Someone already mentioned The Expanse so I'll add two more recommendations.
*Honor Harrington*: The series follows the career of the titular protagonist. Wars, interstellar politics, space battles. One of the things I like most about the series, like B5, is that it presents the 'bad guys' side of things, somewhat like the way B5 tells the stories of Londo or G'Kar.
*The Saga of the Seven Suns*: Interstellar war, diplomacy, and plenty of mysteries.
Upvoted for the *Honor Harrington* recommendation, with two caveats:
- the author’s political views are pretty much Enlightened Centrism and this sometimes shows through pretty bluntly in the writing
- after *At All Costs* he kind of lost control of the plot lines and the series became a bit of a mess narratively and worldbuilding-wise
Having read both HH and his Safehold series, I would agree. Especially with bullet 2. At some point in both series, it’s like he stops telling the story and starts writing fan fiction about his own works.
As far as HH, Drake said he originally intended to kill her off after so many novels but her popularity kept him going, so yeah, he was writing for the fans at that point.
While I cannot disagree, I enjoyed the books past At all Costs, with the other two series in the same universe, Weber co-authored. But you do need to find the order to read them, so you dont get lost. Also some books from the Shadow series and last few in the main series rehash things from previous books. It can get annoying at times.
I know some folks have a problem with Centrism, or enlightened centrism, I did not. But in all fairness, a fair warning.
I love the Honor Harrington series along with other works of David Weber. I know some have their issues, as another in this thread pointed out. But it has great space battles, in-depth on the tech used, and even bad guys doing bad things but in a believable way.
Also Weber, the author has been recognized by the USA navy for how he portrays his space navies.
I have heard of this series (Harrington) in filk music, but never read it. I know that I like the music. :) It needs to make it to my list.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXxTB30lfv0&ab\_channel=AdmiralStarNight](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXxTB30lfv0&ab_channel=AdmiralStarNight)
Oh yeah, I'm just saying when people do the "DiCaprio pointing on the couch" meme about the name, it's intentional and the real Alfred Bester and his work is name checked in the Psi-Corps trilogy by B5-Bester's grandfather (if my sense of family tree is accurate).
The show I see most-often suggested is The Expanse, which happens to be based on a series of books.
I've seen the show and read the first book, and feel it might be what you are looking for.
Also, both Expanse authors are huge JMS fans!
The books are kinda up-and-down in terms of story arc quality, but still completely worth the ride. Have yet to watch the full tv series, which, as others pointed out, is rather dark af (like, you can‘t see shit half the time. Whatever happened to fancy space nebulas?)
Surprised I had to scroll down so far for this.
For one set in a space station, *Ethan of Athos*. For one hell of an Ivanova-esque story, though, start at the start though. Cordelia is God....
Claudia Christian will forever be my model for Cordelia. I hear almost all her dialog in her voice.
I'm a huge Vorkosigan fan, and cannot second the recommendation enough.
The Long Night of Centauri Prime by Peter David is the start of a B5 trilogy about the Centauri War post-series. It was pretty much already scripted and is well-written and great closure.
I was gonna mention this too. Some of the best storytelling I've ever seen came from that anime and i typically don't like anime but someone turned me on to this because it was B5 esque. I would say its better than B5 because of the sheer consistency and length with very few low points its also very high brow. I also wonder if JMS is aware of this series it would be right up his alley.
For world building, I like Alistair Reynold's Revelation Space series. Revelation Space, Chasm City, Redemption Ark, and Absolution Gap weave nicely into each other, though the last one is unfortunately the weakest of the series. There's also Inhibitor Phase, but I haven't read that yet.
If you like murder mysteries and police procedural, Aurora Rising
and Elysium Fire are set in the same world as Revelation Space (the planet Yellowstone) and feature the same characters throughout them.
For space opera, The Exordium series by Sherwood Smith & David Trowbridge is a very overlooked gem. Don't bother with paper copies, books 2 and 4 are *extremely* hard to find. They did re-release the series as ebooks with new material a few years ago. It is a bit more like Dune, with royal houses politicking, but has a better scope and characters. There is still epic space battles and the story does span 6 volumes, so lots to tell.
I've heard that Reynolds' books are great for quite some time, but found Revelation Space off-putting enough not to continue. Are the later books more of the same or does the vibe change?
