July SFFKit : Space Opera

Here to the wonders and dangers of space opera !
The emblematic

yay!

LT doesn't want me to add covers, so here's a list of possible novels :

Ken MacLeod: Newton's Wake: A space opera
Walter Jon Williams : Implied Spaces
Helne S. Wright: A Matter of Oaths
Sarah Zettel: Fool's War
Jack McDevitt: A Talent for War

And now touchstone doesn't work...

Love this genre. Until just recently I didn't realize that many of my favorites are considered Space Opera.

I've been thinking about returning to the Foreigner universe, but it's been so long since I read Inheritor that I really need to revisit the series from the beginning.

I also have the second Murderbot Artificial Condition waiting...

If anyone wants an alternate suggestion, I would recommend CJ Cherryh's The Pride of Chanur.

The pride of Chanur, the whole series is a wonderful work, with the talent of Cherryh imagining aliens and difficulties of communication ! I recommend it too.

The Honor Harrington series by David Weber is really good. I'll probably finish War of Honor this month.

If you go back to your message and hit edit, usually the touchstone will start working.

I have a lot that fit under this topic as well but these two I might actually get to; The Warrior's Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold and Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge.

I am going to be reading the first story in James' White's Sector General series, Hospital Station.

>8 DeltaQueen50: I am loving the Sector General series Judy (though I am not sure that I would call it space opera) - have fun!

I think that I might read A Hymn Before Battle by John Ringo, which has been hanging out on my Kindle for a couple of years.

>9 leslie.98: I'd say it's pretty Space Opera-ish, Leslie, especially the second book and the ambulance ship books. And White borrowed liberally from E. E. "Doc" Smith, who was one of the inventors of space opera, so the antecedents are there.

>8 DeltaQueen50: I have a copy of that book ordered and on the way!

Last year, I read the first in the Pyreans series, Empaths (by S. H. Jucha) - A space opera about an empath who murders the governor's nephew and seeks escape/refuge aboard the mining transport ship of Captain Jessie Cinders.The book started out very strongly, so I had grabbed the second book in the series, Messinants thinking I would continue right away on the heels of the first. Unfortunately, there was a lot of expository "science" and mechanics that brought 'Empaths' down, so 'Messinants' has been idling on my e-reader for a year! This seems like the time to knock it out and see if it can hold my interest :-)

I just read Fortune's Pawn by Rachel Bach for June's SFFKIT (aliens), so I think I'll continue with the series and read Honor's Knight for this KIT!

Hmm, I'm unsure what I'll be reading for this theme. Do you guys think The long way to a Small, Angry Planet qualifies? And what about The human division (#5 in the Old man's war series)?

Completed Behind the Throne by K.B. Wagers this afternoon. This debut novel is a fun bit of fast-paced action/political intrigue reading but I will be considering borrowing the further books in the series from my local library as opposed to purchasing.

>14 chlorine: I haven't read the Scalzi but The long way to a small angry planet may be considered as space opera for the world building, yes.

>16 h-mb: OK thanks for the information! I've been neaning to read it for a long time so I'll probably start with that!

I've read the 2nd of the Bobiverse books, For We Are Many, and moved straight on to the 3rd. Didn't think the 2nd quite lived up to expectations after the 1st which I'd read earlier this year but it's still a very good read. Getting hard to keep track of all the Bob's though.

I finished The Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge. This massive book (600 + pages) has it all. It is a space opera, AI, aliens, hard science, etc. I enjoyed it but now to write a review. I listened to the audio which was very well done.

>19 Kristelh: I have the audiobook of A Deepness in the Sky awaiting me... You have reminded me that this month would be a good time to listen to it!

I am currently reading Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds. I am enjoying it even though I am not sure I understand what is going on...

>19 Kristelh: I'm glad you liked A deepness in the sky! This is one of those books that when I read it, I got upset that I had waited so long before reading it. :p Don't you think it would have been perfect for last month's alien theme?

>20 leslie.98: I really liked Revelation Space and all the series as well! There are different possible orders for reading all the books. I followed the one given by LT and recommend it.

I've read and was a little disappointed by The long way to a small, angry planet. I thought it was a nice book but I guess I expected something more fleshy. The book exposes us to several species and shows that we must be tolerant to other ways of thinking and living, and to the fact that different people have different needs. I wholeheartedly agree with that but, I don't know, everything in this book was so nice... Also, I was very disappointed by a long monologue about how family relationships are the best because they endure through everything and how siblings always love each other and have each other's back. I'm lucky to belong to a family in which everything is fine but I'm sure people coming from dysfunctional families don't need to read that kind of normalized way of thinking, and I really didn't expect it from such a book.

>23 chlorine: Yes, one wonders if there is a thing as too nice

Finished Artificial Condition, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Hey! There are only three reads recorded in the Wiki so far! Please go asap and add your challenge book. 😁

I finally finished reading Messinants (Pyreans #2; by S. H. Jucha) and, sorry to say, it just wasn't very good. I've read and listened to more than a dozen of this author's works and, it's time to say "Good bye". I love the Silver Ships audiobooks but the two Pyrean ebooks I have really expose the writing flaws. It absolutely fails the Chekov's Gun test in that he spends a lot of time on meticulously explaining mechanics/technology, economy and deals, etc. that don't advance the plot. I found myself skimming through more than half the book, touching on plot points and vaguely recalling that this is what happened with Empaths, the first book in this series that I read last year. It's a shame, the idea held promise: The Empaths have the ability to send waves of emotion to other people. While therapeutic to the recipient, it also poses a danger when an empath's emotions turn dark. In the first book, one such empath is assaulted and she retaliates, sending her on the run. In the second book, she pretty much disappears as the focus turns to a time/space gate that is accidentally opened and First Contact between two alien species is established. I was hoping to get through the next two books in the series, after which it merges with Silver Ships, but now that I see the writing issues, I can't unsee them :-(

>27 Tanya-dogearedcopy: sorry it wasn't very good. Some authors need a strict editor to explain the finer techniques of writing, hmm?

I finished two books for this challenge. The first was A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine, which won the 2020 Hugo Best Novel Award last week. It's the first in a planned series and I thought it was quite good, though I found the pacing somewhat uneven. The main character contains memories of former beings, sort of like Dax if you're familiar with Star Trek DS9.

I also finished The Quantum Garden by Derek Künsken, the second in a series about humans who have been engineered into a new species, Homo quantus, whose brains can work in the quantum realm. There are a lot of big ideas and space battles in this book.