The Expanse is getting another batch of deluxe editions

Back in 2021, Orbit decided to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the first installment of James S.A. Corey's Expanse series, Leviathan Wakes, with a deluxe edition, following up a couple of years later with special editions of the next two installments, Caliban's War and Abaddon's Gate. Now, the next three installments of the series are getting the glow up treatment: the publisher announced that Cibola Burn, Nemesis Games, and Babylon's Ashes will get re-releases with new covers in December.

Each will retail for $40, and come with a new, minimalist cover design by Lauren Panepinto, endpaper maps by Jay Clark, sprayed edges, and reversable dust jackets featuring the original Daniel Dociu artwork sans text on the interior. Like the first three, they each retain the same color scheme.

I picked up all three deluxe editions when they came out to get a full complement of hardcovers for the series. I think they look really nice: Orbit has clearly been taking cues from the types things that BookTok has made popular: fans will pay a bit more for a snazzy edition, and if you can spray the edges and slap a new cover on, you'll get a bit more per copy. (The regular hardcover edition retails for $32, these ones go for $40.)

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Like a bunch of the other releases we've seen of big SF/F books, what you're getting is essentially just the bells and whistles: when Penguin Random House released a special edition of Pierce Brown's Red Rising and announced a special edition of Andy Weir's The Martian, I noted that these aren't books that are being redesigned from the ground up like say, a book from Subterranean Press or The Folio Society: you're getting the same type, layout, paper, etc.

That said, The Expanse has gotten this sort of treatment: Subterranean Press released its editions of the series over the years, and good luck adding any of them to your collection: individual copies of the series will run you in the hundreds if you can find them. These deluxe editions are the most readily-available editions for someone who just wants something that stands out a little for their shelves.

I might spring for these when they come out. I'm loathe to part with my original paperbacks of the first three novels because of nostalgia and sentimental value, but I'm not quite as attached to regular editions that came later in the series, and they might make for a good addition to the shelves.