The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Space Opera

Posted on | August 23, 2013 | 165 Comments

—Wombat-socho

Last week we looked at classic military SF involving soldiers on the ground; this week, we’re going to do the same with space navies.
Any discussion of space opera HAS to start with E.E. “Doc” Smith, who single-handedly created the genre with two epic series. The Skylark of Space is the first of four novels in which Richard Seaton matches wits, engineering skill and diplomacy against his nemesis, “Blackie” DuQuesne, in an epic struggle prefiguring the battles between Reed Richards and Victor von Doom. To give you some idea of the scale Smith was operating on here, by the fourth novel Seaton and DuQuesne have been forced to join together in an epic intergalactic war against psionic chlorine-breathing aliens who seek to exterminate humanity and its allies, and the weapons are entire suns teleported from a third galaxy into the home systems of the chlorine-breathers so as to trigger novae. More familiar to most fans are the Lensman novels, which begin with Triplanetary and continue on for five more novels concluding with Children of the Lens. These chronicle the adventures of the Galactic Patrol, its leaders the incorruptible Lensmen, and especially Kimball Kinnison, the protagonist of most of the novels and the first Second Stage Lensman. Battles interplanetary, interstellar and finally intergalactic are found in plenty, with humanity and its allies not always having the technological edge. Pretty much everything that comes in later space operas is rooted in Doc Smith’s works, no matter how dated they seem now. Truly, he’s one of the giants on whose shoulders modern SF stands.

Space operas were very popular in the 1920s and 1930s, with John W. Campbell Jr., Jack Williamson (The Legion of Space), and Edmond Hamilton (Crashing Suns, Captain Future) all making their names in the subgenre; Isaac Asimov’s Foundation and Foundation and Empire both have plenty of space opera content, especially in the second novel where the Foundation finds itself fighting first the dying remains of the Galactic Empire and then the implacable armadas of the Mule. Campbell’s early works can be found in the collection The Works of John W. Campbell .

After that, space opera died out for a few decades as larger-than-life supermen and wars on a galactic scale got shoved into the background in favor of things like character development, dystopias, and other topics not so reminiscent of SF’s pulp ancestry. However, the 1970s brought us (along with the accursed “New Wave”) two new takes on the old space opera theme. Larry Niven’s Protector brought large-scale warfare into Known Space for the first time (there would be more later, as Niven opened up the Man-Kzin Wars to other authors: The Best of All Possible Wars being a selection of the best of those) and C.J. Cherryh made a major splash in the field with the Hugo-winning Downbelow Station , which began the Alliance-Union series of novels. Orson Scott Card’s novelette that would later become a full novel, Ender’s Game , also came out in the 1970s; all brought a fresh approach to the genre.

The Mote in God’s Eye by Niven and Jerry Pournelle, not so much. While dealing with the classic themes of alien contact and having its share of flashy spaceship combat, The Mote in God’s Eye got criticized for all manner of things ranging from the form of humanity’s government (an empire? how archaic!) to perceived defects in the asymmetrical aliens and their society. Still, it’s a great book, a cracking good read, and a thumb in the eye for folks who thought traditional space opera was dead.

The 1980s brought Ian Banks’ Culture novels, which featured plenty of space warfare, often involving self-aware warships with names such as No More Mr. Nice Guy, So Much For Subtlety, I Thought He Was With You, Just Another Victim of The Ambient Morality, Shoot Them Later, and Now We’ll Try It My Way. Probably the best place to start is with Consider Phlebas . David Brin’s Startide Rising pits a single starship crewed by men and (mostly) dolphins against a smorgasbord of hostile aliens, and Dan Simmons’ Hyperion is also worth your time.

Probably the biggest/longest of all these space operas is the one written as a far future analog to C. S. Forester’s tales of Horatio Hornblower. I am of course referring to David Weber’s Honor Harrington novels, which begin with On Basilisk Station and now include thirteen novels in the main sequence, which does not include another nine novels in three spinoff series or the six “Worlds Of Honor” shared-universe anthologies; things have gotten complicated enough that there’s now an Honorverse companion, House of Steel, with enough technical detail to please the most obsessed of gearheads.

Also worth mentioning are the relatively recent Lost Fleet series by Jack Campbell (beginning with Dauntless), and Charles Stross’ Singularity Sky, which provides an interesting counter-argument to Arthur C. Clarke’s classic cautionary tale “Superiority”.

