What to Read After Watching The Expanse
We recommend reading the entire Expanse series starting with Leviathan Wakes, but if you want to skip to the events immediately following the show’s finale, jump straight to Persepolis Rising!
From a New York Times bestselling and Hugo award-winning author comes a modern masterwork of science fiction, introducing a captain, his crew, and a detective as they unravel a horrifying solar system wide conspiracy that begins with a single missing girl. Now a Prime Original series.
Humanity has colonized the solar system—Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt and beyond—but the stars are still out of our reach.
Jim Holden is XO of an ice miner making runs from the rings of Saturn to the mining stations of the Belt. When he and his crew stumble upon a derelict ship, the Scopuli, they find themselves in possession of a secret they never wanted. A secret that someone is willing to kill for—and kill on a scale unfathomable to Jim and his crew. War is brewing in the system unless he can find out who left the ship and why.
Detective Miller is looking for a girl. One girl in a system of billions, but her parents have money and money talks. When the trail leads him to the Scopuli and rebel sympathizer Holden, he realizes that this girl may be the key to everything.
Holden and Miller must thread the needle between the Earth government, the Outer Planet revolutionaries, and secretive corporations—and the odds are against them. But out in the Belt, the rules are different, and one small ship can change the fate of the universe.
"Interplanetary adventure the way it ought to be written." —George R. R. Martin
The Expanse
Leviathan Wakes
Caliban's War
Abaddon's Gate
Cibola Burn
Nemesis Games
Babylon's Ashes
Persepolis Rising
Tiamat's Wrath
Leviathan Falls
Memory's Legion
The Expanse Short Fiction
Drive
The Butcher of Anderson Station
Gods of Risk
The Churn
The Vital Abyss
Strange Dogs
Auberon
The Sins of Our Fathers
HUGO AWARD WINNER FOR BEST SERIES
An old enemy returns.
In the thousand-sun network of humanity's expansion, new colony worlds are struggling to find their way. Every new planet lives on a knife edge between collapse and wonder, and the crew of the aging gunship Rocinante have their hands more than full keeping the fragile peace.
In the vast space between Earth and Jupiter, the inner planets and belt have formed a tentative and uncertain alliance still haunted by a history of wars and prejudices. On the lost colony world of Laconia, a hidden enemy has a new vision for all of humanity and the power to enforce it.
New technologies clash with old as the history of human conflict returns to its ancient patterns of war and subjugation. But human nature is not the only enemy, and the forces being unleashed have their own price. A price that will change the shape of humanity — and of the Rocinante — unexpectedly and forever. . .
The Expanse
Leviathan Wakes
Caliban's War
Abaddon's Gate
Cibola Burn
Nemesis Games
Babylon's Ashes
Persepolis Rising
Tiamat's Wrath
Leviathan Falls
Memory's Legion
The Expanse Short Fiction
Drive
The Butcher of Anderson Station
Gods of Risk
The Churn
The Vital Abyss
Strange Dogs
Auberon
The Sins of Our Fathers
If you’ve already read James S. A. Corey’s epic series and are looking for more space opera, we’ve got recommendations for you!
In this dark, dangerous, roller coaster of a debut, a young man sets out on a single-minded quest for revenge across a breathtaking multiverse filled with aliens, mind-bending tech, and ships beyond his wildest imagining. Essa Hansen’s is a bold new voice for the next generation of science fiction readers.
Caiden's planet is destroyed. His family gone. And, his only hope for survival is a crew of misfit aliens and a mysterious ship that seems to have a soul and a universe of its own. Together they will show him that the universe is much bigger, much more advanced, and much more mysterious than Caiden had ever imagined. But the universe hides dangers as well, and soon Caiden has his own plans.
He vows to do anything it takes to get revenge on the slavers who murdered his people and took away his home. To destroy their regime, he must infiltrate and dismantle them from the inside, or die trying.
Finalist for r/Fantasy Stabby Awards for Best Debut!
One of the most highly praised science fiction debuts of the year:
“A killer story with real heart and soul."-Alastair Reynolds
“A fast-paced, action-filled ride through the multiverse” – Library Journal (starred)
“A strong, rollercoaster of a debut." – Gareth L Powell
“Gripping and inventive” – Megan E O’Keefe
“Mesmerizing” – Fantasy Book Critic
“Reads like a Becky Chambers novel crossed with Firefly”—Michael Mammay
The Graven Trilogy
Nophek Gloss
Azura Ghost
Finalist for r/Fantasy Stabby Awards for Best Debut!
