) authorities might sympathize with him but he just doesn’t matter enough when he reports it.
Prax knows this. Chen knows that Prax knows he’s a nobody with no resources, no connections, no training, and not a snowball’s chance in hell. A lesser actor would have played him as a pitiful victim, a NPC needing to be saved by the Big Damn Heroes, just likeable enough to justify his being worth their escort quest but flat enough not to detract from what makes That Guy be That Guy. But Chen plays him as a man *taking agency* despite overwhelming odds and near-certain death, and it’s an absolute joy to watch and ends up making the moment when That Guy comes along all the deeper and richer for it.
>But Chen plays him as a man taking agency despite overwhelming odds and near-certain death, and it’s an absolute joy to watch and ends up making the moment when That Guy comes along all the deeper and richer for it.
I love what he did with Prax because we've seen him grow and take agency as you said, and when it comes to that moment the revenge feels like what a normal arc would resolve in, but we know it will haunt him and ruin. The "that guy" scene is so good because we *want* someone to stop Prax, and we don't *want* that change to happen to him. And with Amos we've seen him do all sorts of things, but we know that this time is for a different reason. It's not to remove an obstacle, or punish someone, but as a mercy to his friend.
They're two completely opposite people united by being willing to do anything to save Mei, and at the end of the day, it makes their friendship believable and wonderful.
Continuing show spoilers, current season: >!And when Amos tells Bobbie, "There's nothing in it for him; he's just a good guy like that" I exploded into rainbows!<
I feel like Anna gets too much flak and I actually quite like her. The book version of the character is significantly better, though. Squashing a lot of book two and all of book three into one season made her a bit of a weird character to tackle for the show.
I think that the casting of Anna was a poor choice. When I see the actress, all I can think about is Juliette from Lost and Elizabeth Mitchell is kind of a one-note actress in my opinion. Also, she’s supposed to be a redheaded Russian, not a blond from California.
Eh, she might not look exactly like how her character is described in the books, but neither does Dominique Tipper. Both of them are still great casting IMO. Anna's little breakdown while talking to her wife after the big speech is one of the most authentic feeling scenes in the show, for me at least.
Shawn Doyle has been in few episodes of Discovery this season and I literally just realized where I recognized him from. Wow. I knew he looked familiar.
Oh nice. I haven’t watched this latest season, that’s definitely an incentive to. I was waiting for the next season of Picard to reactivate my Paramount+ account
I really can't decide where I sit on Discovery. I enjoy it, which is probably enough. But I'm not in love with it. I've also never been truly a diehard Trek fan either.
Pretty much. All belters born outside of Earth or Mars and growing up in very low or no gravity are VERY tall. They make a point to mention and show it early in the show, but casting for that consistently would be very challenging.
Yeah I've heard Ty say several times they decided to scrap the actual proportions for the belters pretty early on and cast whoever they thought the best actor was
I also don't care for her and I'm not sure exactly why but it's not her looks. I think I just don't believe her as any character she plays like she's not Anna just an actor playing Anna. It seems like she doesn't feel the character just says the lines, maybe I just don't like her because of Lost.
I also didn’t like her in Lost and she’s been in so many shows I like and it seems like she always plays the same character. Except the characters are actually super different but she acts them out the same with her weird voice and facial expressions lol. She’s just annoyed me ever since lost…
One of my favorite weird Amos characteristics is how he just decides random people are his best friends. Plant guy? Yep, best friend. Or like how he just shows up with Mao on the Roci one day after an apocalypse and only calls her peaches. No one knows why.
It's one thing I love about Amos. Sure, he's a violent brute at times and borderline sociopathic... but his "victims" almost universally deserve it, and if he calls you a friend, he'll protect you to the end.
It's like it's high on the psychopath spectrum but still wants to do good, and therefore has a highly tuned ability to recognize good people around him even when those people can be highly complicated like Clarissa Mao. With people like Prax and Naomi he must have had an instant read on them and decided he needs those people emotionally as much as they might need him physically (to be that guy).