Two series that don’t fall neatly into last week’s post or this one are Chris Bunch and Allan Cole’s Sten Adventures, which start logically enough with Sten. Sten’s adventures as grunt, spy, pilot and commander for the Eternal Emperor make the series very hard to categorize, but it has something for pretty much everyone. Also not neatly shoved into a particular box is Michael Flynn’s Spiral Arm series, which starts simply enough with The January Dancer, gets completely out of hand in the two subsequent novels, and ends in On the Razor’s Edge with a pilgrimage to Holy Terra of the Taj, The Wall, and the Mount of Many Faces; a civil war among the Shadows of the Central Confederal Worlds; and a family reunion. Tasty adventure simmered in a rich stew of Indian, Chinese, Russian, American and Gaelic cultures before being served up hot and bloody. I cannot recommend these – or the Sten novels – highly enough.

I’m sure I’ve missed somebody’s favorites. Post your recommendations and complaints in the comments.

Category: Books

Comments

165 Responses to “Space Opera”

  1. MrEvilMatt
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 3:09 pm

    Space Opera: –Wombat-socho Last week we looked at classic military SF involving soldiers on the ground; this w… http://t.co/DcHC0IppMG

  2. CHideout
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 3:09 pm

    Space Opera: –Wombat-socho Last week we looked at classic military SF involving soldiers on the ground; this w… http://t.co/XSCssXSvTh

  3. jwbrown1969
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 3:09 pm

    Space Opera: –Wombat-socho Last week we looked at classic military SF involving soldiers on the ground; this w… http://t.co/ZRvP1nWsgl

  4. Lockestep1776
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 3:09 pm

    Space Opera: –Wombat-socho Last week we looked at classic military SF involving soldiers on the ground; this w… http://t.co/nsVBGJRytd

  5. Citzcom
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 3:09 pm

    Space Opera: –Wombat-socho Last week we looked at classic military SF involving soldiers on the ground; this w… http://t.co/n0t8H1pKa1

  6. Kirby McCain
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 3:14 pm

    You should be a guest at Dragon*Con.

  7. Shawn Gillogly
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 3:23 pm

    The lack of mention of Peter F. Hamilton would be criminal oversight on this one, as he’s pretty much the reigning king of the Space Opera (Confederation Series, Night’s Dawn Trilogy, multiple international bestsellers and solid on both technological and sociological insights.)

  8. richard mcenroe
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 3:23 pm

    Don’t forget A. Bertram Chandler’s John Grimes/Rim novels, whose protagonist starts out as a young Terran Survey Service officer with a gift for falling into the gaps between the needs of the situation and the expectations of his superiors, and ends up on the very edge of the galaxy where loyalties, tempers and reality itself often fray. Chandler based many of the stories and locales on his real life experiences as a tramp steamer officer and captain.

  9. richard mcenroe
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 3:23 pm

    Available, of course, from Baen.

  10. richard mcenroe
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 3:24 pm

    I thought his mating flight of the sentient starships was some wonderful writing.

  11. Shawn Gillogly
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 3:32 pm

    I agree.

  12. richard mcenroe
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 3:39 pm

    BTW, if you go back and reread the Lensman novels, you’ll be gobsmacked at how literally fascist they are. Never thought I’d agree with John Clute about much but it really pops out at you.

  13. Quartermaster
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 3:46 pm

    For the sake of the discussion, define what is meant by Space Opera. Things like the Harrington series do not strike me as operatic.

  14. tracycoyle
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 3:52 pm

    Can’t agree more on the Sten series, or Harrington.

  15. Colorado Alex
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 3:53 pm

    I was always a fan of The Star of the Guardians trilogy by Margaret Weis. Classic operatic themes like love, betrayal, and loyalty combined with classic elements like secret kings, evil wizards, plotting generals and such.

  16. rsmccain
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 4:01 pm

    “Space Opera” Book Review http://t.co/YKrCY27vHc by @wombat_socho #tcot #scifichat

  17. Tregonsee
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 4:18 pm

    Doc Smith is pretty much unreadable if you first encounter it as adult, but if you read it as a teenager, the sense of wonder always stays with you.

    I am a big fan of Weber, but the Honor Harrington books have gotten old and repetitive. I swear, I am rooting for the Sollies. Surely their huge technology base can come up with something which will as least give the Manties pause, and a little humility.

  18. K-Bob
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 4:40 pm

    I saw a recommendation in some article somewhere (Locus, maybe?), where the writer pointed out that the Lensman series was the precursor to the Green Lantern stories. It had a whiff of “authority” due to its appearance in whatever rag I was reading.

    So I plodded through them all.

