Space Opera in Prose: Seeking Recommendations

[dewline]

Wondering if there's any such novels, one-offs or series, that I don't already have that might be worth a look-see...

Baseline assumptions regarding my tastes: I've got most of the Trek stuff I care about, Clarke's Odysseys, some of Niven's stuff for Known Space, Rob Sawyer's Starplex, most of the Honorverse books, Chris Claremont's Nicole Shea trilogy, and Jack McDevitt's Priscilla Hutchins stories among others. I'm also tempted to throw in David Brin's Earth given some of its angles.

Comments

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Some kind of baseline would be handy.

Night Shade Books is reprinting THE DRAGON NEVER SLEEPS at some point and the odds are you never came across it.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

Noted and the entry's been edited accordingly. Hope it helps.

[black13.livejournal.com]

Captain Future

http://thepulp.net/PulpWiki/wikka.php?wakka=CaptainFuture

[dewline.livejournal.com]

I read through the link on that. Looks like that series may have narrowly avoided becoming one of the comics series of the day, if I read the article correctly...

[black13.livejournal.com]

What it did become was a rather successful anime series.

[steve-roby.livejournal.com]

From wiki's Space Opera article:

New Space Opera

Starting with M. John Harrison's The Centauri Device in 1975 and, following a 'call to arms' editorial in Interzone, a number of writers, mostly British, began to reinvent space opera. This new space opera, which evolved around the same time cyberpunk emerged and was influenced by it, is darker, moves away from the 'triumph of mankind' template of space opera, involves newer technologies, and has stronger characterisation than the space opera of old. It does, though retain the interstellar scale and grandeur of traditional space opera. New space opera is therefore scientifically rigorous while ambitious in scope. Among the practitioners of the new space opera are Iain M. Banks, Peter F. Hamilton, Alastair Reynolds, Stephen Baxter, Paul McAuley, John Clute, Charles Stross, M. John Harrison, John C. Wright, Simon Green, and Ken MacLeod.

I've read some Harrison (though most of his stuff, aside from The Centauri Device and, apparently, parts of Light, is not space opera at all), Banks, Baxter, and MacLeod, and I have some as yet unread books by most of the others. Definitely some good stuff in this area.

[quietdarkness.livejournal.com]

I like a lot of Jack Chalker's SF writing. The fantasy stuff is good, but not really my cup of tea. Unfortunately, a lot of his works are out of print. Web of the Chozen is a good stand alone book and The Rings of the Masters series is one of my favorite SF stories of all time.

Also, James Tiptree Jr. has written some fine books, too, if you can find them.

John Barnes has written some good ones, too. Mother of Storms is probably my favorite, but he's done some great juvenile novels, too.

My husband recommends Peter F. Hamilton, and novels set in the Liaden Universe, by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller.

[querldox.livejournal.com]

The "Hope" series about Nicolas Seafort by David Feintuch might be of interest. I have the odd perspective of positively despising the lead character on just about every ground imaginable, but finding the books major page-turners.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

I remember leafing through one or three of those at the supermarkets on occasion while that series was still in progress. One of your more self-loathing protagonists if ever there's been one...

A few series for you....

[(Anonymous)]

Dont know if this is still active, but I found it via google looking for rec's myself, having found one I feel required to share my own :)

Lt Leary Commanding by David Drake, its akin to Honor style books... The Stardoc books, by some chick who's name I dont remember.. it's all based on in a starport but still very space opera.. Oh and lest I forget, my all time favorite hard sci fi series that begins with, A Fire Upon the Deep, by Vernor Vinge.. its sequal, a Deepness in the Sky, is imo the best sci fi book ever written.... and I read a lot of sci fi :)

Many would argue that with me I'm sure... and its not so much space opera but maybe.. read it anyways.... lemme think of some more space opera tho.... I dont think I saw Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga mentioned... you can put it down once you get to 'falling free' much like the Honor books especialy in that they lost steam as they went on...

Anyways, hope you like something in there...

NomadX

Re: A few series for you....

[dewline.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the suggestions, friend. I've been considering taking a closer look at the Stardoc stuff for a while now, and the one bit of Vorkosigan stuff I saw in Analog a few years back struck me as intriguing, but I haven't yet gotten around to following up on that properly.