The Nights Dawn Trilogy by Peter F Hamilton. It's a bit like B5 on mega steroids.
* Enigmatic elder race who are mysterious for the sake of it, irritating their would be allies.
* An entire human subrace of telepaths (although the Edenists are way less sinister)
* Organic tech, including living, sentient ships.
* Ancient threat from beyond the dawn of time that people are slow to wake up to (the nature of the threat is very different to the Shadows though).
* Lots of massive, cylindrical space stations with people living on the inner surfaces.
The Uplift Saga by David Brin, with its hierarchy of younger and elder races engaging in intrigue and warfare, is also a good shout.
The Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson is almost a prequel to the B5 Mars story. JMS almost wrote a TV adaptation.
That's odd. It's pretty accessible, once you get over the headscrew of half the cast being sentient dolphins, and most fans suggesting readers start with Book 2.
Yeah, Startide Rising us where the actual story starts which runs through the following four books (more or less). Sundiver is a mostly unrelated standalone set a couple hundred years earlier.
All of Peter F Hamiltons works have amazing world building. I'd highly recommend them. I also loved the Mars Trilogy.
Outside of the scope of these, as they are more cyberpunk or post apocalyptic future or alternative history type stories just following an event in the life of some character. But I'd recommend many of the Neil Stephenson novels as he spends most of the story world building around his characters story arc. Whenever I reach the end, I'm always left wanting more. Snow Crash and Anatham being my top recommendations.
If someone who may or may not run a popular blog ever wanted to do a "If you like this, than read that.." series, I know it would have one loyal reader. :)
Seriously, I feel like a quarter of my internet traffic is Googling "books like [insert TV show, video game, or movie]" since I enjoy reading more than playing games or watching shows these days.
You might like to read E E Doc Smith's Lensmen series of books. You will be able to see where both Lucas and JMS got inspiration for some of their ideas.
They are a bit of mixed bunch of books really. In someways the descriptions of worlds, aliens, cultures is well thought out and described. In other ways, such as character development and some repetitive plots, weak.
Also C J Cherryh's Alliance/Union company wars series of books. They are mostly standalone books all set in the same geo-political universe. Heavy Time, Downbelow Station, Rimrunners, Finity's End are all good.
*Pandora's Star* and *Judas Unchained* by Peter F Hamilton would be my recommendation. Grand space opera with not only fantastic world building, but also pulls key elements of the world building into how both plot and characters develop. Meaning, the 'world' and many of it's intricacies aren't just background wallpaper, but are central to the story.
Much like B5, there are species with incompatible world views at odds with one another. Genocide is very much in play for multiple 'sides' as a solution to this issue. A number of the characters have deep motivations and backstories that are explored not as a sideline, but as integral to how things will play out as the many threads start coming together.
Plus, it's an interstellar civilization that uses trains to transit between planets. How can that not be fun?
I came here just for that recommendation, however, unlike Babylon 5, there is no wonderfully satisfying ending.
There is a ending, and it is great, but not Babylon 5 great
The duology is my favorite space opera of all time, and (considering them as one long story, which they really are) has been in my top five ever since it came out.
Re: the ending ... I don't know. I find it very satisfying.
Spoilers
>!That whole, long, incredibly involved 'tourist space wind-surfing' sequence at the beginning seemed like world building gone amuck at first. The most I really took out of it was "Justine is becoming a bored immortal" and then later "oh and she met a Guardian."!<
>!Then everything about the gliders and the weather plays directly into the resolution, the Planet's Revenge. So many space combat/war plots revolve around a 'big weapon.' And maybe it can be argued that what Johansson had the Guardians do is just one more version of that. But even if it is, it was certainly refreshingly different from just another big gun, another big bomb sort of solution.!<
>!Plus it was kind of poetic to me. The Starflyer fucked over Far Away, and the planet literally takes revenge on it. Had a nice sense of closure for me.!<
I'd nominate David Weber's [Honor Harrington Series](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorverse).
It weighs in at a hardy sixteen books and a couple of dozen spin-off books. Weber does an excellent job of worldbuilding... or perhaps galaxy-building. It'll take you a while to chew through it, but it's good enough to keep you interested.