    Man, was I pissed. Nowhere was this apparent. Dude must have been smoking something. There eventually were gems, as I recall. But nothing remotely like Green Lantern in any way.

    I did like the way the battle scenes were written though. The notion of men at stations with various pedals and wheels and levers was fun.

    I read the Seafort Saga books by David Feintuch. The storyline was decent, but I liked the shipboard life portrayal. Sort of an Old Royal Navy meets Modern Aircraft Carrier life–in space–but with very little of the social experiment crap that infests our military today.

    It was an appeal to personal discipline and ethics, and for that reason I liked it a lot.

  19. K-Bob
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 4:45 pm

    Like pr0n, you know it when you see it, I guess.

    I always placed Rocky Jones, Space Ranger and Flash Gordon in that “genre” myself.

    “Hard SF” stories involving space (Larry Niven’s “Known Space” stuff, for example) I never considered to be Space Opera.

  20. K-Bob
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 4:58 pm

    O/T, but it fits in here: The 50 Greatest Tweets ABout Ben Affleck’s Casting As Batman

  21. Dodd
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 5:07 pm

    I concur. Hamilton does space opera with fantastic elements grounded in plausibility.

    Also, Alastair Reynolds’ “Revelation Space’ series is fantastic hard-SF space opera. This was the first series I ever saw do combat at significant fractions of the speed of light in a believable way.

  22. Wombat_socho
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 5:12 pm

    Haven’t read him and didn’t feel qualified to express an opinion.

  23. Wombat_socho
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 5:12 pm

    DAMN IT. I had those down in my notes, too!

  24. Wombat_socho
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 5:13 pm

    That’s why I left most of Larry’s stuff out – there’s no space combat going on up there.

  25. Wombat_socho
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 5:15 pm

    This is a good summary of what I consider space opera. The lack of fat sopranos singing at the end Weber’s novels is a feature, not a bug. 😉

  26. Wombat_socho
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 5:17 pm

    I got into Doc Smith in late elementary school, but tried to reread the Skylark novels a couple years back and just couldn’t get past the second one.

  27. Wombat_socho
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 5:18 pm

    Well, back then it was considered the Wave Of The Future(TM) so it doesn’t surprise me too much.

  28. Wombat_socho
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 5:20 pm

    Waaaay too many people there for me to be comfortable.

  29. joshpainter
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 5:25 pm

    Space Opera? Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn trilogy and Hand of Thrawn duology. They’re all part of the Expanded Star Wars Universe, but the good news is that Luke finally gets laid.

  30. JeffS
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 6:10 pm

    I had the same thought, Richard!

  31. JeffS
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 6:11 pm

    I have some of the original “two in one” novels…….

    Heh heh heh heh!

  32. thatMrGguy
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 6:45 pm

    Space Opera http://t.co/enVjsc2brE

  33. Kirby McCain
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 6:54 pm

    But they’re your people.

  34. BobBelvedere
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 7:00 pm

    RT @rsmccain: “Space Opera” Book Review http://t.co/YKrCY27vHc by @wombat_socho #tcot #scifichat

  35. Steve Skubinna
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 7:15 pm

    Okay, you mentioned David Drake last week, but left him out here! I refer, of course, to the Daniel Leary series which seem to be more influenced by O’Brien than by Forester. Ripping good reads, devoid of the bleak cynicism permeating the Hammer’s Slammers series (not a criticism). Drake like to use historical events as his models, which makes for some amusing Easter eggs for readers with a historical bent. However, it isn’t necessary to have the background to appreciate the books.

    As for Campbell’s Lost Fleet series, his real name is John Hemry and he’s a retired Naval officer. Nobody that I have read, including David Weber, has put so much thought into the mechanics of fleet combat in relativistic space. I only wish Gene Roddenberry and George Lucas had heard of tactics… but recent authors such as Campbell and Weber have done a terrific job in imagining how fleets of starships might actually fight.

  36. JeffS
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 7:19 pm

    Not really a candidate for this topic, although something of a space opera, the “Family d’Alembert” series was supposedly based on notes from E. E. Doc Smith. I don’t recall but 6 or 8 (relatively) short books in the series, but they were a fun read. Still, the link to Smith is intriguing.

  37. Steve Skubinna
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 7:21 pm

    All the progressives were enamored of fascism back then. As Wombat notes, it was the wave of the future.

    What always amused me about Smith’s books was how casually technology was deployed. You wiped out the alien menace with your Eighth Level Rays, but then encountered a foe using Ninth Level Rays! Great Klono’s Aluminum Asshole! Quick, discover the Tenth Level Rays, build prototype weapons, and immediately upgrade the entire fleet of Super-Duper-Hyperdreadnoughts of the Void! Problem solved! Victory!

