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Notes -
I haven’t actually watched The Expanse, but I read it, and I wouldn’t mind reworking some plots and characters in later novels: they just weren’t all that good in the first place. Same with the last books of Witcher series (though I read these close to two decades ago, so maybe they were actually better than I remember them).
The real issue is not so much lack of fidelity, but rather changing things in order to make some kind of political or cultural point, especially if they change good parts to be bad. But, I don’t watch any of the new moving pictures anyway, so I’m probably not the person to talk to about it.
I think they largely changed things that make sense in The Expanse.
In the TV version there’s a belter creole language. In the books, it seems less fleshed out and more like English with occasional other languages mixed in. Sort of like how in Firefly people would occasionally speak in Mandarin (I think). Since in the books, people are physically different from growing up in low g and it’s visually obvious, the creole provides a cultural separation in place of the physical.
The Ashford character is completely rewritten in the TV show, and his second Carlos “Bull” Baca becomes a female character, Camina Drummer. Both seem largely to be more interesting characters so it wasn’t a huge loss.
Both Amos and Alex are older, fatter and balder then their TV counterparts.
If you liked the books, it’s worth a watch.
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