It took a while, and it was all via audio books, but... I have now heard all of The Expanse. Yes, there was a TV series, and that covers books 1-6, leaving 7-9 as all new. [Fortunately, there is a gap between 6 and 7 so they easily could end up making the later books and cast the same actors.]
Hardly surprising... yes, this is a great series. It's largely hard sci-fi, the main gimme being the "Epstein Drive" that allows travel in the solar system to be days/week rather than years, with communication still at light speed. We get aliens (of a sort), intergalactic travel, and other sci-fi elements, but all grounded and well thought out about the impact this actually has. (Which isn't to say we get physics lessons, but you can definitely believe it's not just a magic wand in disguise.)
This follows a core group of people too. I lost track a little in the tv series, but this works well (it helps to mainline the entire series at once). Unfortunately, not everyone gets through unscathed, but this series isn't gratuitous when it comes to people dying, it is structured well, either because of well understood characterisation, or simply age.
There are also a number of side novellas. Most are just filling in background details, but I can see why one of them was incorporated into the main tv series, it definitely has a long term impact. But you can skip them without any real worry.
And after all this, what's next? Well, it's not like my To Read list is actually any smaller...
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