A number of years ago I started The Expanse series of books. I read Leviathan Wakes the year it was published on a recommedation from the virtual book club The series is space opera sci-fi that I felt started out with a bang, but lost me around book 3 (Abaddon's Gate). Looking back I was probably simply overloaded with genre fiction and I never re-engaged, until this year.

Now that there are signs that we are slowly getting out of the pandemic, I was looking for a book series that was a bit more noir-ish, so I restarted the series. I have now passed where I stopped. I am about 10% into Cibola Burn and I can honestly say that it was a mistake to not continue with the series. The nuanced characterizations, the good people put in bad situations (Holden), there is no need to tell everyones back story in book 1. If I would have a complaint about anything is that the authors, James S.A. Corey, pull in new major characters every book and you have to learn the series dynamics from new. That may have been why I backed away from the series.

The cool bit is now there is a 5 season TV series on Amazon Prime to watch to complement the books. I find myself getting ahead in the book series and then playing catchup with the TV series. As usual, some of the differences are a bit jarring or disappointing, but I guess I am aged enough to not let that turn me off the TV series completely. The logistics of having a cast be busy throughout a season necessitates some fluff or some consolidation of storylines. I do like how the TV series introduced Avasarala early in season 1. It also helps that Shohreh Aghdashloo is a fantastic actress with such screen presence. The addition of the Drummer character was probably the most jarring of the changes for me because I wasn't sure at first who she was supposed to be. At first I thought she was Sam, but then Bull in season 3. Oh well, the character actor, Cara Gee is so wonderful that I learned to sit back and enjoy the ride with her storyline.

I am also listening to the series on audio book. The voice actor is really good at capturing the Belter language. When I read the words in the ebook and then listen to the same dialog in the audio book, it is not how I would have pictured it being said.