    Well, that was a narrow escape!

    Uh-oh! Eleventh Level Rays! Back to the lab, stat!

  38. Shawn Gillogly
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 7:22 pm

    Jack London rode the Fascist wave back in the day too.

  39. JeffS
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 7:24 pm

    So that’s were the writers for “Star Trek: The Next Generation” got their ideas from!

  40. Steve Skubinna
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 7:28 pm

    I dropped out of the Harrington series after War Of Honor. What Weber ended up with is what I call “Jack Ryan Syndrome,” where you’ve pushed your character as far as he can really go. What’s left for Jack Ryan, Pope? HH is basically at the point where she has to be Empress of the Universe.

    But the series up to then is solid, lots of space combat and politics and diplomacy, only spoiled somewhat (for me anyway) by the increasing episodes of The Importance Of Being Honor, in which Weber beats us over the head with what a wonderful Ubermensch she is.

    I agree with you about Smith. Today I still enjoy rereading him, even as I laugh and poke big holes in his stories and laugh at his formulaic cliche-ridden writing. Sort of like Howard’s original Conan stories.

  41. Shawn Gillogly
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 7:28 pm

    Space Opera is the Sci-Fi counterpart to Epic Fantasy. The Universe-building, societal structures, and mythology get a lot more attention than they do in Military Sci-Fi, which I would call the Sci-fi counterpart to “Low Fantasy.”

    Night’s Dawn is to Sci Fi as Lord of the Rings is to Epic Fantasy. Honor Harrington is to Military Sci-Fi like The Black Company is to Low Fantasy.

    Space Opera is about big stakes and huge fleets, usually with several factions and PoVs from each. Babylon 5 and Star Wars are on-screen Space Opera. Starship Troopers (lamentably) is the on-screen equivalent for Military Sci-Fi. With Continuum being the close cousin, Cyberpunk.

  42. Shawn Gillogly
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 7:30 pm

    That is commonly known as “Space Fantasy.” Close cousin to Space Operas, to be sure. Star Wars is properly one of these, at least until Lucas tried to deconstruct The Force in the prequels.

  43. Shawn Gillogly
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 7:31 pm

    Love Zahn’s Thrawn work. Probably that and the Rogue Squadron stories are the only things worth reading from it.

  44. Steve Skubinna
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 7:35 pm

    If you liked the Seafort books you really should check out Drake’s Leary novels. Leary is an cheerful character with none of the self doubt Feintuch gave Seafort – in some ways he may be a mirror image. Although completely heroic there’s something of Flashman’s appeal in him. In some ways I think of him as somebody out of P.G. Wodehouse – except competent. Maybe combine Jeeves’ sense of duty, intellect and judgement with Bertie’s cheerfulness, insouciance and loyalty to his friends, and sense of noblesse oblige.

    Drake’s Republic of Cinnabar is an interesting meld of Georgian England with Late Republican Rome – in space.

  45. arioch1066
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 7:37 pm

    I think the Legion series by William Dietz would qualify as Space Opera. The Cobra series by Zahn as well. And Chris Bunch has a series about the Last Legion also.. Oddly, I’ve gone 30 plus years without ever reading any Doc Smith, unless it was a short story in an anthology. Weird.

  46. Quartermaster
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 7:44 pm

    From the looks of things it’s mainly what you think it is. The lack of the chubby soprano at the end doesn’t phase me, and I don’t really care if someone thinks it’s Opera, although that tarted out as a pejorative term, according to Wiki.

    I know what I like, and I liked Trek and the Harrington series, if y’all want to call it opera, that’s fine with me. Seeing that it’s related to the term “Horse Opera” pretty much nails it for me. I liked those as well.

    Garry Owen, Y’all! 🙂

  47. Steve Skubinna
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 7:50 pm

    So do I. I see we both are likely to be the last men standing in the bleak post apocalyptic wasteland. I look forward to rereading some classic John Grimes between fighting off zombies.

  48. JeffS
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 8:05 pm

    Great minds think alike!

  49. Wombat_socho
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 8:21 pm

    So are all the folks at Otakon, and it’ll be a cold day in the Third Circle of Hell when I sign up for that.

  50. Wombat_socho
    August 23rd, 2013 @ 8:22 pm

    But then he was “shod with new shoes”, as the East Germans used to say about former Nazis in the Stasi and Peoples’ Army.