Favorite Space Opera

[Muwhahaha]

I know there's a thread about this somewhere but Search function's down and I'm reading Poseidon's Wake and listening to Nemesis Games.....so, yeah, Space Opera favorites time. Mine?

Revelation Space

Culture (though not entirely "Space Opera" in my opinion but always worth a mention)

the Gap Cycle

Poseidon's Children

Paradox Series

the Expanse

the Commonwealth

Pushing Ice

House of Suns (yeah, I like Reynolds)

Hyperion Cantos (ALL FOUR!)

Saturn's Children/Neptune's Brood,

Not really Space Opera IMHO but worth a mention: Quantum Thief (Flambeur trilogy), Takeshi Kovacs, Dune (Frank's stuff) - it pretty much all takes place on Arrakis (excepting Chapterhouse) so I don't consider it Space Opera.

So.....what are y'all's favorites?

[Kat]

The Culture, and the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson

[The Marquis de Leech]

Probably the Vorkosigan Saga. Though I have a soft spot for The Gap (*literal* Space Opera!).

Hyperion would have been better off sticking to two books, or even one.

[Kojiro]

At one point I would have added Honorverse to this list, but Weber seems to be mostly phoning that in now.

[RedEyedGhost]

Vorkosigan is definitely tops for me.

[Darth Richard II]

Honoverse had a bad downward slump but was picking up a bit when I left off. But I'm like 3-4 book behind now so I dunno. It kind of had a wheel of time thing going where NOTHING happened for like 4-5 books then I remember a bunch of shit hit the fan ala Knife of Dreams. I'm ranting.

If the Culture counts then Jesus Christ the culture. Always the culture.

Most of the other ones you listed I've read are really good, except I uh, extremely dislike the last two Hyperion books.

[Werthead]

The Culture books by Iain Banks, of course. Alastair Reynolds is top drawer stuff, especially the Revelation Space universe stuff. The Vorkosigan Saga is pretty good, if a tad overrated.

My favourite space opera series of all time is Peter F. Hamilton's Night's Dawn Trilogy. His Commonwealth Saga and its sequel series (The Void Trilogy and Chronicle of the Fallers) are decent, but not quite on the same level apart from Pandora's Star, which is exceptional.

Stephen Donaldson's Gap Saga is excellent, but a tough read at times. Dan Abnett is more focused on ground activity than space combat, but his Gaunt's Ghost series is easily the best military SF series around. The Eisenhorn and Ravenor trilogies (which feature more interstellar travel) are also excellent.

Timothy Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy may no longer be canon to the Star Wars universe, but it's still very good popcorn entertainment.

Davin Brin's Uplift Saga is one of the best space opera series ever, if a bit inconsistent (especially as the first novel, Sundiver, is so poor, but fortunately it's skippable). But Startide Rising and The Uplift War are absolutely brilliant.

The Expanse is reasonably good, but I wouldn't quite put in the top tier of space operas at the moment (as of the third book anyway).

[Liffguard]

Currently The Expanse, with the Vorkosigan series running a close second.

[polishgenius]

As well as the ones mentioned, I like the Shoal sequence by Gary Gibson (I have the third cued to read soon, quite looking forward to it). It's not the highest level, but it's an enormous amount of fun, and plenty of wit and imagination in the world and characters. Notable for having a PoV character who is an alien who is actually alien in both appearance and behaviour yet nonetheless manages to be engaging, badass, and sometimes relatable.

Faith by John Love is the best standalone space opera I know of. It's a genre usually at its best in series but this is an extraordinary one-and-done. Best SF I've read for a decade.



One I'm reading right now that doesn't quite fit in but definitely exists in the borderlands is the Jacob's Ladder trilogy by Elizabeth Bear. It certainly features a lot of the plot elements and themes and set dressing that you'd expect from space opera - big epic clash-of-armies/political skullduggery storytelling, but it all takes place within the one ship.