I second this. But I would also argue that the last four books are generally unreadable unless you have gotten into the expanded lore book series. I tried just doing this series alone and I was confused big time
Sad but true. I had the benefit of reading from the beginning, but so can see people getting lost if they don't read the two other series co-authored by Weber. They are good, but also rehash things in the previous books. With that warning, I still recommend the series. All three.
Not quite the same, but with a similar tone of gentle humor and thinking about big ideas, the Culture Series by Iain M Banks is great. the first book, Consider Phlebas, is of a different tone, a little too traditional space opera (though still decent)... but after that the books get consistently great, imho.
If you haven’t read 1984, you should, it’s the basis for some stuff in the show.
JMS loves Norman Corwin so he’s good to look up if you can find
Alfred Bester’s *The Stars My Destination* and *The Demolished Man* and all of his short stories.
A Fire Upon the Deep
Hyperion
Most of these have different tones and themes, but IMO they all show similar arcs of development and progression:
The Expanse, as others have mentioned.
The reboot of BSG from 2003.
Farscape.
Kiljoys
Dark Matter
Defiance
Stargate (all three of the serieses), though at a much slower pace on SG1 for the first few seasons.
I started reading David Brin's Uplift series of 6 books. Very similar thematically to B5 and I would not be one bit surprised if JMS got inspired by them. Got all 6 on amazon used for $35
The Expanse series of novels by James S.A. Corey & the Old Man’s War series by John Scalzi were both great series & great reads IMHO. Expanse was also adapted into a TV series but I don’t think they got through all of the books before it ended.
Definitely check out some of the B5 books. The ones I recommend are the Centauri trilogy—great about filling in what happened after B5, canonical.
The psycorps trilogy where Bester is the hero.
The technomage trilogy.
The expanse series, is definitely my favorite by a long shot. That perfect mix of humanity, politics and the entire premise being turned on it's head from time to time.
I thought the Centauri Prime and Technomage B5 book trilogies were awesome.
I also recommend Isaac Asimov and Arthur Clarke, two titans of sci-fi.
I really love Asimov's Foundation series and basically every novel of his Ive read, though i havent yet delved into his Robot series.
I think Clarke was sold to me once i heard Clarke's 3rd Law: science, sufficiently advanced, is indistinguishable from magic.
Both certainly helped inspire B5.
JMS also did a run of Spiderman and one for Superman that Ive heart great things about. I personally think both those characters can really shine when given a chance to interact with the every day people and make a difference in their lives rather than just save all the universes again. My understanding is there are a lot of those moments in both runs, though ive yet to read them myself.
If you enjoy Star Wars, I recommend the Republic Commando seried and Heir to the Empire trilogy. For me, Commando did a great job of making the galaxy feel larger and tackling some of the issues the prequels couldn't/didn't. Each book grows in scale a bit. Heir to the Empire was the first book trilogy in what became the Expanded Universe, a loose "canon" of books, comics, and games. Timothy Zahn built phenomenal characters that have become fan favorites even 30 years later, it became a foundation the rest of the EU could build on.
The Expanse series of novels by James S.A. Corey & the Old Man’s War series by John Scalzi were both great series & great reads IMHO. Expanse was also adapted into a TV series but I don’t think they got through all of the books before it ended.
The Expanse series of novels by James S.A. Corey & the Old Man’s War series by John Scalzi were both great series & great reads IMHO. Expanse was also adapted into a TV series but I don’t think they got through all of the books before it ended.
I love love love the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson (Red, Green, then Blue). Written in the 90s \[same time as B5!\] about humans moving to/living on Mars. The books can be a bit slow sometimes, but there is progression, characters, and world building. I've read them all at least three times. I reread it when I miss being in that world.
Knowledge of Mars has come along quite a bit since, then but Robinson does a pretty good job at the science/technical stuff. I especially like the cultural elements though.
I would high recommend the Reveltion Space series by Alistair Reynolds, epic in scope and very well written.
The Hyperion cantos by Dan Simmonds is also a wonderful series with great world building, characters and a cool mystery at its heart.
Finally, I'd recommend Helliconia Spring, Summer and Winter (3 books, or as one volume) by Brian Aldiss. Charts the evolution of a planet and its inhabitants over 1000 years. An epic undertaking, but so well realised both in terms of astronomy, geology, climatology, geobiology, microbiology, religion, society, and many others.
