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beep-beep car is go
Apr 11, 2005

I can just eyeball this, right?



I admit it. I love Space Opera. Realistic? Not really. Swash-buckling? Sometimes. Melodramatic? gently caress yes. I checked back 10 pages and didn't see a Space Opera thread, so now is as good a time as any to set one up.

From Wikipedia

Wikipedia posted:

Space opera is a subgenre of speculative fiction or science fiction that emphasizes romantic, often melodramatic adventure, set mainly or entirely in space, generally involving conflict between opponents possessing powerful (and sometimes quite fanciful) technologies and abilities. Perhaps the most significant trait of space opera is that settings, characters, battles, powers, and themes tend to be very large-scale.

Some of my favorites include:

David Brin's Uplift Universe novels

Alastair Reynold's Relevation Space Universe (a personal favorite)

What about you? Surely I can't be the only one who loves this kind of Sci-Fi. Do you have recommendations for more?

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Runcible Cat
May 28, 2007

Ignoring this post

Iain M Banks' Culture novels, of course.

Peter Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy. Great fun except for an incredibly sucky ending that was actually telegraphed all through the books. Except I thought it couldn't possibly be that crap and obvious. Fool that I was. It was worse. He's written other space operas too, but I'm staying off him so someone else will have to oblige.

Those are both semi-hard-sf series, as are the two you mentioned, in the sense that they do try for a veneer of scientific possibility; there's also the more science-fantasy space operas which are basically fantasy with sf terminology - Star Wars-type stuff. Simon Green's Deathstalker series is a good examples of this - they're great fun, but there's no attempt at plausible astronomy or science.

Can we include the subgenre of planetary romances too, in a spirit of inclusivity? If so, Edgar Rice Burroughs is the daddy, and everyone should read his Mars books for starters.

hey mom its 420
May 12, 2007

Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space universe is awesome, I really enjoyed all the books that are set in it (haven't read The Prefect yet) except for Absolution Gap. The end just fizzles out and the parts taking place on Hela drag out a bit sometimes, although it's much more character oriented than the previous books, which is really cool, because the characters are mostly interesting, especially Scorpio.
I really wish he had concluded the book by just having the shadows give them some technology with which to combat the Inhibitors or just coming in and destroying the Inhibitors themselves.

4 Day Weekend
Jan 16, 2009
Yeah the first half of Absolution Gap was great, and then the ending was really hosed up. I really liked the beginning prologue/subplot of Quaiche too.

uruloki
Jan 8, 2007


SHIT YEAH, REQUISITION ME SOME OF THAT SHIT, BITCH

SKILCRAFT
QUALITY BLIND MADE PRODUCTS, BITCH
If you want the original space opera (things get more and more powerful) with strong undertones of racism/eugenics, you can't skip E. E. "Doc" Smith's Lensmen series.

Mr.48
May 1, 2007
Just wanted to give a shoutout to my favorite space-opera novel: In Conquest Born by C.S. Friedman. It remains one of my overall favorite novels to date.

NastyPBears
May 2, 2003

Robots don't say "ye"
Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise by Charles Stross both count I think.

Most of the action is on the ground though and the main two characters are secret agent types.

The first is set on a world that is set up like Tsarist Russia, they are visited by "The Circus" which gives people on the planet whatever they want, then sits back and watches what happens. A bunch of revolutionaries ask for weapons and then it goes weird.

The second features space nazis and is set just after a planet is destroyed and the survivors launch and counter-attack against the wrong people. There is a period of time before the counter-attack hits so the race is on to prevent it.

Anyway, I've read most of Charles Stross' stuff and these are my favourites by miles.

edit: I tried reading Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds but couldn't get into it. I mostly remember thinking "infighting archaeologists? Yawn..." was I wrong or are the other books better?

beep-beep car is go
Apr 11, 2005

I can just eyeball this, right?



quote:

edit: I tried reading Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds but couldn't get into it. I mostly remember thinking "infighting archaeologists? Yawn..." was I wrong or are the other books better?

