“I absolutely believe that people are more good on balance than bad,” he said. “All the wars and all of the cruelty and all of the violence. I’m not looking away from any of that, and I still think there’s something beautiful about being what we are. History is soaked in blood. The future probably will be too. But for every atrocity, there’s a thousand small kindnesses that no one noticed. A hundred people who spent their lives loving and caring for each other. A few moments of real grace.”

We’re thrilled to be working on another of our favourite series. The Expanse is one of the most celebrated works of twenty-first-century science fiction—James S.A. Corey’s epic of war, scarcity, and first contact in a colonized solar system two hundred years in the future.

Humanity, it turns out, has carried its class divisions to the stars. Earth and Mars remain locked in cold rivalry, while the Belters—born in the asteroid belt and tasked with extracting the wealth of the outer planets—see little of the rewards and even less of the power.

Written by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck under a shared pen name, the saga opened with Leviathan Wakes in 2011 and closed, nine novels and a decade later, with Leviathan Falls in 2021. It arrived to immediate acclaim, with the first book nominated for both the Hugo and Locus Awards and George R.R. Martin hailing it as “interplanetary adventure the way it ought to be written.”

Later volumes cemented its reputation further. Abaddon’s Gate won the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, and in 2020 The Expanse received the Hugo Award for Best Series. The novels also became the basis for a television adaptation that ran, to wide acclaim, for six seasons.

For all its scale—from vast distances to the fate of worlds—The Expanse resonated, and endures, because it never lost sight of the people at its heart. For the crews and captains, detectives and politicians, it is the impossible choices made in the cold of space that stay with us long after the last page is turned.

Edition Details

The Expanse will be issued as a limited edition in two states: 400 copies of the Deluxe Edition, each hand-numbered #1–400, and 26 copies of the Lettered Edition, individually inscribed A–Z. All copies will be signed by the authors and artists and will feature newly commissioned artwork. Every copy will also include the right of first refusal to order a matching copy of the subsequent book in the series.

The collection will feature:

• Printing on luxurious paper.
• Durable, Smyth-sewn bindings with a ribbon marker and head and tail bands.
• Premium binding materials.
• Handmade slipcases/enclosures included at no additional cost.
• Hand binding by Ludlow Bookbinders.
• All artwork included in all states, in full colour.

Subscribe to the newsletter at the bottom of this page to stay updated on our plans for The Expanse and other titles.

Schedule

The first volume in The Expanse—Leviathan Wakes—is currently planned to open for pre-orders in 2028 with subsequent books one year apart. As we’ve done with our upcoming The Chronicles of Elric series, our plan is to work on multiple books simultaneously to ensure that we keep up with our planned schedule while reducing the time between pre-order and delivery.

At this point we have acquired rights to the first three books in the series. We aim to have an agreement in place for the entire series by the time the first book is made available for purchase.

If you’re new here you can also have a look at the Schedule page for more information on our upcoming releases, including:

• China Miéville’s Perdido Street Station on June 22nd, a week from today.
• Octavia Butler’s Kindred
• Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash
• Lord Dunsany’s The King of Elfland’s Daughter
• Cormac McCarthy’s The Road
• qntm’s There Is No Antimemetics Division
• Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War
• And two books in our Short Stops series, Stephen King’s The Jaunt and Josiah Bancroft’s The Everyman’s Guide to the Tower of Babel

Hand Binding by Ludlow Bookbinders

Ludlow Bookbinders, located in Shropshire, England, have been keeping the craft of English bookbinding alive for generations. They’ve hand bound a number of Conversation Tree Press editions, and we’re looking forward to collaborating with them on The Expanse.

James S.A. Corey

James S. A. Corey is the pen name of Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck. In addition to writing the novels and short stories of The Expanse, they wrote and produced the television series of the same name.