Tales of the Rampant Coyote

Adventures in Indie Gaming!

Space Opera Week – Links to Cool Operatic Spacey Thingies!

Posted by Rampant Coyote on May 18, 2017

Okay – still hitting the space opera theme (I started this week with a review of a space opera novel quite by accident… but hey, let’s keep rolling with it).

Here is a very nice essay of what Space Opera is and what it should be: Wonder and the Soul’s Desire by Dominika Lein. It’s more inspirational than educational, but I like what Dominika is saying.

Brian Niehmeier joins with Yakov Merkin to discuss the art of writing non-human characters. You can listen in here, or check out Yakov’s older post about the subject here.

Barnes & Noble has a list of 55 “Essential” Space Operas of the Last 70 Years. There are some decent ones on the list.  The older ones resonate with me better, because they have managed to stand the test of time, whereas some of the newer ones (at least the ones I have read) didn’t always thrill me. Although… really, some of the older classics didn’t thrill me as much as others, either. So hopefully there’ll be books on the list for all tastes. 🙂 They also have a list of six comedy space opera novels. Because nobody said space operas have to be serious. Personally, I think they just ought to be fun!

Oh, and if you want a lot of Military SF eBooks for cheap… StoryBundle.com is running a Military SF bundle for the next 21 days, curated by Kevin J. Anderson!   StoryBundle.com Military Science Fiction Bundle.  I have a few of these already (some in paperback), and I’ve enjoyed them.

On the video game front, Everspace, the roguelike space combat game by Rockfish Games, is  finally being released in its full 1.0 glory next week. I’ve played the earlier releases a little, and I like it. Even if I die a lot. I look forward to giving the full version some play-time.

 

The teaser for the new Star Trek series dropped this week: Star Trek Discovery. If you haven’t seen it… it’s promising. Maybe not promising enough for me to sign up for another subscription-based streaming video channel, but it’s promising.

 

On the flip side, there’s a new space opera comedy / spoof that’s … well, hopeful. It ain’t Galaxy Quest. Sadly. But maybe it can aspire to such lofty heights. It’s called The Orville.

 

And one more! The new Honest Trailer for one of the all-time best SF / Space Opera movies OF ALL time… No, not Star Wars. ALIENS!

Anyway, enjoy your space adventures (or any other adventures) this week! Have fun!


Filed Under: Books, Links & Tidbits, Movies, Space Sims - Comments: 4 Comments to Read



  • Kyle Haight said,

    No space opera list that omits G. S. Jennsen’s “Aurora Rhapsody” can be considered complete. She’s a self-published indie author, though, so I understand why Barnes & Noble might not want to give her the publicity she has so richly earned.

    There is a lot of other good stuff on that list. It reminded me that there’s an entire trilogy by Neal Asher that I haven’t had time to read yet.

  • Rampant Coyote said,

    I’m unfamiliar with Aurora Rhapsody, Kyle. Sell me on it!

  • Kyle Haight said,

    It’s a trilogy of trilogies. The first two are complete; the third has one book out so far.

    I tried to write up a brief summary and I just can’t do it justice, so I’ll just give you the link to the author’s web page on the series. She sells her work much better than I can.

    I will say that I’ve read at least 75% of the stuff mentioned in the Barnes & Noble article, so I know my space opera pretty well. This one is special. It’s the kind of thing they don’t write any more, except here it is. It’s well written, strongly plotted, well characterized, optimistic, forward-looking and has a strong, unambiguous yet sophisticated moral compass.

    https://www.gsjennsen.com/aurora-rhapsody

  • Sunday Post: Space Opera Week - Notes from a Readerholic said,

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