I found the beginning of Revelation Space to be pretty slow, but rest assured things get better from there. I would almost say you can skip Revelatio. space entirely and not lose out on much. I preferred the second book, Chasm City much more.

Jet Jaguar
Feb 12, 2006

Don't touch my bags if you please, Mr Customs Man.



Shampoo posted:

I found the beginning of Revelation Space to be pretty slow, but rest assured things get better from there. I would almost say you can skip Revelation. space entirely and not lose out on much. I preferred the second book, Chasm City much more.

I really loved the warchive and the combat armor of Revelation Space. Speaking of Reynolds, I have most of his Conjoiner/Demarchist short fiction in various Dozois "Year's Best Science Fiction" anthologies, but have they ever been published as a whole?

Robert Reed's stories about The Ship, a giant derelict discovered by humans and turned into a cruise ship around the Milky May, are pretty good. Though I think I liked the novella form of Marrow more than the actual book it evolved into.

Tiny Timbs
Sep 6, 2008

Jet Jaguar posted:

I really loved the warchive and the combat armor of Revelation Space. Speaking of Reynolds, I have most of his Conjoiner/Demarchist short fiction in various Dozois "Year's Best Science Fiction" anthologies, but have they ever been published as a whole?

Yeah his short stories have been published in their own compilations. You can look up his Wikipedia page for the titles, I think Galactic North is one of them.

Shampoo posted:

I found the beginning of Revelation Space to be pretty slow, but rest assured things get better from there. I would almost say you can skip Revelatio. space entirely and not lose out on much. I preferred the second book, Chasm City much more.

Revelation Space starts off slow but I think it'd be silly to skip Part 1 of 3 and read Chasm City instead, which is actually just a one-off book set in the same universe/time period.

Morlock posted:

Peter Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy. Great fun except for an incredibly sucky ending that was actually telegraphed all through the books. Except I thought it couldn't possibly be that crap and obvious. Fool that I was. It was worse. He's written other space operas too, but I'm staying off him so someone else will have to oblige.

I HATED the Night's Dawn trilogy, and after I finished it I was pretty much certain that Peter Hamilton was a terrible half-assed pulp writer. However, I found the Commonwealth Saga marginally better and am actually really enjoying the first book of The Void Trilogy.

For those who've read the Commonwealth books: I never really bought the idea that people are so comfortable with the idea of re-life. How could you possibly get around the fact that a clone with an older set of your memories isn't at all a continuation of your consciousness but instead more like having a twin that starts where you left off? The people in these books are completely comfortable with taking risks because in the end they'll just get re-lifed anyway.

Tiny Timbs fucked around with this message at 04:56 on Jun 8, 2009

Velius
Feb 27, 2001

Fallom posted:


For those who've read the Commonwealth books: I never really bought the idea that people are so comfortable with the idea of re-life. How could you possibly get around the fact that a clone with an older set of your memories isn't at all a continuation of your consciousness but instead more like having a twin that starts where you left off? The people in these books are completely comfortable with taking risks because in the end they'll just get re-lifed anyway.

I don't recall people being sanguine about death due to re-lifing. That's not really a spoiler in any event, the concept of re-lifing is a pretty basic premise to the universe.

The concept of electronic records of consciousness/memory is a fairly common staple in modern sci-fi anyway, although not so much in space opera, I guess. I don't recall any cases where people are unaware of the fact that death of the body is the death of that particular instance of the consciousness, though. Probably the setting where people care the least is in Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon, where soul or personalitiy of person is continually backed up on chips implanted in the spinal cord. Death of the body alone is merely "organic damage", while "Real Death" is the idea of destruction not only of the body but also of the chip, that way continuity of experience/consciousness is explicitly broken. Then again, in that universe consciousness appears to be pretty much entirely electronically housed, since interstellar travel, for instance, is almost exclusively achieved by transmitting the digitalized personalities of people at FTL prior to downloading them into new bodies, so it's not exactly the same as if the body housed some part of the 'soul' or whathaveyou.