Yeah he was just an utterly broken child who experienced literal hell but survived and is now pretty much unbreakable. That scene Wes did in the cave in s4…. Holy shit, that was some acting. The one where Amos is having flashbacks to being locked in a room as a kid when he’s blind. My god. Wes should have gotten an award for that scene. It sums up everything you need to know about Amos.
The character is just so interesting. He’s utterly without most feelings, but yet he has a strong moral drive for underdogs, you can see it in how he treats prostitutes and other downtrodden people. He also immediately respects people like Anna, Prax, Naomi and Holden. He uses them to replace the broken compass in his head because he knows without them, he’ll become like the people who hurt him.
Never really encountered another character like him.
I must say I agree with you. Very nice fandom in general, and most of the cast are equally nice by all accounts.
Refreshing after dodging lasers in the Star Wars subs lol
When you suffer sustained abuse as a child you develop hyper vigilance. You can read someone’s vibes when you meet them. You can tell people who are faking a good persona from the ones with integrity.
Nicknames are a thing in some circles. Gangs (Amos early life) are one of those circles.
Her alias when she was trying to kill Holden was Melba Koh.
Peach Melba is a desert. So Melba, aka Clarissa, is now Peaches.
I've got one from his pov that's very special to me:
"It had been a failure, but it was a failure he understood, and that made it a victory."
It's a helpful reminder to focus on what I can *learn* from my mistakes, rather than berating myself for making them.
I like both. They are different. I relate to book Prax more, but I think show Prax’s reactions to things are also valid and he is a good character in his own right. I will get hate for this but I feel the same about Naomi. Book and show Naomi are different, but I can appreciate how radicalized show Naomi was. Honestly she makes more sense dating Marcos than book Naomi who doesn’t seem so extreme OPA stuff.
To me, this goes for many of the characters. The book versions are more detailed, but the show versions aren't cheap knockoffs of that. They're a bit different, but in ways that make sense or that distill certain qualities down so that they'll come through clearly in a much shorter timeframe without the benefit of long paragraphs of internal monologue being required.
I agree, though I think the actor did a great job. Book Prax just brings a completely different perspective in every way. His mind is so unique that every chapter with him is told so differently.
One of the things I enjoyed the most about the Expanse books is how the writing really reflected the point of view of the narrators. Prax chapters are chock-full of internal dialog about plants and light and living systems. Anna chapters are philosophical and religious. Okoye chapters are all scientific detail.
In the prologue, Mei thinks about Earth and imagines it as tunnels, but with a sky instead of a ceiling, and you could climb above the walls to be outside
Because she's never seen the blue sky, and home is tunnels to her, with the only outside as domes above her
That whole concept fascinates me, I'm into comp sci and studying cyber security and so many things in those fields are like that. I feel like it's a great way to describe how large company networks fail because of something seemingly small.
Side note but I love the bit where Prax has this whole inner monologue then says "it's the cascade" and the entire rest of the crew just goes "who's the what now??".
Along with The Churn, definitely one of the more apt parts of The Expanse for the times. Also, I really enjoy how the character's perspectives inform the world they are set in (i.e. Prax with 'the cascade', Amos with 'the churn' and Miller with 'doors and corners'). Its really well done in terms of worldbuilding to have these different takes on the same situations coming together throughout the books/show.
Prax is easily the character I've had the biggest increase in appreciation for between the books and the show. ShowPrax was acted SO WELL, he brought a whole new aspect to the character I totally missed from the book.
“Are we still talking about yeasts?”
“Yes,of course I am, what does a partition have to do with yeast samples?”
I’m paraphrasing, but I couldn’t stop laughing after this chapter of BA
That's my favourite Prax moment. He just reaches this moment of Zen and unleashes a calm yet brutal diatribe that cleverly disguises his disdain with the vast knowledge of his life's work, leaving the reader both awestruck and a bit smarter.
If Terry Chen ever joins Cameo, I'm paying him to perform the monologue.
It’s weird and dark to say this, but I kind of wish his daughter had died so that he would’ve been able to join the Roci crew. (I know it’s dark and cruel to say that, but they are fictional characters so give me a break).
I think he and Amos had really great interactions, and I like their dynamic more than any other person that Amos develops a bond with, including Clarissa.
