When the television show The Expanse first came out I was hooked! Impressed by the imagery, the gritty realism of the worlds presented, the intricate and complex storyline I devoured the books the show is based on. They are big, thick books too!

I realized in reading these books and in watching the show that I like Science Fiction with some significant science. I do appreciate science fantasy as well, but after seeing some “science fiction” where people have lived their whole lives in a space station drop to Earth and jump out of the landing craft and stare at the sky then wander off,

(REALLY?????) Science fiction was a gloss applied to this story, it was not a science fiction work at all.  I felt offended after being used to The Expanse which seems to take the Science aspect seriously.

Characters are great and an important piece of the storytelling game, but that scientific realism, plausible situations, make all the difference.  In The Expanse, the one factor with a strong “what if”, the fantastic, is the existence of the proto-molecule. Everything else needs to make sense and generally does.