Grub
Jan 13, 2005
Depends on your version of romance and action etc, but I really enjoyed Stephen Donladson's "Gap series", 5 books that revolve around three main characters: a sadistic rapist pirate, a swarthy buckaneer arsehole, and a beautiful damsel/victim of unmentionable cruelty.

There's a lot of action, very graphic descriptions of a whole lot of horrible stuff, and it's very entertaining; plus, it kind of twists and turns in ways that makes each of the characters take turns at being the victim, saviour and so on.

Can be thoroughly depressing, but it's quite epic and has some aliens thrown in etc. Worth checking out, I'd say. Loosely based on Wagner's Ring Cycle operas.

beep-beep car is go
Apr 11, 2005

I can just eyeball this, right?



Oh, an oldie but goodie I forgot about are Frederick Pohl's Heechee books.

Tiny Timbs
Sep 6, 2008

Velius posted:

I don't recall people being sanguine about death due to re-lifing. That's not really a spoiler in any event, the concept of re-lifing is a pretty basic premise to the universe.

They absolutely are. In the book I'm reading right now, killing someone or dying is no problem because "they'll just get re-lifed anyway."

IonClash
Feb 27, 2007

I'm going to catch hell for this, but I really enjoyed The Saga of the Seven Suns by Kevin J. Anderson. I enjoyed the array of characters and locations. It's 7 books long and covers several alien races, their sub-races, and humans (as well as their separate cultures). It's a bit daunting to keep track of, and KJA likes to flip-flop between characters/locales quite a bit. They were still an enjoyable read though.

Ortsacras
Feb 11, 2008
12/17/00 Never Forget

Fallom posted:

They absolutely are. In the book I'm reading right now, killing someone or dying is no problem because "they'll just get re-lifed anyway."

I don't really understand the problem: they've had several centuries to get used to this concept, so of course they're more comfortable with it than we are.

Plus, I can't recall any specific instances of people saying "gently caress it, I'll do this crazy thing because who cares I'll just get relifed anyway," just lots of times where people get into dangerous situations and view that as a silver lining. All of the characters do their best to minimize risk and avoid dying, so I think you're misreading it. Unless there's a specific example you want to point to, which I certainly could be misremembering.

In any event, yeah, I'd agree that his Commonwealth books are somewhat better than Night's Dawn, but for a fan of space opera like the OP, Night's Dawn is absolutely great up until the ending. And I didn't mind the ending either, since a) it was, as has been said, telegraphed, and b) TBB routinely made it seem far more awful than it actually was, so lowered expectations worked for me. I got to the end and thought "THAT'S what everybody is saying was the worst atrocity in the history of the written word?"

In any event, OP, read the Night's Dawn trilogy and then move to Pandora's Star and its progeny - giant epic space opera about which you can form your own opinions.

Death Hamster
Aug 21, 2007
Is this a two-bagger I see before me?
For space opera, I'd go with David Weber's Dahak trilogy.

It starts off with Mutineer's Moon.

wikipedia posted:

"Author David Weber says the genesis for this book began with a question: 'Assume that Earth doesn't actually have a Moon, but rather a giant starship disguised as our Moon which has been there for at least 50 or 60,000 years. Where did it come from, why did it come here, and why hasn't it left?' Weber says the answer to those questions built the foundation for this book and its sequels."

I think it fits the bill for "space opera" perfectly.

EDIT: It's also available for FREE HERE!

Death Hamster fucked around with this message at 16:26 on Jun 9, 2009

Adar
Jul 27, 2001
Vernor Vinge is a co-definer of the genre and should be in the top five of any list.

Velius
Feb 27, 2001

Adar posted:

Vernor Vinge is a co-definer of the genre and should be in the top five of any list.