One of the most highly praised science fiction debuts of the year:
“A killer story with real heart and soul."-Alastair Reynolds
“A fast-paced, action-filled ride through the multiverse” – Library Journal (starred)
“A strong, rollercoaster of a debut." – Gareth L Powell
“Gripping and inventive” – Megan E O’Keefe
“Mesmerizing” – Fantasy Book Critic
“Reads like a Becky Chambers novel crossed with Firefly”—Michael Mammay
The Graven Trilogy
Nophek Gloss
Azura Ghost
Fortuna launches a new space opera trilogy that will hook you from the first crash landing.
Scorpia Kaiser has always stood in Corvus’s shadow until the day her older brother abandons their family to participate in a profitless war. However, becoming the heir to her mother’s smuggling operation is not an easy transition for the always rebellious, usually reckless, and occasionally drunk pilot of the Fortuna, an aging cargo ship and the only home Scorpia has ever known.
But when a deal turns deadly and Corvus returns from the war, Scorpia’s plans to take over the family business are interrupted, and the Kaiser siblings are forced to make a choice: take responsibility for their family’s involvement in a devastating massacre or lay low and hope it blows over.
Too bad Scorpia was never any good at staying out of a fight.
Perfect for fans of Becky Chambers and Catherynne M. Valente, Fortuna introduces a dazzling new voice in science fiction.
Hail Bristol has made a name for herself as one of the most fearsome gunrunners in the galaxy. But she can’t escape her past forever: twenty years ago, she was a runaway princess of the Indranan Empire. Now, her mother’s people have finally come to bring her home.
But when Hail is dragged back to her Indrana to take her rightful place as the only remaining heir, she finds that trading her ship for a palace is her most dangerous move yet.
In a world where the only safe options are fight or flight, Hail must rule.
“Excellent SF adventure debut.” — Publishers Weekly, starred review
Winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and Arthur C. Clarke Awards: This record-breaking novel follows a warship trapped in a human body on a quest for revenge. A must read for fans of Ursula K. Le Guin and James S. A. Corey.
“There are few who write science fiction like Ann Leckie can. There are few who ever could.” — John Scalzi
On a remote, icy planet, the soldier known as Breq is drawing closer to completing her quest.
Once, she was the Justice of Toren — a colossal starship with an artificial intelligence linking thousands of soldiers in the service of the Radch, the empire that conquered the galaxy.
Now, an act of treachery has ripped it all away, leaving her with one fragile human body, unanswered questions, and a burning desire for vengeance.
The war raged across the galaxy. Billions had died, billions more were doomed. Moons, planets, the very stars themselves, faced destruction, cold-blooded, brutal, and worse, random. The Idirans fought for their Faith; the Culture for its moral right to exist. Principles were at stake. There could be no surrender.
Within the cosmic conflict, an individual crusade. Deep within a fabled labyrinth on a barren world, a Planet of the Dead proscribed to mortals, lay a fugitive Mind. Both the Culture and the Idirans sought it. It was the fate of Horza, the Changer, and his motley crew of unpredictable mercenaries, human and machine, actually to find it, and with it their own destruction.
The Culture Series
Consider Phlebas
The Player of Games
Use of Weapons
The State of the Art
Excession
Inversions
Look to Windward
Matter
Surface Detail
The Hydrogen Sonata
NOMINATED FOR THE PHILIP K. DICK AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL * Dazzling space battles, intergalactic politics, and rogue AI collide in Velocity Weapon, the first book in this epic space opera trilogy by award-winning author Megan O’Keefe.
Sanda and Biran Greeve were siblings destined for greatness. A high-flying sergeant, Sanda has the skills to take down any enemy combatant. Biran is a savvy politician who aims to use his new political position to prevent conflict from escalating to total destruction.
However, on a routine maneuver, Sanda loses consciousness when her gunship is blown out of the sky. Instead of finding herself in friendly hands, she awakens 230 years later on a deserted enemy warship controlled by an AI who calls himself Bero. The war is lost. The star system is dead. Ada Prime and its rival Icarion have wiped each other from the universe.
Now, separated by time and space, Sanda and Biran must fight to put things right.
The Protectorate
Velocity Weapon
Commander Lanoe’s skills made him a hero of the interplanetary civil war, but he was left with nothing except battle scars and painful memories.
But now he faces the greatest threat mankind has ever known.
Once again, Lanoe must go to war — but he does not go alone. A ragtag band of criminal and outcast pilots stand with him. Some are old friends, one an old enemy, and despite their own battle scars, they are the only ones willing to fight back.
Sometimes the few must stand against the many, but the best these aces can do might not be good enough.
This explosive first novel from D. Nolan Clark is an epic tale of a fight against the odds — and the terror of realizing that we’re no longer alone in the cold vacuum of space.
Revenger is a rocket-fueled tale of space pirates, buried treasure, and phantom weapons, of unspeakable hazards and single-minded heroism. . . and of vengeance. . .
