The Expanse Season 5 SPOILERS

After feeling a little let down by Season 4 (it seemed to be various human drama interspersed with magical alien technobabble), the trailer for Season 5 looks really good.

 

Man, I really need to go back and finish Season 3. I lost all momentum at the "midpoint" (don't want to spoiler it).

 

The book season 4 is based on "Cibola Burn" is considered by many fans to be the weakest of the eight published so far. The next book "Nemesis Games" is consistently rated by fans as one of the best.

 

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I thought it was a typo when I saw the reference to season 5. It's been around that long? Wow.

 

Damn... Lis looks great.

I haven't read the books yet, so while I know they're jumping around and combining books into seasons (much like Bosch does), how much is missing from the story by them doing that? If I start to read the series will I be pissed off by how much they cut from the books?

 

To me, it's kind of like Game of Thrones (at least, for as long as they had books to follow, before they were left on their own and began to struggle). They cut an enormous amount out because, well, they really had to, but they did a pretty brilliant job of it. So the books are like the show, only a lot more of it. And the show condenses the books down, but again, they did a pretty brilliant job of it.

In the case of Game of Thrones, I prefer the books to the early seasons, just because it's the same only so much more of it, but as the books kinda lose their way the show becomes better. In the case of The Exapnse, again, I prefer the books, but only because there's so much more there. The show is still amazing in its own right. (But the books have not yet lost their way, and as they approach the finalé it doesn't seem likely that they will!)

 

I've been reading the books when I find the time. I'm about 90% of the way through Cibola Burn. I forgot most of what had happened during the first few seasons so I've been trying to re-watch them as well. Just finished the first season and it was like watching it for the first time. One thing about the books is that there are also some short novellas that fit in between the main books that provide back stories on some of the characters and how space travel evolved to where they could extend their reach to the outer planets. I'm looking forward to getting to the other books in the series. Good stuff.

 

Is the last book--leviathan falls--out yet? I'm not sure if I've read it or not.

 

Nope. They're only saying "2021" at this point, AFAIK.

 

Here are the missing novellas:

Book 0.1 - The Drive
Book 0.25 - The Churn
Book 0.5 - The Butcher of Anderson Station
Book 2.5 - Gods of Risk
Book 5.5 - The Vital Abyss
Book 6.5 - Strange Dogs

These provide back stories for the entire series as well as some of the main characters

 

That's their chronological order, but if you're reading with the books I would read them in publication order; otherwise, you'll get novel spoilers.

Book 1.5 - The Butcher of Anderson Station
Book 2.5a - Gods of Risk
Book 2.5b - The Drive
Book 3.5 - The Churn
Book 5.5 - The Vital Abyss
Book 6.5 - Strange Dogs

 

I read the first four books in the list in the chronological order I posted and don't recall anything that would be considered a spoiler, at least nothing that spoiled the other books I've read so far. This is how they're numbered in the book library on my phone app so that's the order I've been reading them in.

The Butcher of Anderson Station is the backstory of Fred Johnson and how he got the name.
The Drive is about the scientist/engineer that developed the drive engine that allowed people from earth to travel to the further reaches of their solar system.
The Churn is about Amos when he was younger.
I actually don't recall reading Gods of Risk yet. I must have skipped over that one.

You could actually read them in whatever order you feel like as they would be more of a flashback than a spoiler.

 

Right, and since the ones that are flashbacks are written as flashbacks, I think it's best to read them that way.

Why get Amos's backstory before you've ever met Amos? Why not meet Amos when he's introduced instead of before? Etc...

I know some people are adamant about reading series in chronological order no matter what, but I've always been a firm believer in authorial intent. They wrote them in that order for a reason.

 

Anyone who watched Star Wars in chronological order probably never made it to Episode III.

 

I agree about The Churn being too soon in the sequence. Same with The Butcher of Anderson Station. I had already seen the TV series before I started reading any of the books so it was like a flashback to me since I was already familiar with the characters. I think I had read Leviathan Wakes before going back and reading the first couple of novellas so that flashed me back. For someone unfamiliar with the TV series or the books your sequence makes much more sense.

 

Already sorta alluded to earlier but The Expanse Season 5 Gets Weekly Release Schedule and have the S5 release schedule.

 

Get ready for a bunch of 1-star reviews from viewers upset they aren't releasing the whole season at once.

 

I prefer a weekly release schedule for shows like this. It's nice to have a week between episodes to discuss stuff.

The Boys release schedule (3 at first, then weekly after that) seemed to provide the best of both worlds. I would be down for that as well.