David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer’s The Space Opera Renaissance, a 941 page mammoth volume from 2006, is divided into six sections. I’ve already reviewed Section 1 (you can read my review here) and you can read my reviews of Section 2 here and Section 3 here, Section 4 here, and Section 5 here. Finally, done!
Section 6 includes some of my favorite Space Opera writers. The best, in my opinion, is Alastair Reynolds whose first novel, Revelation Space (2000), launched a series of wonderful Space Opera books–I’ll be reviewing them in the months ahead.
While Charles Stross is best known for his Laundry series of fantasy thrillers with Lovecraftean overtones, he wrote some Space Opera in his early writing years like “Bear Trap.” I’m also a big fan of Scott Westerfeld’s Succession series–The Risen Empire (2003) and The Killing of Worlds (2003) (The two books were re-published in 2005 in one volume, also titled The Risen Empire). Westerfeld then shifted his writing to Young Adult novels which have been very successful.
While I enjoy John C. Wright’s Space Operas, I can understand why some readers might feel uncomfortable with Wright’s tendency to “Go Big.” As Wright wrote: “I am a space opera writer. I like large themes, thunder, fury, and wonder. Why blow up a city when you can blow up a world?” Do you see what I mean?
Although it took me a year to get through all 941 pages of The Space Opera Renaissance, it was worth it! GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
VI. NEXT WAVE (TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY)
* 833 • Grist • (1998) • novella by Tony Daniel
* 873 • The Movements of Her Eyes • (2000) • novelette by Scott Westerfeld
* 892 • Spirey and the Queen • (1996) • shortfiction by Alastair Reynolds
* 914 • Bear Trap • (2000) • novelette by Charles Stross
* 929 • Guest Law • (1997) • novelette by John C. Wright
I have a suspicion that George Scithers, the founding editor of ASIMOV’S SCIENCE FICTION magazine (initially ISAAC ASIMOV’S SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE) held its shorter-lived companion, ASIMOV’S SF ADVENTURE MAGAZINE, even closer to his heart…even as the latter only lasted a year or so…but it was an attempt to establish another locus for space opera fiction, in the tradition of PLANET STORIES and a few other magazines in the previous decades, which had been loci of space opera fiction. It also seemed a reasonably sensible chance to take in the years just after STAR WARS had demonstrated audiences existed for at least fairly simple and straightforward space opera. The examples gathered in this anthology were certainly more sophisticated work in similar modes to what Scithers had hoped to perpetuate, and certainly what inspired the relative bubblegum of the Lucas film mythos.