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Looking for some good space Opera/Adventure novels, Any recommendations?
Matthew
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Just what the title says. I've been looking for some good books in this genre for awhile now. I bought Heinlein's "To sail beyond the sunset" a bit ago, but it looks to me like Heinlein may not be my thing totally. I like Dan Simmons though, and loved his "Ilium/Olympos" series.
So, any recommendations?
So, any recommendations?
Matthew on
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Take note, if you check out the Night's Dawn Trilogy in paperback, each book has been subsequently broken up into a further two books, so it's actually six books.
I was coming in to recommend this series. If you're in the mood for a pulpy space opera, you really can't go wrong with this one. The archetypes are pretty much all there, but his snappy writing and entertaining characters manager to rise the story up a bit.
I would recommend stopping after the fifth book though. I prefer that 'ending' to the one that actually you know, ends the book.
Plot summary: Ex-intelligence agent turned private eye is hired by alien robot spiders that run the train system connecting all of inhabited space to stop a massive conspiracy.
The first book is called Night Train to Rigel (which is odd, as I don't recall them actually visiting Rigel in the book...).
Note that this stuff is old, and therefore contains a lot of dated ideas, and things someone used to more modern Sci Fi may find odd, like a complete lack of computers. I personally find that's one of the series biggest charms.
If you are looking for authentic, two fisted, manly, indestructible space heroes who like their steak rare and their women buxom and fiery, you can't do much better. Also there are just tons and tons of fun aliens, locations and situations.
QX Spaceman, clear ether!
Science fiction struggles to strike a balance between grandiosity and verisimilitude. If the former is ascendent, it veers towards fantasy. At its greatest, this sort of excess is expressed in Tales of the Dying Earth or Star Wars. Stories that are impossibly grand. At the other end of the spectrum, you have A Rendevous with Ranma or Neuromancer or Contact. Part of the pleasure of this science fiction is its tantalizing possibility: maybe not now, but soon.
With sheer imagination, the gap between grandiosity and verisimilitude disappears. Great and terrible things seems all the more so because of their possibility. So, my recommendations would be (in order of sheer awesomness) Schismatrix by Bruce Sterling Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks, A Fire Upon The Deep by Vernon Vinge, and Revelation Space by Alistair Reynolds.
If your preference is more towards the adventure elements, I suggest The Demon Princes by Jack Vance. It is an epic story of revenge. After his parents are slaughtered by the five most notorious outlaws in human space, Kirth Gersen is raised by his grandfather as the perfect instrument for vengeance.
A Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
Armor by John Steakley
Star pf the Guardians, thats it.
See how many books I've read so far in 2010
Drake speaks the truth, and his Family d'Alembert and Skylark series also qualify.
pulpy sci fi space opera kinda stuff. Lots of space battle action.
but they're listening to every word I say
This guy is fantastic. I have a few of his books and they've all been great space operas.
It's a pseudo-sequel to Manifold: Time which is also a great book, but they're not really related so you can go for Space first. In fact everything he's written is pretty great, but Manifold: Space has a ridiculously awesome ending.
I'm going to second this. I read it long before finding out about all the craziness of Scientology. Then you realize that the man can write well enough to make his own religion, about aliens, and have a lot of people believe in it.
The whole Manifold trilogy is pretty interesting, but I wouldn't exactly call them space operas.
I would second the Hamilton recommendation - he is seems to have space opera on the brain, in a good way. He is pretty prolific too, so if you do like his stuff you will have at least three space opera series of his to sink your teeth into
I've been trying to hawk that here for a while, never seen anyone else mention it before. It's great for what it is...
Another vote for Donaldson's Gap - and an echo on the disturbing themes and unlikable protagonists. Donaldson loves those! (See: Covenant, Thomas)
http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198006524737
I love the Gap Cycle, and it is excellent space opera. It is not Hard sci fi by any stretch of the imagination, though. At all. Serious themes, strong internal consistency and dark characters have nothing to do with whether or not sci fi is hard. It has to have a basis or be extrapolated from one of the hard sciences to be hard sci fi.
Also, the Gap Cycle is based off of Wagners Der Ring des Nibelungen, possibly making it the most operatic of space opera. I used to listen them while reading the books and it works extremely well.
One major warning though. This series could have easily been named Rape in Space. There is a female character who is repeatedly brutalized. Repeatedly. I'm pretty thick skinned and I found some of it stomach churning, but then that is the point. If you can't take that sort of thing, save yourself the grief and just skip it.
Also, I hate to cast aspersions on some recommendations already given, but I'd avoid Battlefield Earth. It's really, really awful and best avoided.
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EDIT: I want to second John Scalzi. If you like Heinlein you will definitely like Old Man's War.
I mean, I can probably assume that you read the Cantos already because you said Dan Simmons in your OP, but just in case you have not, srsly do this. You will not be sorry.
edit: Okay, just in case. Four books:
Hyperion
The Fall of Hyperion
Endymion
The Rise of Endymion
GO.
The real story is tough to get through. but that is part of the point. Tho to be fair, Morn is not the only one to get raped. i think angus gets the worst of it. in the afterward donaldson describes how he, quite masterfully, swapped the hero-victim-villian archetype around to every charecter in the series. really powerful series. leaves you wondering how deep anyone's game is.
to add some more:
iain m. banks culture books.
niven & pournelle, pretty much everything. apart they are merely ok. they really work best together tho.
heinlein in general.
battlefield earth is, well, pulp. its an ok read, theres alot of it, but just not very good.
This. One million times this. No hero is as heroic as a Lensman. Green Lanterns are totally a ripoff of them. Kimball Kinnison is the manliest man ever.
Heinlein short stories are really great. And Starship Troopers. And Lazarus Motherfucking (hehehe) Long.
Ray Bradury Mars stories are wonderfully poetic and sad. He's a wonderfully talented writer.
Jack Vance is pure gold.
It's certainly not hard sci-fi, but I consider it further along that spectrum than stuff with no "sci" at all, like Star Wars. A lot of the ship physics and technology are reasonably, uh, crunchy, I guess. Anyway, I wouldn't say it isn't at all hard, although there are plenty of soft elements.
Danger--more serious far in that it was not external--was even then, all unsuspected, gnawing at the great ship's vitals. In a locked and shielded compartment, deep down in the interior of the liner, was the great air purifier. Now a man leaned against the primary duct--the aorta through which flowed the stream of pure air supplying the entire vessel. This man, grotesque in full panoply of space armor, leaned against the duct, and as he leaned a drill bit deeper and deeper into the steel wall of the pipe. Soon it broke through, and the slight rush of air was stopped by the insertion of a tightly fitting rubber tube. The tube terminated in a heavy rubber balloon, which surrounded a frail glass bulb. The man stood tense, one hand holding before his silica-and-steel helmeted head a large pocket chronometer, the other lightly grasping the balloon. A sneering grin was upon his face as he awaited the exact second of action--the carefully pre-determined instant when his right hand, closing, would shatter the fragile flask and force its contents into the primary air stream of the Hyperion!
Taken from the Project Gutenberg ebook
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Good lord, that's a huge ripoff of Simmons' Endymion series.
Although not exactly hard science fiction, it is definitely space opera, Iain M. Banks' Culture series.
Oh, and Greg Bear's The Way series and Forge of God stuff.
...and David Brin's Uplift Saga. Startide Rising is the best of the first trilogy and the one that best fits the space opera request. Sundiver is a little weak.
Ok, I'll stop.
For now.