The second book on that series just came out

I'm lukewarm on Scalzi generally (love his blog and Twitter feed, meh about most of his books) but I really enjoyed the Interdependency series (first book is The Last Emperox).

I am trying to think of what might scratch the same itch as The Expanse and tangling myself up. I did read a sort of space opera ish series not too long ago by Nathan Lowell that I liked. First book is Quarter Share and there are, like, 5 trilogies in the universe, more or less in chronological order. I think I like his fantasy better, to be honest, but the sci fi has its merits.

I'm a big fan of Iain Banks Culture novels, which are fantastic space opera. But they're not to everybody's taste.

I thought his first in that series, Consider Phlebas, played out like a mix between Firefly/Farscape. But I know DXM read it and disliked it (I think because it has a rather downer ending). But I loved that world and its thoughtful exploration of ideas, as well as the slam bang adventure.

A lot of people like Ann Leckie's books, which are pure space opera.

Oh, if you haven't read Ancillary Justice and so forth, that is excellent!

Yeah, I was going to rec Ancillary Justice.

There are all the old SF books from the 60s/70s, like the Rama books etc. I haven't read them since I was a kid so I don't know how they hold up.

Oh! Empress of Forever by Max Gladstone. It's less on the hard science and more on the quantum, sort of Guardians of the Galaxy meet Godel Escher Bach.

The Ancillary novels are great. Although somehow I missed that everyone was referred to with female pronouns until the 2nd book i think. I just assumed there were only women. Once I figured it out I went back and reread and some things made more sense.

The last sci fi series I really got into was Tanya Huff's Valor Series.

Although the stories are different there are similarities with mystery aliens and well written characters (esp female characters) and..well...space.

I'll look up the other recommendations and see what I can get my hands on.

Guardians of the Galaxy meet Godel Escher Bach.

Well, fine, I guess I will have to read that, then.

had recommendations for sci fi series that would be along the same vein

I highly recommend the Chanur series by CJ Cherryh. They're a bit old, but they're fun: a multi-species interstellar economic compact is thrown into political chaos when a single human shows up from outside their territory. The main character is a female feline ship captain, who finds humans entirely unattractive, and thinks males are inherently unstable and violent. She's a total badass.

Four novels, so much shorter than Cherryh's recent stuff, told entirely from non-human POV. Lots of chases through space, battles in space and on planets and space stations, strategy and politics, alien psychology, and so forth. Great stuff. Look for The Pride of Chanur, which is the first in the sequence.

I'm currently half way through Harrow's The Once and Future Witches. It is engaging and I am enjoying it, but I don't love it to the level I loved The Ten Thousand Doors of January, but really that is a very high bar.

I'm putting the Chanur series next on my list as that sounds like my jam. And I do prefer a series. Looks like 5 in the series.