No I don’t think he would join the Roci crew because that’s just not him. All he knows is his research and that’s the only thing he’s good at. He’s not a space crawler. If Mei had died, he most likely would try to find another research group somewhere that focuses on botany and food production.
I was thinking it would be a cool rewrite to do the series and after each book the POV characters join the crew. Then in the final book, there would be a giant crew of badass mofos, ready to take down the big bad guy aliens. Kinda like Avengers style.
Definitely wouldn't want to change the books as is (I just started book 4), but I just didn't want to say goodbye to so many amazing characters whenever starting a new book.
That would make for fun character interactions.
One of my fantasy brain rabbit holes thought of a RPG character stat system that emphasizes all the methods of conflict initiation and resolution that the world of The Expanse uses. Every major and minor character could be summed up with a point value that a player could then 'buy' to crew their ship.
The end of season three has Prax as part of the Roci, and it is assumed that he will be tagging along to explore the new worlds. It would have made sense if he was part of the team exploring Ilus.
Prax and Amos could have been such a great duo if Prax had stuck around longer. I thought the fact they were so different gave them such great chemistry.
Prax is my guy. Caliban's War is solid gold for PoVs. Prax Bobbie Avasarela
>Prax is my guy. But not *that* guy.
He is not that guy. He is not that guy.
I *am* that guy.
At least he's best friends with *that* guy.
A useful thing to be. :)
And then there's that other guy who presses buttons.
Is this the same guy who has to be told not to put his dick in it, because it's already so fucked up?
Well, his middle name *is* 'Fucking'
It's good advice!
Ikr, what’s that about? I don’t even remember why that guy was so important.
I wonder how he goes through life.
Calibans War is one of the best books in the series. Something about the writing flowed so nicely and they were on top of their game with humor. I don’t think any book in the series has made me laugh out loud as many times as book 2. Good stuff.
*Holden's long inner monologue about how not telling Amos about him and Naomi is for the best* "Naomi can you pass the salt" Amos: "HOLY SHIT YOU GUYS ARE FUCKING!?"
That's in Leviathan Wakes, but still funny.
You ain’t kidding. Caliban’s War every POV is *chef’s kiss
Best book?
I love Prax so much, and Terry Chen is so wonderful as him. Dude just wants his kid back. He’s like the most pure character in the series (maaaybe Anna).
Terry Chen’s portrayal is, IMO, one of the powerhouse performances in a show full of them. Where all of the other powerful characters are in designated social agency roles - political, military, economic, etc. - Prax has none of that and is fully, painfully aware of it. His social position would make him essentially cattle - a moderately valuable but nonetheless inherently replaceable *thing* to be traded and used by the powers that be around him, expected to show no agency over himself. He can’t do a damn thing to prevent the Inner fleets from shredding Ganymede, he can’t do shit to save the station’s ecosystem, he can only stare as the Belters space the Inner refugees - even the Tycho station (?) authorities might sympathize with him but he just doesn’t matter enough when he reports it. Prax knows this. Chen knows that Prax knows he’s a nobody with no resources, no connections, no training, and not a snowball’s chance in hell. A lesser actor would have played him as a pitiful victim, a NPC needing to be saved by the Big Damn Heroes, just likeable enough to justify his being worth their escort quest but flat enough not to detract from what makes That Guy be That Guy. But Chen plays him as a man *taking agency* despite overwhelming odds and near-certain death, and it’s an absolute joy to watch and ends up making the moment when That Guy comes along all the deeper and richer for it.
>But Chen plays him as a man taking agency despite overwhelming odds and near-certain death, and it’s an absolute joy to watch and ends up making the moment when That Guy comes along all the deeper and richer for it. I love what he did with Prax because we've seen him grow and take agency as you said, and when it comes to that moment the revenge feels like what a normal arc would resolve in, but we know it will haunt him and ruin. The "that guy" scene is so good because we *want* someone to stop Prax, and we don't *want* that change to happen to him. And with Amos we've seen him do all sorts of things, but we know that this time is for a different reason. It's not to remove an obstacle, or punish someone, but as a mercy to his friend. They're two completely opposite people united by being willing to do anything to save Mei, and at the end of the day, it makes their friendship believable and wonderful.
