The Expanse

I vaguely remember a reference to her having Samoan ancestry in the books, but she was born/raised on Mars so more or less any accent could be justified.

The casting definitely feels a bit off, but it's not as bad as Naomi. And at least here they have an excuse - it can't be easy to find muscular, 6ft+ women with Pacific Islander ancestry who can act.

Anyone else read(ing) the books?

They're good fucking books, even if you're not generally into scifi.

I've read all the books. Kinda surprised they managed to squeeze out a season out of 2/3rds of a book.

It's supposed to be a 10-book series so they'll prolly compress some later books into 1 season tho.

khorum said:

I've read all the books. Kinda surprised they managed to squeeze out a season out of 2/3rds of a book.

It's supposed to be a 10-book series so they'll prolly compress some later books into 1 season tho.

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Don't forget they're going to hit the Game of Thrones wall eventually if the series survives long enough, so I wouldn't be surprised if they keep the pace nice and slow.

One of the authors of the Expanse (Ty Franck) is actually GRRM's personal assistant!!! I'm sure most the readers know that, but some newer folks might be interested to know that the authors know what NOT to do when trying to finish a 10-book saga.

For some reason I thought I remember people saying they didn't like the books as much as they went on.

Now I'm tempted to read them on vacation in a few weeks. But then I have the same problem I had with GoT. I had already watched the first season, so I decided to just skip book 1. I guess I have to read the first one here just because they didn't finish it in season 1.

The books are turning into "Crew member G backstory filler pages 2-372 and overall alien substance/gateway plot advancement pages 373-380." It can wear a bit when they're all broken apart across the galaxy and getting into frankly dumb situations that their characters should otherwise be smarter than. I'm looking at you Naomi, dumb bitch when her terrorist family is around.

Ten books is an over reach. Authors want to plan out these grand operas but it never pans out. The only way that sort of thing works is if it's Conan stories or "... in hell" anthologies. There is not so much that needs to be said about Ceres being infected with sentient goo that it takes 25000 pages to say it.

Look at Dune.

I liked this pilot so much that I read the book it was based on and then two more. I never did finish the tv show. But the first book was really good. The second was good. The third wasn't bad. I figured I'd quit while I was ahead.

Yeah the first 3 books are ok, the 4th one and 5th ones are progressively worse. 372 pages of filler and 8 pages of "WTF OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT" is totally on point. Hope book 6 coming out in a few months is better.

I liked all the books, 4 was kinda slow but had more alien shut which I liked, 5 had a lot of Amos wich I liked since he is my favorite character, needs more miller though.

Bobby seems off to me, I was expecting bigger and more Samoan but I'll give it a shot, I wasn't so sure about Naomi or Amos casting either but Naomi turned out ok, I'm still not sold on Amos too small and young but he is doing a passable job.

Yeah Amos/Claire slashfics are a thing.

Kovaks said:

I liked all the books, 4 was kinda slow but had more alien shut which I liked, 5 had a lot of Amos wich I liked since he is my favorite character, needs more miller though.

Bobby seems off to me, I was expecting bigger and more Samoan but I'll give it a shot, I wasn't so sure about Naomi or Amos casting either but Naomi turned out ok, I'm still not sold on Amos too small and young but he is doing a passable job.

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I dunno - Amos is a bit young and soft, but Naomi feels like a totally different character. The rest were just aged down and made more TV-friendly, but book Naomi had a real reserved, quiet, almost aspergerish side to her, whereas TV Naomi is just a "YEAH I'M A FUCKING BELTER" punk chick in space. Don't want to go into spoiler stuff, but the tone of her later storyline is going to be weird, since it doesn't mesh at all with her TV personality. The age thing is also gonna cause some issues.

TV-Naomi can do the age thing for that part you're thinking of....

Yeah you're right - I was thinking mainly in terms of the time span over which the books take place (book 1 - 5 is a decade or so in universe, iirc), but if they stick to their current pace of 2 seasons/book then that actually works out about right for the actor's aging. Assuming the series lasts that long.

You're right about the casting stuff being crucial. But they'll cross that bridge when they come to it I guess, or find another way to handle that storyline that doesn't tie to to Naomi so conveniently.