Adrana and Fura Ness are the newest crew members of the legendary Captain Rackamore’s ship, using their mysterious powers as Bone Readers to find clues about their next score. But there might be more waiting for them in space than adventure and fortune: the fabled and feared Bosa Sennen, in particular.
The galaxy is filled with treasures. . . if you have the courage to find them.
Carlos is dead.<br
A soldier who died for his ideals a thousand years ago, he’s been reincarnated and conscripted to fight an A.I. revolution in deep space. And he’s not sure he’s fighting for the right side.
Seba is alive.
By a fluke of nature, a contractual overlap, and a loop in its subroutines, this lunar mining robot has gained sentience. Gathering with other “freeboots,” Seba is taking a stand against the corporations that want it and its kind gone.
Against a backdrop of warring companies and interstellar drone combat, Carlos and Seba must either find a way to rise above the games their masters are playing, or die. And even dying will not be the end of it.
They’ve died for the companies more times than they can remember. Now they must fight to live for themselves.
The Arthur C. Clarke award-winning author of Children of Time brings us an extraordinary space opera about humanity on the brink of extinction, and how one man’s discovery will save or destroy us all.
The war is over. Its heroes forgotten. Until one chance discovery . . .
Idris has neither aged nor slept since they remade him in the war. And one of humanity’s heroes now scrapes by on a freelance salvage vessel, to avoid the attention of greater powers.
After earth was destroyed, mankind created a fighting elite to save their species, enhanced humans such as Idris. In the silence of space they could communicate, mind-to-mind, with the enemy. Then their alien aggressors, the Architects, simply disappeared—and Idris and his kind became obsolete.
Now, fifty years later, Idris and his crew have discovered something strange abandoned in space. It’s clearly the work of the Architects—but are they returning? And if so, why? Hunted by gangsters, cults and governments, Idris and his crew race across the galaxy hunting for answers. For they now possess something of incalculable value, that many would kill to obtain.
A washed-up treasure hunter, a hotshot racer, and a deadly secret society.
They’re all on a race against time to hunt down the greatest warship ever built. Some think the ship is lost forever, some think it’s been destroyed, and some think it’s only a legend, but one thing’s for certain: whoever finds it will hold the fate of the universe in their hands. And treasure that valuable can never stay hidden for long. . .
*Arthur C. Clarke Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, winner
*Nommo Award for Best Speculative Fiction Novel, winner
Rosewater is a town on the edge. A community formed around the edges of a mysterious alien biodome, its residents comprise the hopeful, the hungry, and the helpless — people eager for a glimpse inside the dome or a taste of its rumored healing powers.
Kaaro is a government agent with a criminal past. He has seen inside the biodome, and doesn't care to again — but when something begins killing off others like himself, Kaaro must defy his masters to search for an answer, facing his dark history and coming to a realization about a horrifying future.
Tade Thompson's innovative, genre-bending, Afrofuturist series, the Wormwood Trilogy, is perfect for fans of Jeff Vandermeer, N. K. Jemisin, and Ann Leckie.
Praise for Rosewater:
"Smart. Gripping. Fabulous!" —Ann Leckie, award winning-author of Ancillary Justice
"Mesmerising. There are echoes of Neuromancer and Arrival in here, but this astonishing debut is beholden to no one." —M. R. Carey, bestselling author of The Girl with All the Gifts
"A magnificent tour de force, skillfully written and full of original and disturbing ideas." —Adrian Tchaikovsky, Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning author of Children of Time
The Wormwood Trilogy
Rosewater
Rosewater Insurrection
Rosewater Redemption
This highly acclaimed first novel in the Revelation Space universe has redefined the space opera with a staggering journey across vast gulfs of time and space to confront the very nature of reality itself . . .
Nine hundred thousand years ago, something annihilated the Amarantin civilization just as it was on the verge of discovering space flight. Now one scientist, Dan Sylveste, will stop at nothing to solve the Amarantin riddle before ancient history repeats itself. With no other resources at his disposal, Sylveste forges a dangerous alliance with the cyborg crew of the starship Nostalgia for Infinity. But as he closes in on the secret, a killer closes in on him. Because the Amarantin were destroyed for a reason, and if that reason is uncovered, the universe and reality itself could be irrevocably altered . . .
“[A] tour de force… Ravishingly inventive.” — Publishers Weekly
Who will inherit this new Earth?
The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age—a world terraformed and prepared for human life.
But all is not right in this new Eden. In the long years since the planet was abandoned, the work of its architects has borne disastrous fruit. The planet is not waiting for them, pristine and unoccupied. New masters have turned it from a refuge into mankind's worst nightmare.
Now two civilizations are on a collision course, both testing the boundaries of what they will do to survive. As the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, who are the true heirs of this new Earth?