Jeff Bezos was with his people, the feted guest at the 2018 meeting of the National Space Society. The group awarded him a prize it could be sure he would appreciate: the Gerard K. O’Neill Memorial Award for Space Settlement Advocacy. After a dinner in his honour, Bezos sat onstage to chat with an editor from GeekWire. But before the discussion could begin, Bezos interjected a question: “Does anybody here in this audience watch a TV show called The Expanse?”

The question pandered to the crowd, eliciting applause, hoots and whistles. The Expanse, which had been broadcast on the Syfy channel, is about the existential struggles of a space colony, set in the far future, based on novels that Bezos adores. Despite the militancy of its devoted fans, Syfy had cancelled The Expanse. Angry protests had ensued. A plane had flown over an Amazon office in Santa Monica, California, with a banner urging the company to pick up the show.

Atlantic