I don't think he's a definer of the genre as much as a transcender of the genre (hehe). Space opera has a generally low regard even within the field of sci-fi/fantasy, because a lot of it's more about world-building or nifty toys than science. Vinge manages to put amazing ideas together with interesting characters and conjure up an awesome storyline besides. A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky are both among my favorite novels, and for good reason; they're definitely the finest space opera I've read. The only author that comes close would probably be Iain M. Banks, and while I've only read a handful of the Culture novels they're good, but not to the same quality.

Vinge's Marooned in Realtime is more space-mystery than space opera, but it's also good stuff. Pity The Peace War is at least somewhat a prerequisite, since it's really not up to the standards of his other works.

On a similar nature as Vinge there's also Charles Stross's far future novels Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise, both of which are space-opera-y, but set in a less conventional setting of somewhat post-singularity humanity. They're good as well, and he has some cool ideas. I'd put them as on par with the Night's Dawn and Revelation Space series as far as how much I enjoyed them. Good, but less good than Vinge.

Velius fucked around with this message at 02:25 on Jun 12, 2009

Tiny Timbs
Sep 6, 2008

Velius posted:

Vinge's Marooned in Realtime is more space-mystery than space opera, but it's also good stuff. Pity The Peace War is at least somewhat a prerequisite, since it's really not up to the standards of his other works.

That series is really bizarre. The difference in scale between the first book and the second is quite a jump - from near future to megayears in the future.

muscles like this!
Jan 17, 2005


Maybe someone can answer my question but what's the deal with the title for the first Culture novel, Consider Phlebas? I just finished it tonight and have no idea why it was called that.

ShutteredIn
Mar 24, 2005

El Campeon Mundial del Acordeon

muscles like this? posted:

Maybe someone can answer my question but what's the deal with the title for the first Culture novel, Consider Phlebas? I just finished it tonight and have no idea why it was called that.

It comes from the T.S. Eliot poem the Wasteland:

IV. DEATH BY WATER


PHLEBAS the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep seas swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea 315
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward, 320
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.


As to how this relates... I don't remember :(

Oswald Kesselpot
Jan 14, 2008

HONK HONK HONK
The Matador Series by Steve Perry
The Seafort Saga by David Feintuch
Legion of the Damned series by William Dietz
The Paratwa trilogy by Christopher Hinz

I don't know if any of these would fall into the space opera category or not, but it is how I thought of them.

Kerbtree
Sep 8, 2008

BAD FALCON!
LAZY!
It's surfing the border between Cyberpunk and Space Opera, but nobody's yet mentioned the works of Neal Asher.

Set in a post-singularity universe, you've got strong AI, FTL travel, nanotech, mind up/downloads, exotic weapons, ancient races, big splodey things, political bullshit, some military action, small splodey things, lots of people shooting at each other and GIANT CARNIVOROUS SPACE CRABS.

The short story "Adaptogenic" set in the Polity universe can be read in it's entirety here.



Yes, I know about the mirrors thing. Shut up and enjoy it.

Kerbtree fucked around with this message at 00:38 on Jun 13, 2009

SickZip
Jul 29, 2008

by FactsAreUseless

ShutteredIn posted:

As to how this relates... I don't remember :(

It's about death and it's inevitability.

Phleblas was once strong and handsome. He "gripped the wheel and looked to windward", a captain of a ship who thought to navigate it through dangers, who looked ahead, who plotted and planned. Now he's dead, a forgotten corpse deep in the ocean, everything he was to nothing.

It's the same theme as the book. For all the drama, all the struggle; the protagonist died, his race died, his love died, his cause died.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

Adar posted:

Vernor Vinge is a co-definer of the genre and should be in the top five of any list.

I disagree only slightly. He's probably the best or one of the best writers of space operas right now, but the genre was defined in the 30's and 40's and 50's and 60's, and Vinge was only just getting started then. I think his first published story was like the last thing John W. Campbell approved or something.

I'd say that people like E.E. "Doc" Smith, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Campbell, etc. For a while it was probably primarily a television/film genre -- Star Trek and Star Wars are both space operas.

