Reddit mentions of Robotech: The Macross Saga, Vols. 1-3 (Genesis / Battle Cry / Homecoming)

Strange thought, but the novelizations of Robotech (Macross) are BSG-like in that they focus on a ship carrying refugees during a war.

Incredibly well-regarded anime, and the novels avoid many of the juvenile aspects of the Americanization.

Edit: vol 1 of 2 - https://www.amazon.com/Robotech-Macross-Genesis-Battle-Homecoming/dp/034538900X

I see you're looking for other spanning epics. Try the Jack McKinney Robotech novel series. While it's a bit in the opposite direction of The Expanse (books are based off of a TV show rather than vice versa), the novels expand on the TV show and actually bring the sci-fi a little closer to "hard" sci-fi. There's still a bit of hand-wavey sci-fi, but nothing stranger than the [General](/s "protomolecule; in fact, in Robotech, it's called "protoculture""). I was startlingly surprised on how well the books were written. I do face-palm a little at the Zendraedi names, but man, it was the 80's. Their flight suits had bellbottoms and they thought "the disco" would still be a thing in 2011. Some mistakes were made. But if you can get past what we can call "cultural anomalies" you're in for a real treat of character-centric epic sci-fi.

Though, to be fair, I recommend "volumes" 1-6 (which would be novels 1 and 2 in most formats the way that they're sold now). Those books cover the Robotech Saga; later books deal with unrelated stories forced into the Robotech universe and, frankly, aren't as good. McKinney did what he could with the source material, but there are a bit of mental gymnastics he had to deal with. That said, including Southern Cross & The Invid Invasion makes the series multi-generational, which is something that fantasy rarely pulls off, and even those that do don't necessarily pull it off well. While I have my quibbles with the later series, they did pull off that aspect well, and had Harmony Gold had a little more leeway with the source material, they could've made it an absolutely incredible series, especially for what was early 1980s storytelling.

Yeah, just fantastic stuff. Written by "Jack McKinney" which was a pen name that the writers James Luceno and Brian Daley used when writing together before Daley's death.

They came out in timed releases, the first 3 at once and then one novel every month or so but they have compendium volumes available now - https://www.amazon.com/Robotech-Macross-Genesis-Battle-Homecoming/dp/034538900X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1481498018&sr=8-1&keywords=robotech+novels

The sequel series The Sentinels was also fantastic and I wish they'd animated it.

You can still buy them on Amazon. Each of the bigger books just combines three of the smaller ones.