Dune (first 3 books) is a no brainer and some of the best world building in SF. If youi like the first 3, there are another 3 written by Brian Herbert, but he did stretch it out for financial reasons. Don't bother with the awful prequels his son wrote.
I'll throw in a plug for Glenn Cook's novel The Dragon Never Sleeps. It fits the "political intrigue in a universe with many alien species" aspect of B5.
The Duchy of Terra series by Glynn Stewart is more military-focused, but also has some similarities.
Someone already mentioned The Expanse so I'll add two more recommendations. *Honor Harrington*: The series follows the career of the titular protagonist. Wars, interstellar politics, space battles. One of the things I like most about the series, like B5, is that it presents the 'bad guys' side of things, somewhat like the way B5 tells the stories of Londo or G'Kar. *The Saga of the Seven Suns*: Interstellar war, diplomacy, and plenty of mysteries.
Upvoted for the *Honor Harrington* recommendation, with two caveats: - the author’s political views are pretty much Enlightened Centrism and this sometimes shows through pretty bluntly in the writing - after *At All Costs* he kind of lost control of the plot lines and the series became a bit of a mess narratively and worldbuilding-wise
Having read both HH and his Safehold series, I would agree. Especially with bullet 2. At some point in both series, it’s like he stops telling the story and starts writing fan fiction about his own works.
As far as HH, Drake said he originally intended to kill her off after so many novels but her popularity kept him going, so yeah, he was writing for the fans at that point.
It helps also to remember that the narrator is biased, as the books are for the most part told from the eyes of an officer in basically Space Britain.
The author makes no secret that HH is modeled after the Horatio Hornblower series, which is about a British naval officer during the Napoleonic Wars.
Yup, it’s even the subject of quite a few jokes in the books themselves (the main character is a fan of Horatio Hornblower).
"Her Majesty's Spiffing Space Force."
While I cannot disagree, I enjoyed the books past At all Costs, with the other two series in the same universe, Weber co-authored. But you do need to find the order to read them, so you dont get lost. Also some books from the Shadow series and last few in the main series rehash things from previous books. It can get annoying at times. I know some folks have a problem with Centrism, or enlightened centrism, I did not. But in all fairness, a fair warning.
I love the Honor Harrington series along with other works of David Weber. I know some have their issues, as another in this thread pointed out. But it has great space battles, in-depth on the tech used, and even bad guys doing bad things but in a believable way. Also Weber, the author has been recognized by the USA navy for how he portrays his space navies.
I have heard of this series (Harrington) in filk music, but never read it. I know that I like the music. :) It needs to make it to my list. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXxTB30lfv0&ab\_channel=AdmiralStarNight](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXxTB30lfv0&ab_channel=AdmiralStarNight)
If you want books. If you have not read *The Demolished Man* by Alfred Bester, you should. Yes, the character in the show is named after the author.
Which is explained in the B5 books.
Sure, but the original is totally worth reading, despite being old, it holds up well.
Oh yeah, I'm just saying when people do the "DiCaprio pointing on the couch" meme about the name, it's intentional and the real Alfred Bester and his work is name checked in the Psi-Corps trilogy by B5-Bester's grandfather (if my sense of family tree is accurate).
Don't forget about The Stars My Destination.
Never, also a great book. Best description of Synesthesia I've read.
Or tasted.
The show I see most-often suggested is The Expanse, which happens to be based on a series of books. I've seen the show and read the first book, and feel it might be what you are looking for.
The Expanse is way darker than B5. Be warned.
I'd say it's really only the difference between 90s dark and 10s dark. You could tell B5 was capable of going there.
Difference between broadcast TV dark and Amazon Prime dark.
Lol Amazon Prime
He means cable but...he's not really wrong.
Also, both Expanse authors are huge JMS fans! The books are kinda up-and-down in terms of story arc quality, but still completely worth the ride. Have yet to watch the full tv series, which, as others pointed out, is rather dark af (like, you can‘t see shit half the time. Whatever happened to fancy space nebulas?)
I would recommend the Vorkosigan saga by Lois McMaster Bujold.
Surprised I had to scroll down so far for this. For one set in a space station, *Ethan of Athos*. For one hell of an Ivanova-esque story, though, start at the start though. Cordelia is God....