ConfusedUs
Feb 24, 2004

Bees?
You want fucking bees?
Here you go!
ROLL INITIATIVE!!





Mr.48 posted:

Just wanted to give a shoutout to my favorite space-opera novel: In Conquest Born by C.S. Friedman. It remains one of my overall favorite novels to date.

Have you read her Coldfire Trilogy? If so, how does In Conquest Born compare? The Coldfire books are awesome.

Grub posted:

Depends on your version of romance and action etc, but I really enjoyed Stephen Donladson's "Gap series", 5 books that revolve around three main characters: a sadistic rapist pirate, a swarthy buckaneer arsehole, and a beautiful damsel/victim of unmentionable cruelty.

The Gap Cycle was horrific. I felt emotionally off-kilter after each book, and it only got worse as the series went on. The writing was good, but the subject matter and plots were some of the most cruel things I've ever encountered, and almost every character is a complete rear end in a top hat.

I've been trying to read Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant and the main character there is an rear end in a top hat too.

Chairman Capone
Dec 17, 2008

The Foundation Trilogy by Asimov for me is and always will be the defining space opera. These are honestly probably my favorite books of all time, one of the few that I re-read regularly, and top Lord of the Rings and Star Wars as my favorite sci-fi/fantasy series. The various sequels/prequels not so much (although I prefer the sequels just because I really liked the characters of Pelorat and Trevize and the notion of revisiting the old Robot/Empire series planets even if the plot itself was a bit flat), but the original three books are THE gold standard of sci-fi for me.

Mr.48
May 1, 2007

ConfusedUs posted:

Have you read her Coldfire Trilogy? If so, how does In Conquest Born compare? The Coldfire books are awesome.

I did and loved those books to death. Although, I will say that In Conquest Born is a very different sort of book. No pseudo-fantasy here (not that theres anything wrong with that). Its more of a "hard" sci-fi variety, but Friedman has such a talent for creating fascinating characters that you just cant stop reading even if you're not a fan of hard sci-fi.

ConfusedUs
Feb 24, 2004

Bees?
You want fucking bees?
Here you go!
ROLL INITIATIVE!!





Mr.48 posted:

I did and loved those books to death. Although, I will say that In Conquest Born is a very different sort of book. No pseudo-fantasy here (not that theres anything wrong with that). Its more of a "hard" sci-fi variety, but Friedman has such a talent for creating fascinating characters that you just cant stop reading even if you're not a fan of hard sci-fi.

I'm fine with hard sci-fi. Like Chariman Capone above, Asimov is one of my favorite sci-fi authors.

Thanks for the recommendation. I'll definitely be picking that book up soon, probably this very payday. I've almost bought it half a dozen times before.

ZipOtter
Jul 22, 2007

Quick question about the Culture novels: Do these improve significantly after Consider Phlebas? I read it a while ago because I'm a huge fan of Vernor Vinge and was looking for something similarly epic/crazy but ended up hating everything about it. But I still think the Culture itself is a cool concept and would like to give the series another chance.

Runcible Cat
May 28, 2007

Ignoring this post

ZipOtter posted:

Quick question about the Culture novels: Do these improve significantly after Consider Phlebas? I read it a while ago because I'm a huge fan of Vernor Vinge and was looking for something similarly epic/crazy but ended up hating everything about it. But I still think the Culture itself is a cool concept and would like to give the series another chance.
Consider Phlebas is kind of the odd-one-out, since it was written from the POV of someone who's outside the Culture and hates it. I'd say it's worth you giving another one a go. Maybe Excession, if you like Vinge? Lots of Mind-to-Mind conversations in that....

syphon
Jan 1, 2001
Wasn't Consider Phlebas the first Culture novel written... by a long shot? I think I read 3 or 4 before it, and while it was good, it definitely wasn't as good as the others I've read.

I say, read Use of Weapons for a really good story (I heard that is Banks' favorite), or maybe Player of Games if you want to read a bit more about the Culture and its people.