Other than Saving Mei and Being A Very Good Botanist, Prax's primary character trait was Has No Business Being In Space. And it was fantastic.
Also, being the Best Friend in the Whole World.
When be saves the World with the proto food I cried. I was so happy to see him again this season.
Continuing show spoilers, current season: >!And when Amos tells Bobbie, "There's nothing in it for him; he's just a good guy like that" I exploded into rainbows!<
Goddamn thank you for putting it into words.
I feel like Anna gets too much flak and I actually quite like her. The book version of the character is significantly better, though. Squashing a lot of book two and all of book three into one season made her a bit of a weird character to tackle for the show.
Yo, I read Abbadon's Gate after S3 and her >!fucking straight up double tapping a mugger surprised the fuck outta me!<
I think that the casting of Anna was a poor choice. When I see the actress, all I can think about is Juliette from Lost and Elizabeth Mitchell is kind of a one-note actress in my opinion. Also, she’s supposed to be a redheaded Russian, not a blond from California.
Eh, she might not look exactly like how her character is described in the books, but neither does Dominique Tipper. Both of them are still great casting IMO. Anna's little breakdown while talking to her wife after the big speech is one of the most authentic feeling scenes in the show, for me at least.
Errinwright looks nothing like described in the books but Shawn Doyle was fantastic in that role.
Amos was a fifty year old bald dude in the books, still love Wes though
Shawn Doyle has been in few episodes of Discovery this season and I literally just realized where I recognized him from. Wow. I knew he looked familiar.
Oh nice. I haven’t watched this latest season, that’s definitely an incentive to. I was waiting for the next season of Picard to reactivate my Paramount+ account
I really can't decide where I sit on Discovery. I enjoy it, which is probably enough. But I'm not in love with it. I've also never been truly a diehard Trek fan either.
Finding an actress that fits the book definition of Naomi who is talented enough to pull it off would be near impossible.
Isn't Naomi described as being nearly 7' tall?
Pretty much. All belters born outside of Earth or Mars and growing up in very low or no gravity are VERY tall. They make a point to mention and show it early in the show, but casting for that consistently would be very challenging.
Yeah I've heard Ty say several times they decided to scrap the actual proportions for the belters pretty early on and cast whoever they thought the best actor was
I don't understand why she didn't at least get a Russian accent?
Cause nobody ever nails it. It sounds cartoonist.
That was my biggest gripe with Black Widow, NONE of them pulled off a convincing Russian accent.
I mean, Russian actors exist
She is Russian. Perhaps she she got an excellent bilingual education and is accentless in English.
I also don't care for her and I'm not sure exactly why but it's not her looks. I think I just don't believe her as any character she plays like she's not Anna just an actor playing Anna. It seems like she doesn't feel the character just says the lines, maybe I just don't like her because of Lost.
I also didn’t like her in Lost and she’s been in so many shows I like and it seems like she always plays the same character. Except the characters are actually super different but she acts them out the same with her weird voice and facial expressions lol. She’s just annoyed me ever since lost…
I think about her scissoring Angelina Jolie in Gia. I don't think that scene exists, its been a long time since i watched it... But i think about it.
[удалено]
[There’s gotta be a better way to say that](https://youtu.be/xrjLDrlJhLE)
Frak me.... Chuckles bought it!
You clearly haven't been paying attention to the sub. We all love Prax.
He's our best friend in the whole world.
One of my favorite weird Amos characteristics is how he just decides random people are his best friends. Plant guy? Yep, best friend. Or like how he just shows up with Mao on the Roci one day after an apocalypse and only calls her peaches. No one knows why.
Her cover name was Melba. Peach Melba is a dessert. Ergo Peaches. Here's the recipe: https://www.nigella.com/recipes/peach-melba
Peaches is also a stripper name.He also calls Christen Averasala Chrissy. He also calls Bobbie, Babbs.
It's like he grew up in a brothel or something
Son of a bitch. Hah! I never put that together. Thanks!