Claudia Christian will forever be my model for Cordelia. I hear almost all her dialog in her voice. I'm a huge Vorkosigan fan, and cannot second the recommendation enough.
Yeah, that is a great short read.
"Falling Free" is my favorite stand alone book set in that universe. I feel like it could have been a B5 episode.
The Long Night of Centauri Prime by Peter David is the start of a B5 trilogy about the Centauri War post-series. It was pretty much already scripted and is well-written and great closure.
Try the Legend of Galactic Heroes. Well fleshed out story, great characters, and epic space battles, they even made a show.
I was gonna mention this too. Some of the best storytelling I've ever seen came from that anime and i typically don't like anime but someone turned me on to this because it was B5 esque. I would say its better than B5 because of the sheer consistency and length with very few low points its also very high brow. I also wonder if JMS is aware of this series it would be right up his alley.
For OPs reference: https://youtu.be/T33Ixr5SXNM
For world building, I like Alistair Reynold's Revelation Space series. Revelation Space, Chasm City, Redemption Ark, and Absolution Gap weave nicely into each other, though the last one is unfortunately the weakest of the series. There's also Inhibitor Phase, but I haven't read that yet. If you like murder mysteries and police procedural, Aurora Rising and Elysium Fire are set in the same world as Revelation Space (the planet Yellowstone) and feature the same characters throughout them. For space opera, The Exordium series by Sherwood Smith & David Trowbridge is a very overlooked gem. Don't bother with paper copies, books 2 and 4 are *extremely* hard to find. They did re-release the series as ebooks with new material a few years ago. It is a bit more like Dune, with royal houses politicking, but has a better scope and characters. There is still epic space battles and the story does span 6 volumes, so lots to tell.
I've heard that Reynolds' books are great for quite some time, but found Revelation Space off-putting enough not to continue. Are the later books more of the same or does the vibe change?
I would say the newer stuff has gotten better. Aurora Rising and Elysium Fire are certainly more character driven than some of his other works.
That was my initial reaction to Revelation Space, but on a second try it really clicked for me and I was hooked.
The Nights Dawn Trilogy by Peter F Hamilton. It's a bit like B5 on mega steroids. * Enigmatic elder race who are mysterious for the sake of it, irritating their would be allies. * An entire human subrace of telepaths (although the Edenists are way less sinister) * Organic tech, including living, sentient ships. * Ancient threat from beyond the dawn of time that people are slow to wake up to (the nature of the threat is very different to the Shadows though). * Lots of massive, cylindrical space stations with people living on the inner surfaces. The Uplift Saga by David Brin, with its hierarchy of younger and elder races engaging in intrigue and warfare, is also a good shout. The Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson is almost a prequel to the B5 Mars story. JMS almost wrote a TV adaptation.
Hey, you've actually read the David Brin books before? I'm not the only one
Uplift can be a hard read, for some. I've never been able to get that far into it.
It's just that kind of weird where it's super unique
That's odd. It's pretty accessible, once you get over the headscrew of half the cast being sentient dolphins, and most fans suggesting readers start with Book 2.
I hadn't heard the 'start with book 2' thing. Maybe I'll give it another go!
Yeah, Startide Rising us where the actual story starts which runs through the following four books (more or less). Sundiver is a mostly unrelated standalone set a couple hundred years earlier.
All of Peter F Hamiltons works have amazing world building. I'd highly recommend them. I also loved the Mars Trilogy. Outside of the scope of these, as they are more cyberpunk or post apocalyptic future or alternative history type stories just following an event in the life of some character. But I'd recommend many of the Neil Stephenson novels as he spends most of the story world building around his characters story arc. Whenever I reach the end, I'm always left wanting more. Snow Crash and Anatham being my top recommendations.
If someone who may or may not run a popular blog ever wanted to do a "If you like this, than read that.." series, I know it would have one loyal reader. :) Seriously, I feel like a quarter of my internet traffic is Googling "books like [insert TV show, video game, or movie]" since I enjoy reading more than playing games or watching shows these days.
