The New Space Opera 2

Various authors

2009

Science Fiction

Published by EOS

HarperCollins (Australia)

Reviewer: Bob Estreich

It is a long time since I have enjoyed such an interesting range of possible futures in the SF genre. Nearly five hundred and fifty pages of well-written fiction cover all sorts of possibilities.

The term “space opera” used to be a derogatory term for lower quality science fiction, but of late it has come to mean stories spread across a wider stage peopled with larger-than-life characters, impressive technologies and galaxy-wide plots. Many of the characters are caricatures, often stolen from other genres (as in Mike Resnick’s Catastrophe Baker, a sort of Space Western, and the sort-of detective story A Canticle For Liebowitz, or Bill Willingham’s Fearless Space Pirates of the Outer Rings). The results can be a good laugh as well as good reading.

There seems to be a preference in this issue for spaceship Artificial Intelligences. What happens if a ship’s captain organizes a mutiny against her own ship’s AI? Or if the AI of a naval ship gets together with an enemy spaceship’s AI and they decide to stop a war? (A serious tribute to Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics).

There is a wealth of concepts in this book. Editors Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan have selected nineteen stories from as many authors, some quite well-known, and I didn’t find a dull story among them. I can’t summarise any particular story as an example as I don’t want to give away any of the plots. Give it a try. It may redefine “space opera” for you.

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This review will appear in Volume 2 No.5 (2009) of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.

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