Below is the complete list of James S.A. Corey books in order. For each series, the chronological reading order is the same as the order of publication.
Publication Order of Star Wars: Empire and Rebellion Books
Publication Order of The Captive’s War Books
Publication Order of The Expanse Limited Books
Publication Order of The Expanse Origins Books
Publication Order of Expanse Books
- Babylon’s Ashes (2016)
Babylon’s Ashes was published in 2016 and is listed as book #6 in the Expanse series. 
Publication Order of The Expanse Short Stories/Novellas Books
Publication Order of Far Reaches Collection Books
About James S.A. Corey
James S.A. Corey is the shared pen name of Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, the American writing partnership best known for The Expanse, one of the major space-opera series of the twenty-first century. The name reads like a single author, but the Corey bibliography is the product of collaboration: Abraham brought experience as an established fantasy and science fiction novelist, while Franck brought deep genre knowledge, role-playing background, and earlier work connected to George R.R. Martin’s writing circle. Together they built a body of fiction known for political realism, hard-edged adventure, large-scale space conflict, and character-driven momentum.
The partnership’s defining work began with Leviathan Wakes, published in 2011. That novel introduced a future in which humanity has expanded through the solar system but remains divided between Earth, Mars, and the Belt. The setting is expansive without becoming abstract. Corey’s solar system is shaped by labor, class resentment, military rivalry, corporate ambition, colonial exploitation, and the physical realities of living in space. The series’ science is approachable rather than academic, but gravity, distance, air, water, ships, stations, and bodies all matter.
The Expanse grew into a nine-novel sequence, supported by novellas and short fiction later gathered in Memory’s Legion. Its central figures include Jim Holden, Naomi Nagata, Amos Burton, Alex Kamal, Detective Miller, Chrisjen Avasarala, Bobbie Draper, and many others whose points of view widen the story beyond one hero or one faction. One of the series’ strengths is its refusal to let a single ideology fully explain the future. Earth, Mars, the Belt, governments, corporations, revolutionaries, scientists, soldiers, and ordinary workers all carry partial truths and dangerous blind spots.
The books combine several traditions: space opera, noir, political thriller, military science fiction, alien-contact story, and disaster narrative. Leviathan Wakes begins with mystery and horror elements, while later books broaden into war, colonization, empire, collapse, and the consequences of opening humanity to forces it barely understands. The long arc reaches its conclusion in Leviathan Falls, giving the series a rare sense of planned completion.
Corey’s profile expanded further through the television adaptation of The Expanse, which ran on Syfy and then Amazon Prime Video. Abraham and Franck were closely involved with the screen version as writers and producers, helping preserve the novels’ political texture and character relationships while reshaping the story for television. The adaptation brought the Corey name to a wider audience and reinforced the series’ reputation for intelligent, character-grounded science fiction.
Outside The Expanse, James S.A. Corey also wrote Honor Among Thieves, a Star Wars novel centered on Han Solo, and later launched The Captive’s War, beginning with The Mercy of Gods. That newer sequence moves away from the solar-system politics of The Expanse into another large-scale science fiction setting concerned with conquest, survival, alien power, and humanity’s place inside a much older conflict. It shows that the Corey collaboration is not limited to one universe, even if The Expanse remains its landmark achievement.
The James S.A. Corey bibliography is best understood through its interest in pressure: political pressure, environmental pressure, military pressure, social pressure, and the pressure placed on flawed people asked to act before they fully understand what is happening. Abraham and Franck’s shared voice works because it makes vast events feel immediate. Their stories may involve alien technologies and interplanetary war, but their strongest scenes often turn on loyalty, fear, competence, guilt, and the difficult work of keeping a crew together when history is breaking around them.