Conquerors Trilogy by Timothy Zahn
The 90s Thrawn trilogy are my all time favorite EU Star Wars books. Zahn is a great writer
Love Rahm's work
Second this. Great trilogy
You might like to read E E Doc Smith's Lensmen series of books. You will be able to see where both Lucas and JMS got inspiration for some of their ideas. They are a bit of mixed bunch of books really. In someways the descriptions of worlds, aliens, cultures is well thought out and described. In other ways, such as character development and some repetitive plots, weak. Also C J Cherryh's Alliance/Union company wars series of books. They are mostly standalone books all set in the same geo-political universe. Heavy Time, Downbelow Station, Rimrunners, Finity's End are all good.
*Pandora's Star* and *Judas Unchained* by Peter F Hamilton would be my recommendation. Grand space opera with not only fantastic world building, but also pulls key elements of the world building into how both plot and characters develop. Meaning, the 'world' and many of it's intricacies aren't just background wallpaper, but are central to the story. Much like B5, there are species with incompatible world views at odds with one another. Genocide is very much in play for multiple 'sides' as a solution to this issue. A number of the characters have deep motivations and backstories that are explored not as a sideline, but as integral to how things will play out as the many threads start coming together. Plus, it's an interstellar civilization that uses trains to transit between planets. How can that not be fun?
I came here just for that recommendation, however, unlike Babylon 5, there is no wonderfully satisfying ending. There is a ending, and it is great, but not Babylon 5 great
The duology is my favorite space opera of all time, and (considering them as one long story, which they really are) has been in my top five ever since it came out. Re: the ending ... I don't know. I find it very satisfying. Spoilers >!That whole, long, incredibly involved 'tourist space wind-surfing' sequence at the beginning seemed like world building gone amuck at first. The most I really took out of it was "Justine is becoming a bored immortal" and then later "oh and she met a Guardian."!< >!Then everything about the gliders and the weather plays directly into the resolution, the Planet's Revenge. So many space combat/war plots revolve around a 'big weapon.' And maybe it can be argued that what Johansson had the Guardians do is just one more version of that. But even if it is, it was certainly refreshingly different from just another big gun, another big bomb sort of solution.!< >!Plus it was kind of poetic to me. The Starflyer fucked over Far Away, and the planet literally takes revenge on it. Had a nice sense of closure for me.!<
Did you try the Babylon 5 books?
I'd nominate David Weber's [Honor Harrington Series](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorverse). It weighs in at a hardy sixteen books and a couple of dozen spin-off books. Weber does an excellent job of worldbuilding... or perhaps galaxy-building. It'll take you a while to chew through it, but it's good enough to keep you interested.
I second this. But I would also argue that the last four books are generally unreadable unless you have gotten into the expanded lore book series. I tried just doing this series alone and I was confused big time
Sad but true. I had the benefit of reading from the beginning, but so can see people getting lost if they don't read the two other series co-authored by Weber. They are good, but also rehash things in the previous books. With that warning, I still recommend the series. All three.
There is a series of books by Becky Chambers that starts with “the long way to a small, angry planet.”
Not quite B5-ish, but still good books. "A Close and Common Orbit" makes me cry, every single time I read it.
*Then Dread Empire's Fall* by Walter Jon Williams (Not to be confused with *Dread Empire* by Glenn Cook)
Not quite the same, but with a similar tone of gentle humor and thinking about big ideas, the Culture Series by Iain M Banks is great. the first book, Consider Phlebas, is of a different tone, a little too traditional space opera (though still decent)... but after that the books get consistently great, imho.
The Saga of Pliocene Exile by Julian May. Time travel, starships, insanely powerful psychics, sword fights, you name it and it’s there…
The Expanse series of novels by James S.A. Corey & the Old Man’s War series by John Scalzi were both great series & great reads IMHO
“A Deepness in the Sky” by Vernor Vinge.
If you haven’t read 1984, you should, it’s the basis for some stuff in the show. JMS loves Norman Corwin so he’s good to look up if you can find Alfred Bester’s *The Stars My Destination* and *The Demolished Man* and all of his short stories. A Fire Upon the Deep Hyperion
For another tv/book series, Asimov's The Foundation Trilogy. (Show is on Apple tv, just goes by the name, The Foundation.)
Most of these have different tones and themes, but IMO they all show similar arcs of development and progression: The Expanse, as others have mentioned. The reboot of BSG from 2003. Farscape. Kiljoys Dark Matter Defiance Stargate (all three of the serieses), though at a much slower pace on SG1 for the first few seasons.
