Any upcoming adaptation of a best-selling YA sci-fi book series could potentially become The Expanse‘s perfect space opera replacement. Despite sharing quite a few similarities with The Expanse, though, the show in question will incline less towards hard sci-fi and more towards fantasy.

Although The Expanse never truly completed its run and has still not exhausted its source material’s entire story, it arguably remains one of the greatest sci-fi shows of the century. Given how The Expanse ended for good after six seasons, it seems unlikely that it will be renewed for more installments in the near future. However, viewers who miss the show can look forward to many potential replacements that will fill the void.

One such replacement will likely be the upcoming small-screen adaptation of Brandon Sanderson’s Skyward book series. Often touted as “Top Gun meets Attack on Titan” because of its post-apocalyptic story beats and aerial combats, Skyward shares some narrative threads and themes with The Expanse as well.

For instance, just like The Expanse‘s early arcs, Skyward, too, unfolds more on a relatively smaller scale despite having an outer space setting. However, Brandon Sanderson’s story soon expands its scope and scale and evolves to a vast galactic landscape run by a bureaucratic and authoritarian interstellar empire. In both, there is heavy focus on the friction between the entitled governing class and the oppressed lower classes.

Unlike The Expanse, Skyward focuses on the point of view of its main character and even adopts fantastical elements where characters use things like telepathic teleportation and sentient AI. It also inclines more towards exploring young adult themes and cares little about Newtonian physics. However, structurally, like The Expanse, it features everything from cosmic alien terrors to massive ancient star-gates.

Another Upcoming Space Opera Could Be Expanse’s Perfect Replacement

Interestingly, Skyward is not the only adaptation that will appeal to Brandon Sanderson’s fans. The creative forces that developed The Expanse for Prime Video, including showrunner Naren Shankar, have now teamed up to adapt The Captive’s War book series.

Written by The Expanse‘s authors, Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, The Captive’s War is another incredible space opera that expands its vision far beyond planetary conflicts between humans.

Since The Captive’s War has also been written by The Expanse‘s authors, both book series share quite a few narrative overlaps. Overall, however, The Captive’s War is significantly bigger in scale in the sense that it shifts the focus from humanity’s internal struggles to a far grander conflict involving powerful alien civilizations and existential threats.

Like Brandon Sanderson’s Skyward, The Captive’s War also does not feature typical heroes. Instead, its main characters serve more as morally complex individuals who are often forced to make questionable decisions in the name of serving the greater good.

With The Expanse getting two potential replacements, it is hard not to be hyped about the sci-fi genre’s imminent future on the small screen. Fans of Brandon Sanderson’s sci-fi fantasy books can also look forward to Apple TV’s upcoming adaptations of The Stormlight Archive and Mistborn.

While it is too soon to tell how these upcoming sci-fi adaptations will turn out, they are all driven by promising streaming services and creators. Owing to this, it is hard not to believe that The Expanse will soon have many worthy rivals in the sci-fi genre.