And so starts the run of Expanse books after I finished watching the TV show. Having finished the books, I’ll stick to my original premise that the correct order is TV show then books, and I’ll fight anyone who disagrees.
For this novella in particular, I’m not sure I’m particularly fond of either the TV adaptation or the novella. The TV adaptation suffers from one of the classic traps–child actors who just don’t do it for me, but on whose shoulders rest the weight of the plot. I appreciated what the showrunners were trying to do, though, by including the adaptation at the beginning of an already truncated season.
Strange Dogs takes place on Laconia, what will eventually become the catalyst for books 7 and 8 of the Expanse novels. As with all the Expanse novellas, it’s short–not even an hour or so–but it pushes forward the plot and world of the Expanse in ways that don’t become evident for books to come.
The issue I have, then, is that the novella hinges a bit much on the alien-ness of it all, and the heavy handed showing of it. This all takes places in-between books six and seven, and it’s actually quite important that you read this and figure out what’s happening on Laconia. At the same time, it’s actually quite interesting to read book seven with no understanding at all as to what’s going on there–to be as clueless as the rest of the Roci crew! But for the same of completeness…read it was.