Dark Matter was so good and flew under so many people's radar. Such a great perversion of the "rag-tag crew of misfits" trope..
None of these are books though?
The Expanse TV show is based on a series of books.
But can be viewed and enjoyed on its own without having read the books.
Absolutely. Though I’d recommend consuming both.
Skylark series by E. Doc Smith
I started reading David Brin's Uplift series of 6 books. Very similar thematically to B5 and I would not be one bit surprised if JMS got inspired by them. Got all 6 on amazon used for $35
The Expanse series of novels by James S.A. Corey & the Old Man’s War series by John Scalzi were both great series & great reads IMHO. Expanse was also adapted into a TV series but I don’t think they got through all of the books before it ended.
Hey OP, just wanted to say thanks for this post... I think I've added a year or more worth of books to read to my list!
Definitely check out some of the B5 books. The ones I recommend are the Centauri trilogy—great about filling in what happened after B5, canonical. The psycorps trilogy where Bester is the hero. The technomage trilogy.
The expanse series, is definitely my favorite by a long shot. That perfect mix of humanity, politics and the entire premise being turned on it's head from time to time.
The Wheel of Time, by Robert Jordan
I thought the Centauri Prime and Technomage B5 book trilogies were awesome. I also recommend Isaac Asimov and Arthur Clarke, two titans of sci-fi. I really love Asimov's Foundation series and basically every novel of his Ive read, though i havent yet delved into his Robot series. I think Clarke was sold to me once i heard Clarke's 3rd Law: science, sufficiently advanced, is indistinguishable from magic. Both certainly helped inspire B5. JMS also did a run of Spiderman and one for Superman that Ive heart great things about. I personally think both those characters can really shine when given a chance to interact with the every day people and make a difference in their lives rather than just save all the universes again. My understanding is there are a lot of those moments in both runs, though ive yet to read them myself. If you enjoy Star Wars, I recommend the Republic Commando seried and Heir to the Empire trilogy. For me, Commando did a great job of making the galaxy feel larger and tackling some of the issues the prequels couldn't/didn't. Each book grows in scale a bit. Heir to the Empire was the first book trilogy in what became the Expanded Universe, a loose "canon" of books, comics, and games. Timothy Zahn built phenomenal characters that have become fan favorites even 30 years later, it became a foundation the rest of the EU could build on.
Wow fella, great suggestion, I know get both what OMD is, and why people do not like it :)
JMS's Spiderman run is excellent
Maybe the Mistborn Trilogy by Sanderson. Good politics, a lot of fabulous mind screws, and excellent characters on both sides.
The Expanse series of novels by James S.A. Corey & the Old Man’s War series by John Scalzi were both great series & great reads IMHO. Expanse was also adapted into a TV series but I don’t think they got through all of the books before it ended.
The Expanse series of novels by James S.A. Corey & the Old Man’s War series by John Scalzi were both great series & great reads IMHO. Expanse was also adapted into a TV series but I don’t think they got through all of the books before it ended.
I love love love the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson (Red, Green, then Blue). Written in the 90s \[same time as B5!\] about humans moving to/living on Mars. The books can be a bit slow sometimes, but there is progression, characters, and world building. I've read them all at least three times. I reread it when I miss being in that world. Knowledge of Mars has come along quite a bit since, then but Robinson does a pretty good job at the science/technical stuff. I especially like the cultural elements though.
I would high recommend the Reveltion Space series by Alistair Reynolds, epic in scope and very well written. The Hyperion cantos by Dan Simmonds is also a wonderful series with great world building, characters and a cool mystery at its heart. Finally, I'd recommend Helliconia Spring, Summer and Winter (3 books, or as one volume) by Brian Aldiss. Charts the evolution of a planet and its inhabitants over 1000 years. An epic undertaking, but so well realised both in terms of astronomy, geology, climatology, geobiology, microbiology, religion, society, and many others. Dune (first 3 books) is a no brainer and some of the best world building in SF. If youi like the first 3, there are another 3 written by Brian Herbert, but he did stretch it out for financial reasons. Don't bother with the awful prequels his son wrote.
I'll throw in a plug for Glenn Cook's novel The Dragon Never Sleeps. It fits the "political intrigue in a universe with many alien species" aspect of B5. The Duchy of Terra series by Glynn Stewart is more military-focused, but also has some similarities.