In the book, he just tells Miller the Belter slang equivalent of "OK, have a nice death." (But the situation was a little different, Miller's sacrifice was already more of a done deal, so that wasn't quite as dickish as it sounds.)

Speaking of cliche-subversion, I like how unsentimental Diogo's farewell was. He didn't try to talk Miller out of it even for a second, it's just like: yeah I guess that makes sense, I'm 17, thanks, bye.

I'm guessing that the show is going to speed up the time frame a LOT between the book 1 stuff and the book 2 stuff (some of the latter is already happening now, but I mean the main plot), so Holden may not have the whole spending a year destroying pirate ships thing to shake up some of his ethical assumptions. If so,…

Heh… I've read the books, and I assume the show will go there too if it lasts long enough. But I think the irony there is built into the story, it doesn't just depend on whether you know where the story will go later. I mean, the show (and book) starts out with this very clear setup of "We're stuck in the solar…

I've heard the series authors talking about the role of the Mormons and their attitude is pretty interesting. Neither of them is at all religious and they don't seem to have any interest in the details of any religion's belief system, though they have some Mormon friends that they used for cultural reference material.…

It was a really pretty scene… and I thought it was also maybe a little bit of a grim inside joke on science fiction, because that's the kind of long, loving, detailed sequence you would use for introducing a cool ship that's going to go off and have all kinds of adventures, like the big launch scene in the first Star…

When something's already traveling that fast, you can't just "give it a nudge" at the last minute and have it change course by any noticeable amount. If it's realistic physics you want, don't forget that the Nauvoo is much, much, much, much bigger than the Rocinante and human beings don't have whatever kind of magic…

You haven't given one clue what you're talking about, so unless you're willing to say something a little more specific than "what's the point", or explain what you mean by "going high", this is a pointless conversation. I'm pretty sure most other people who give a shit about immigration policy are capable of…

I won't bother debating someone who not only doesn't give a shit, but posts comments that are about nothing except how much of a shit he doesn't give. Either you'll read the damn link and learn something, or you won't. Carry on.

That's arguably true but it doesn't make any sense as a response to what TGGP wrote. The "record numbers" thing was a mistake that deserves to be called out as one. Liberals do (or should) care about getting recent history like that right.

Heh… I just started looking back over book 2, because I couldn't remember some plot point or other, and I saw this bit - not a spoiler, I promise, but it's on topic - this is a Martian's thoughts after actually going to Earth for the first time:

You mean, like if you want to just skip the rest of book 4 and go on ahead? You're asking for spoilers for the whole book? OK……. off the top of my head, the main things would be:

I think it's got a different purpose and effect. The Game of Thrones sequence is more about "here's where all these made-up places are relative to each other; you can refer back to this if you get confused." The Expanse credits are introducing the general idea of human civilization spreading out from Earth— and also…

It'd be a terrible idea for Mars to invade Earth, but I can still buy that Avasarala is afraid of Mars trying to invade Earth, which I think is all that her dialogue in that scene is trying to convince us of. It's not that training at 1G makes their Marines unstoppable— it's that they wouldn't bother to train at 1G…

Yeah, I think the big point is what syngyne said: "heavily automated". Alex wasn't aiming the guns, he was just telling the ship things like "fire at those missiles - now fire at the stealth ship's PDCs".

I like all the books, but if you're concerned that not enough surprising things are happening… you should probably read book 5.

Yeah, Prax is definitely in season 2, they announced the casting a while back.

Wow, I couldn't disagree more. I mean, OK, it doesn't introduce yet another huge game-changing development like books 1, 3, and 5 do, but I like getting to see how the dust settles from those things and I liked the familiar characters trying to see where they fit into this really different political landscape. The…

Also, in terms of older stuff that Corey is clearly inspired by/commenting on, I've always had a soft spot for Larry Niven's Known Space books and stories— especially the earlier ones: World of Ptavvs, Protector, A Gift from Earth, and the stories in Neutron Star. (I've never been as crazy about Ringworld as some…

Lots of good recommendations above— one I haven't seen mentioned yet is Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep, a chunky but engrossing page-turner that manages to do a lot of classic space-opera things (bizarre aliens everywhere, constant cliff-hangers, a universe so big that the author can always just make up a new…