Since Game of Thrones creator George RR Martin knows a thing or two about genre epics and their small-screen adaptations, the accolades that Prime Video’s The Expanse earned from the writer are truly impressive. HBO’s Game of Thrones remains one of the cable network’s most iconic shows ever, and its biggest franchise to date. While HBO’s upcoming Harry Potter series will likely take this mantle in years to come, the original show’s success, alongside the acclaim of its spinoffs House of the Dragon and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, makes the George RR Martin adaptation singularly iconic.

As such, readers should sit up and take notice when the writer behind the A Song of Ice and Fire saga singles out another network’s show for praise. Like Stephen King, Martin often likes to publicly mention TV shows that he enjoys, and the author took to his website when The Expanse was canceled to do just that. In a post, Martin called The Expanse a “terrific show in all regards.”

The writer went on to say of the series that “It looked magnificent, but that’s true of a lot of big-budget space shows these days. It was also really well written and well directed, with an amazing and talented cast.” Martin concluded by saying The Expanse was “the best space show on television, far and away,” and that nothing else even came close.

George R.R. Martin Had Connections To The Expanse

To be fair to the show’s many competitors, this blog post was published in 2018, when SyFy originally axed the series, but before it was picked up for another few seasons by Prime Video. As such, more recent space opera shows like For All Mankind, HBO’s Dune spinoff Dune: Prophecy, and the deservedly acclaimed Foundation had not yet put their hat in the ring for Martin’s coveted title of “Best space show.”

However, The Expanse’s outsized critical praise and huge fandom prove that Martin’s comments weren’t hyperbole, either. The author even had a personal connection to the series since co-author Ty Franck was Martin’s personal assistant before he launched the sci-fi novel series in 2011 along with Daniel Abraham under the shared pen name James S. A Corey. Since the pair’s fruitful creative collaboration began, Franck and Abraham have gone on to pen the Captive’s War franchise together.

Was The Expanse Sci-Fi’s Answer To Game Of Thrones?

It will likely come as no shock to fans of The Expanse that one of its co-creators worked with Martin since the show is often hailed as the sci-fi genre’s Game of Thrones equivalent thanks to its complex plotting and focus on in-universe political machinations. Set in a future where humanity has colonized the solar system’s other planets, The Expanse centers on an uneasy truce between the United Nations of Earth and Luna and the Martian Congressional Republic on Mars.

Season 1 of the series sees detective Josephus join UN Security Council member Chrisjen and ship captain James Holden in uncovering a shady conspiracy with vast implications for society in The Expanse. If this setup sounds familiar, that might be because HBO’s Game of Thrones adaptation initially focused on Ned Stark’s investigation into Joffrey’s parentage, and the show’s sprawling story unfolded from there by adding more characters, more settings, and more players in its global game of deceit and double-crossing.

Although The Expanse didn’t have quite as much mature content as the infamously envelope-pushing Game of Thrones, the show did share the moral ambiguity and narrative complexity of Martin’s HBO adaptation. Thus, it is fair to dub The Expanse the Game of Thrones of sci-fi, even if this does simplify the appeal of the series. While George RR Martin’s <em>Game of Thrones has a lot in common with The Expanse, Prime Video’s critically adored space opera became a hit precisely because it has a unique appeal that is entirely its own.

Source: George RR Martin’s website