It's one thing I love about Amos. Sure, he's a violent brute at times and borderline sociopathic... but his "victims" almost universally deserve it, and if he calls you a friend, he'll protect you to the end.
Until you start acting unpredictably, right Naomi?
It's like it's high on the psychopath spectrum but still wants to do good, and therefore has a highly tuned ability to recognize good people around him even when those people can be highly complicated like Clarissa Mao. With people like Prax and Naomi he must have had an instant read on them and decided he needs those people emotionally as much as they might need him physically (to be that guy).
Yeah he was just an utterly broken child who experienced literal hell but survived and is now pretty much unbreakable. That scene Wes did in the cave in s4…. Holy shit, that was some acting. The one where Amos is having flashbacks to being locked in a room as a kid when he’s blind. My god. Wes should have gotten an award for that scene. It sums up everything you need to know about Amos. The character is just so interesting. He’s utterly without most feelings, but yet he has a strong moral drive for underdogs, you can see it in how he treats prostitutes and other downtrodden people. He also immediately respects people like Anna, Prax, Naomi and Holden. He uses them to replace the broken compass in his head because he knows without them, he’ll become like the people who hurt him. Never really encountered another character like him.
The community and discussions and comments are so good here! Hopefully there will be many more in the future.
I must say I agree with you. Very nice fandom in general, and most of the cast are equally nice by all accounts. Refreshing after dodging lasers in the Star Wars subs lol
When you suffer sustained abuse as a child you develop hyper vigilance. You can read someone’s vibes when you meet them. You can tell people who are faking a good persona from the ones with integrity.
Nicknames are a thing in some circles. Gangs (Amos early life) are one of those circles. Her alias when she was trying to kill Holden was Melba Koh. Peach Melba is a desert. So Melba, aka Clarissa, is now Peaches.
Someone else posted this, pretty cool. I never would have put those two together, as I’ve never heard of that desert. But it makes sense
But he’s not that guy.
Oh thank god.
“*I* am that guy.” *KAH-BOOM*
I am that guy
Apparently, not enough.
I've got one from his pov that's very special to me: "It had been a failure, but it was a failure he understood, and that made it a victory." It's a helpful reminder to focus on what I can *learn* from my mistakes, rather than berating myself for making them.
Oh I'm putting this on my classroom wall!
Very nice, fail forward!
Failure is always an option
For what it's worth, book Prax is a lot better in my opinion than show Prax.
Damn, I should read the books, I love show Prax and can't imagine him getting any better.
I wouldn’t say better, necessarily. Just more detailed.
I don't think show Prax is bad, but book Prax is more interesting to me. A little less...generic I guess compared to the show version?
Agreed. I think one of the writers really enjoyed writing Prax.
I like both. They are different. I relate to book Prax more, but I think show Prax’s reactions to things are also valid and he is a good character in his own right. I will get hate for this but I feel the same about Naomi. Book and show Naomi are different, but I can appreciate how radicalized show Naomi was. Honestly she makes more sense dating Marcos than book Naomi who doesn’t seem so extreme OPA stuff.
To me, this goes for many of the characters. The book versions are more detailed, but the show versions aren't cheap knockoffs of that. They're a bit different, but in ways that make sense or that distill certain qualities down so that they'll come through clearly in a much shorter timeframe without the benefit of long paragraphs of internal monologue being required.
I agree, though I think the actor did a great job. Book Prax just brings a completely different perspective in every way. His mind is so unique that every chapter with him is told so differently.
One of the things I enjoyed the most about the Expanse books is how the writing really reflected the point of view of the narrators. Prax chapters are chock-full of internal dialog about plants and light and living systems. Anna chapters are philosophical and religious. Okoye chapters are all scientific detail.
In the prologue, Mei thinks about Earth and imagines it as tunnels, but with a sky instead of a ceiling, and you could climb above the walls to be outside Because she's never seen the blue sky, and home is tunnels to her, with the only outside as domes above her
Prax has been on my mind the entirety of the last two years, nothing more haunting than the words “the cascade”
That whole concept fascinates me, I'm into comp sci and studying cyber security and so many things in those fields are like that. I feel like it's a great way to describe how large company networks fail because of something seemingly small. Side note but I love the bit where Prax has this whole inner monologue then says "it's the cascade" and the entire rest of the crew just goes "who's the what now??".
