The Expanse

by James S. A. Corey

Nine novels following the crew of the Rocinante - a salvaged Martian warship captained by James Holden - across more than four decades of solar system politics, war, and first contact. The series spans three loose acts: a conspiracy thriller set within the solar system, an expansion through alien gates to a thousand new worlds, and a final reckoning with whatever destroyed the civilisation that built them. Written by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck under the pen name James S.A. Corey, the series won the Hugo Award for Best Series in 2020 and is complete at nine books.

Part of The Expanse

Two hundred years from now, humanity has spread across the solar system but remains trapped within it. Earth is overcrowded and politically dominant, Mars is a century into a terraforming project that defines its culture, and the Belt is home to workers whose bodies have been reshaped by low gravity and whose relationship with the inner planets is one of economic dependency and mutual contempt. Into this tense three-way standoff comes the protomolecule: an alien substance billions of years old that does not behave like biology or technology but something in between. Its discovery drives the opening of the series; the scope of the questions it raises - about what the protomolecule is, where it came from, and what it implies about everything humanity has assumed about its place in the galaxy - widens considerably as the series unfolds. Hard science fiction with real physics, grounded politics, and a small crew on a single ship who keep finding themselves at the centre of events that dwarf them.

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The Expanse

Publication Order