The Expanse is, for me, in the top ranks of science fiction on TV this century, up there with Battlestar Galactica. I’m struggling to think of what’s third on my list.

And for years, I’ve had the books sitting in my queue, waiting for enough time to pass to feel fresh again. After reading Moby Dick in January, it felt like time. One leviathan deserves another, and so I picked up Leviathan Wakes.

Three books in, I’m realizing that I didn’t need to wait. A good story is a good story, even if you know how it ends. Sometimes it’s better. Knowing the rough beats of the plot means I’m focusing more on the characters I missed (or were omitted from) the show. I can think about the science and the science fiction.

This has me thinking about other stories I’ve gone back to, and what I’ve gotten out of revisiting a known world.

I’ve read the Lord of the Rings trilogy at least three times, before and after seeing the movies. I’ve read The Hobbit on my own and with my kids, seen the cartoon and one of the movies (but gave up part way through the second). Even the versions I don’t enjoy give me something, even if it’s just a reflection on what made the original so good.

The first version of Dune I saw was the SyFy Channel version, which convinced me to read the book. Dune benefits immensely from a second (or third) read, because it jumps into a complicated story with almost no explanation. “What’s a mentat?” you might ask. The only explanation is in a glossary at the end of the book. Two decades later, with Denis Villeneuve’s version coming out, I reread the book, and then Dune Messiah, and eventually the entire main series. (And then I took a break from science fiction.)

I’ve done this with other genres. News of the World is a good movie, and also a good book, but they’re not the exact same story. I read the book right after seeing the movie, and they’re different enought that I enjoyed both. The Count of Monte Cristo is like that, too. I’ve seen the 2002 version of the movie, read the book and am looking forward to the PBS series.

Part of why these stories work, even on repeat, is that they ask us questions that don’t have fixed answers. My wife’s podcast, Scene in Boston, looked at the many retellings of classic Greek stories on Boston stages this year.

The Trojan War might be two thousand years old, but we are different and so we see different things in it. The version of The Odyssey we saw at the American Repertory Theater last year gave us one look at war and trauma, Penelope at Lyric Stage gave us another, and Circe a third.

We come back to the story because we keep finding ourselves in it.