So the first book took 15 episodes ( full season 1 + first 5 episodes of season 2 ) while the second book finished on S3E6 making it 14 episodes long. For the most part both stories were very close to the books; yes we have some early character introduction and we have a few swapping of events in time (f.e. in the show the rocinante visits the Anubis before going to Eros, while in the book they do it after Eros ) but I consider these just minor changes. Now for the third book things are going a lot faster; with just 3 episodes we reached about half of the book; there are a lot of changes with key characters completely missing/being replaced ( too bad Anna is still there .. never liked her in the books, but at least they are making her better in the show ). So I wonder if they knew already about the show being shelved and they decided to rush it to give closure, or maybe I'm just remembering things wrongly and they aren't rushing it ?