Syfy's 'most ambitious TV series to date' is based on 'The Expanse' novels
If you can believe it, Syfy may be getting back to its pre-name change roots. A notable addition to its plans for the next year is a new TV series based on a popular series of sci-fi books known as The Expanse. The first book Leviathan Wakes snagged nominations in 2012 for the Hugo Award for Best Novel and Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. Set 200 years in the future, it focuses on a ship captain and detective searching for a missing young woman, with a sprawling story and scope that have netted comparisons to both Star Wars and Game of Thrones. We'd be more than pleasantly surprised if it reached anywhere near those heights, but Syfy president Dave Howe is claiming this is the network's "most ambitious series to date."
The books are written under the pseudonym James S.A. Corey by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, who will be among the show's producers. Whatever happens with the show, we'll get the full 10-episode season Syfy ordered based on a script by Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby (Children of Men -- sort of, Iron Man) who are the show's writers and executive producers. Whether it is anything like Game of Thrones it's at least a return to Battlestar Galactica-style scifi for the network instead of a new series of Celebrity Ghost Stalker Makeup Artists. Syfy alone is also working on new series 12 Monkeys, Dominion, Ascension and the second season of Helix, which combined with Netflix's Sense8 from the Wachowskis, Amazon's The After from X-Files creator Chris Carter and the return of Heroes on NBC next year make this an interesting time to be a sci-fi fan.
Has anyone read them? Any good? I just download the audiobook versions of them. Interesting that two people wrote the books. I enjoyed most of the Niven/Pournelle stuff.
Game of Thrones in space sounds good to me. Settings matter less to me than a good story and characters.
Ransure wrote:Read the books last year, really enjoyed them. Great opportunity here to have a kickass show almost on par with Peter Hamilton for space opera.
First four hours (12 chapters) of the Leviathan Wakes audiobook was pretty slow. It's starting to get better since then. The audiobook is 18 hours so it has 14 hours to redeem itself!
I finished listening to the first book, Leviathan Wakes. It was a little over 18 hours (600 pages)
I found it overwhelmingly average as sci fi books go. The story was ok but the characters were really lacking in personality which makes me wonder why they dared to compare it to Game of Thrones. You have some political intrigue going on between Earth, Mars and the Outer Planets but you really only see one side of it for the most part.
The narrator was sub par IMHO as audiobook readers go so that may have added to lessening my opinion of the book unfairly. I somehow managed to end the book not caring about any of the characters.
I have no idea what the next two books hold and perhaps they get better. This could still be a good TV series but I don't think the characters would capture the interest of viewers like GoT does. While the reading/listening didn't capture my interest, the actions taking place in the story could make for good viewing if they manage some good special effects and CGI.
The entire first book has maybe three or four character relationships of note. Of those, there is only one romantic relationship that comes late and is awkward at best. Since they called this "Game of Thrones in Space" I'll use GoT as an example where you have so many interesting interactions between characters to go along with the politics and battles. There are no surprises in Leviathan Wakes and the plot/story is mostly cliche stuff you've seen before.
The basics of the story are a solid enough foundation for a book but along with not caring about any of the characters, I found no reason to really care about any of the sides involved in the conflict. It also doesn't really end on a cliffhanger and really seems like it was meant as a single book initially. I'll hope for the best regarding the TV series but wish the book left a better impression on me.