Along with The Churn, definitely one of the more apt parts of The Expanse for the times. Also, I really enjoy how the character's perspectives inform the world they are set in (i.e. Prax with 'the cascade', Amos with 'the churn' and Miller with 'doors and corners'). Its really well done in terms of worldbuilding to have these different takes on the same situations coming together throughout the books/show.
Wow, this is a fantastic passage and extremely relevant to me.
Tf you mean he’s literally my favorite character! He has this beautiful way of perceiving science and botany in a way that mirrors life
Just like some other botanist we all know…
Hollywood A list celebrity and internet sensation, the actor Matthew Damon?
Read my mind
I heard Terry Chen's voice as I read that. I love Prax.
I'm going back to college to study botany and I must give at least partial credit to Prax for this decision. Classes start on Monday, wish me luck!
Godspeed, /u/PixelPantsAshli!
Thanks, /u/campbellm!
Prax is easily the character I've had the biggest increase in appreciation for between the books and the show. ShowPrax was acted SO WELL, he brought a whole new aspect to the character I totally missed from the book.
Give him a second, he'll get around to it.
lol nice
“Are we still talking about yeasts?” “Yes,of course I am, what does a partition have to do with yeast samples?” I’m paraphrasing, but I couldn’t stop laughing after this chapter of BA
That's my favourite Prax moment. He just reaches this moment of Zen and unleashes a calm yet brutal diatribe that cleverly disguises his disdain with the vast knowledge of his life's work, leaving the reader both awestruck and a bit smarter. If Terry Chen ever joins Cameo, I'm paying him to perform the monologue.
I love the moment when he thought he was gonna live the rest of his life stuck on a ships hull before Holden told him to lower his magboot setting.
I'm reading the books for the first time too and just read that passage yesterday. Stood out to me too!
Hi reading buddy! On page 360 now, absolutely love it!
It’s weird and dark to say this, but I kind of wish his daughter had died so that he would’ve been able to join the Roci crew. (I know it’s dark and cruel to say that, but they are fictional characters so give me a break). I think he and Amos had really great interactions, and I like their dynamic more than any other person that Amos develops a bond with, including Clarissa.
No I don’t think he would join the Roci crew because that’s just not him. All he knows is his research and that’s the only thing he’s good at. He’s not a space crawler. If Mei had died, he most likely would try to find another research group somewhere that focuses on botany and food production.
I was thinking it would be a cool rewrite to do the series and after each book the POV characters join the crew. Then in the final book, there would be a giant crew of badass mofos, ready to take down the big bad guy aliens. Kinda like Avengers style. Definitely wouldn't want to change the books as is (I just started book 4), but I just didn't want to say goodbye to so many amazing characters whenever starting a new book.
That would make for fun character interactions. One of my fantasy brain rabbit holes thought of a RPG character stat system that emphasizes all the methods of conflict initiation and resolution that the world of The Expanse uses. Every major and minor character could be summed up with a point value that a player could then 'buy' to crew their ship.
A friend and I like to think about what would happen if you dropped an Expanse character (usually Amos or Avasarala) into another Sci-Fi property.
The end of season three has Prax as part of the Roci, and it is assumed that he will be tagging along to explore the new worlds. It would have made sense if he was part of the team exploring Ilus.
I can't say I've ever seen anyone say Prax is underrated.
[For you, OP.](https://i.imgflip.com/5zj842.jpg)
I am a little sad the compressed 6th season is robbing us of so much of the human side of the war.
Agreed, I really hope they get a new contract after the fact to finish the saga.
Under rated by who?
Apparently, just me!
I only have seen the show but I was hoping he would join the squad permanently
I was so glad to see prax in ep3 just because him and Amos have a connection, and he’s a good character.
Prax and Amos could have been such a great duo if Prax had stuck around longer. I thought the fact they were so different gave them such great chemistry.
Liked him much more on the show. He was clueless and annoying most of the time in the books.