ConfusedUs
Feb 24, 2004

Bees?
You want fucking bees?
Here you go!
ROLL INITIATIVE!!





I'll admit I have a soft spot for Alan Dean Foster's Pip and Flinx novels.

They're cheesy as gently caress but I love the universe they're set in. There's good guys and bad guys and weird guys, strange creatures and the odd psionic power.

He's been writing them for a long time now (over 30 years!) and some of the early books have hilariously anachronistic future technology, like the one where files are still physical files shrunk to microscopic size, opposed to data in a computer.

I admit I read them mostly out of habit, but I've never felt less than entertained. If I see a new one in the bargain bin, I'll pick it up for sure.

Velius
Feb 27, 2001

ZipOtter posted:

Quick question about the Culture novels: Do these improve significantly after Consider Phlebas? I read it a while ago because I'm a huge fan of Vernor Vinge and was looking for something similarly epic/crazy but ended up hating everything about it. But I still think the Culture itself is a cool concept and would like to give the series another chance.

I'm picking them up as they get re-released in the US, so I've read Consider Phlebas, Use of Weapons, and Matter, the latter two are significantly better than the former. Anyway, as I said above, if you're a fan of Vinge and/or into Singularity stuff, Charles Stross has some okay pre- and post-singularity stuff of quality.

Gravy Jones
Sep 13, 2003

I am not on your side

ZipOtter posted:

Quick question about the Culture novels: Do these improve significantly after Consider Phlebas? I read it a while ago because I'm a huge fan of Vernor Vinge and was looking for something similarly epic/crazy but ended up hating everything about it. But I still think the Culture itself is a cool concept and would like to give the series another chance.

If you hated absolutely everything about Consider Phlebas I wouldn't bother with any more Banks. It seems unlikely they would interest you at all.

"Improve significantly" is kind of a loaded question for someone who likes Consider Phlebas to answer. They might improve in some ways, but overall his other stuff isn't that much different. So from you perspective I'd say "no".

BurgerQuest
Mar 17, 2009

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
I have read almost every book mentioned in this thread so far :O I'm a sucker for this genre.

Pompous Rhombus
Mar 11, 2007

Hello Pity posted:

If you hated absolutely everything about Consider Phlebas I wouldn't bother with any more Banks. It seems unlikely they would interest you at all.

"Improve significantly" is kind of a loaded question for someone who likes Consider Phlebas to answer. They might improve in some ways, but overall his other stuff isn't that much different. So from you perspective I'd say "no".

I disagree completely, he said that he thought the Culture was interesting, but Consider Phlebas is told from the PoV of a guy antagonistic towards the Culture (and only hints at a lot of the stuff Banks develops in the later books). It's also stylistically different; more of a straight up thriller, whereas the other Culture books are a lot more psychological, have more intricate plots, etc. I'd at least give Use of Weapons a shot before writing him off completely, although I made that mistake and it kind of set my expectations too high for the other books (which are have all been very good so far, but haven't impressed me the same way)

I kinda hate on Vernor Vinge, maybe because of all the hype here and having read Banks first; by comparison his prose is so bland and flat, his characters are uninteresting, his pacing terrible (way too drawn out).

Trimson Grondag 3
Jul 1, 2007

Clapping Larry

Pompous Rhombus posted:

I'd at least give Use of Weapons a shot before writing him off completely, although I made that mistake and it kind of set my expectations too high for the other books (which are have all been very good so far, but haven't impressed me the same way)

I've always recommended Excession as the way in to the Culture books - it is more conventional than most of them and does a good job of world building the universe for the later stories. Use of Weapons is definitely a better book (and a good world builder as well) but i enjoyed reading it with the perspective of Excession.

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beep-beep car is go
Apr 11, 2005

I can just eyeball this, right?



Does anyone here read the Science Fiction Anthology magazines? Asimov's Science Fiction, Jim Baen's Universe, Analog, and Orion are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Seems like they might be a source for new stuff, but I never thought about reading them before.

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