The Expanse

Author note: Language is mild to moderate. The novel contains occasional crude language, insults, threats, and fantasy-world substitutes for profanity, but strong profanity is not pervasive. Characters sometimes use words such as “hell” and “ass,” usually during jokes, arguments, or intense situations. For example, the speedster character Ari Kovan breaks the tension during an argument by joking that people who assume “make an ass out of you and me,” while the hothead character Mira Roth later teases a friend during battle about his “flat ass.” The characters also exchange colorful insults such as “glass-bitten little shadow rat.” Violence is frequent and can become intense, with occasional gore, disturbing injuries, character deaths, and sustained mortal peril. Fantasy battles involve swords, elemental attacks, monstrous creatures, dismemberment, blood, burns, and characters being crushed, impaled, burnt to ash, or otherwise seriously wounded. One of the strongest sequences occurs during a large-scale battle with the monster depicted on the book cover, which kills a non-human character and throws his headless body onto the battlefield before brutally beating another non-human character, ripping away chunks of fur and exposing raw flesh. Another aftermath scene describes the protagonist, Juno Laval, desperately washing large amounts of a friend’s blood from his hands. Romance is mild to moderate, while sexual content consists primarily of innuendo, attraction, embarrassment, and discussion of sexual desire rather than sexual activity. The protagonist and the main female character have continuing romantic tension, physical affection, attempted kisses, and emotionally intimate moments, while two other friends openly become a couple and kiss publicly. The strongest sexual material occurs when a telepathic monster publicly reveals the main female character’s private thoughts about the protagonist, including that she once straddled him, wanted him in her bunk, and imagined them together with “no clothes.” The protagonist explicitly explains the distinction between love and lust during the conversation and how her actions only occurred under the influence of a monster that lulled victims into complacency by removing restraint and inhibitions. No sex occurs, no clothing is removed, and there is no explicit description of sexual activity. Biblical themes are prominent and generally presented positively, particularly love, forgiveness, sacrifice, redemption, mercy, and the value of loving one’s enemies. Although the fantasy world uses terms such as the Creator and Founders, several teachings deliberately parallel Scripture. A particularly direct example occurs after a friend hurts the protagonist emotionally, and he remembers a childhood lesson about “the greatest commandment”: to love the Creator with all one’s heart, mind, and soul and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, including personal enemies. The protagonist then chooses to show his friend love and forgiveness despite his pain. A non-human character’s final arc also explores repentance and redemption through sacrificially protecting the humans it once viewed as enemies, ultimately giving its life for them. The characters also discuss sexual desires and lust in the context of healthy boundaries that were designed by the Creator for their benefit.