Space opera books

timbob said:
This.

Night's Dawn is sheer brilliance. Read the whole thing three times now. Might be time for go number four!
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I was going to suggest this too. I started reading the reality dysfunction a long while ago but never got around to finishing it. I now have them all on my kindle ready to read and they're next up.
 
Meridian said:
Why do people do this? Name one book or series (usually a bad one) and think they can claim an end to the argument. Is it supposed to be funny? The HH books are Hornblower in Space. Read the real thing and don't bother with Weber's pale imitation. Elizabeth Moon does it better as well, if you stick to true SF.

I agree with the Banks, but he's only just Space Opera. True Space Opera is pretty much dead in print, and has been for fifty years. Harry Harrison was mocking it (in Bill the Galactic Hero) right back in the Seventies. E E "Doc" Smith is acknowledged master, but his style is VERY dated (the books date back to the 1930s). Many writers have a dabble, though. The series by Walter Jon Williams starting with The Praxis is fun. The books of Neal Asher are pretty much Space Opera: start with "Gridlinked". Simon R Green also writes the stuff, mainly the "Deathstalker" series: not great literature, but great fun. Alistair Reynolds gets close in some of his books as well. But as I said, it's rare these days.
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I said /thread!!! So you are not allowed to reply.
 
Try some:

Alistair Reynolds - Revelation Space Series is a good place to start. House of suns and Pushing ice are also noteworthy but probably not on the scale you are after.

Iain M Banks - Any of the Culture novels in particular Consider Phlebas and Excession (his latest stuff is a bit sub par however :(). Against a Dark Background is a little more gritty and less huge in scope but still very good. And my all time favourite book The Algebrist, quite simply stunning!

Dan Simmons Hyperion Cantos and Endymion Cantos have already been mentioned. They are epic in just about every way. He went off the burn a bit with Olympus and Illium but if you ever felt the urge to read a greek mythology/sci fi mashup then there really is nothing quite like it.

Suprised no one has mentioned Assimov's Foundation series. A little bit dated now but still one of the best Space Operas ever written and even more impressive when you consider how long ago it was written.

I will shortly be looking for some more sci fi to read. Been on a bit of a fantasy bender recently and I cannot wait to be finished with the utter rubbish that is a Song of Ice and Fire!

/Salsa
 
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Salsa said:
Been on a bit of a fantasy bender recently and I cannot wait to be finished with the utter rubbish that is a Song of Ice and Fire!

/Salsa
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If you think SoIaF is bad, I really can't wait to hear what you think is good. Because there are only two fantasy writers alive who are better: LeGuin and Wolfe. Martin certainly has his faults (mainly the same bloat which afflicts almost all fantasy writers), but he's still better than pretty much everyone else. But that's a bit OT.


Back OT, I did think of the Foundation books, but I'd argue that they aren't even remotely Space Opera. That said, it's more than thirty years since I read them.
 
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