[Liffguard]

Faith by John Love is the best standalone space opera I know of. It's a genre usually at its best in series but this is an extraordinary one-and-done. Best SF I've read for a decade.

I really liked Faith for about 95% of it but the ending didn't work for me. It would have been better without the infodump exposition at the very end.

[MinDonner]

The stupid ending of the Revelation Space trilogy ruined it for me. Of course I love the Culture and the Gap (duh) but oddly I can't think of any books in this genre that surpass my love of Babylon 5.

[The Killer Snark]

I'm in a minority on this forum re this writer, but I've always had a soft spot for Larry Niven's Ringworld books, even if after the first one the books are rather clumsily structured. I wouldn't class the Dune books as being space opera. They do take place on an enormous cosmic stage, but aren't primarily 'romantic' adventure novels. Otherwise, I'd list them first.

[Wilbur]

In addition to the excellent recommendations above, I would also include about half of Elizabeth Moon's writing.

Her book The Speed of Dark won the 2003 Nebula, but it isn't what I consider space opera.

However, she collaborated with Anne McCaffrey and Jody Lynne Ny to write the Planet Pirates books, which definitely are.

• Sassinak (1990), Anne McCaffrey and Moon
  
• The Death of Sleep (1990), McCaffrey and Jody Lynn Nye
  
• Generation Warriors (1991), McCaffrey and Moon
  

She has two space opera series of her own, which I enjoyed more than the Honor books and found to be almost as good as Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan series.

The Familias Regnant

• Hunting Party (1993)
  
• Sporting Chance (1994)
  
• Winning Colors (1995)
  
• Once a Hero (1997)
  
• Rules of Engagement (1998)
  
• Change of Command (1999)
  
• Against the Odds (2000)
  

Vatta's War

• Trading in Danger (2003)
  
• Marque and Reprisal (2004)
  
• Engaging The Enemy (2006)
  
• Command Decision (2007)
  
• Victory Conditions (2008)
  

In addition to being a highly competent stylist, her female protagonists are strong, independent leaders that are both interesting and likable. Her plots contain significant elements of military SciFi as well as a nice dose of political intrigue. Given that Moon is a Marine, the background for her writing is well-founded.

[Liffguard]

Oh yeah, also Walter John Williams' Dread Empire's Fall trilogy is pretty good.

[mgambino]

I loved everything set in Poul Anderson's polesotechnic league universe.

I also just finished Simon R. Green's Deathstalker series recently, which was incredibly stupid but oddly entertaining.

[Muwhahaha]

I'll also toss in Ship of Fools. Never read Fire Upon the Deep and sequel but I'm surprised no one's mentioned it cause I see it recommended quite a bit. Baxter's Xeelee sequence probably also deserves a mention though I've only read two of them.

[john]

Dune and Foundation are the best, if you want to call them space opera. Rendezvous with Rama and the Stars my Destination are good examples too.

The Hitchikers Guide series is probably my favourite though.

I enjoyed the Fortunes Pawn series by Rachel Bach, to give a more recent example

[MinDonner]

I liked Dread Empire's Fall a lot more than I thought I would, but don't think it's quite grand enough to be proper space Opera. Space Adventure!, possibly.

[Darth Richard II]

I like Star Wars.

[williamjm]

Never read Fire Upon the Deep and sequel but I'm surprised no one's mentioned it cause I see it recommended quite a bit.

I think Vinge's A Deepness In The Sky (which is a prequel to A Fire Upon The Deep) might be the best individual Space Opera novel I can think of. I really liked A Fire Upon The Deep as well, but it has some flaws and it is at its best on the scenes set on a medieval-level alien planet rather than the Space Opera bits. The sequel Children of the Sky isn't as good as the other two books in the setting and barely counts as Space Opera although I still enjoyed it.

I agree with other posters that the Culture and Vorkosigan series are excellent. I almost always enjoy Peter F. Hamilton's Space Operas as well even if I can't deny his books often features the same collection of flaws and technically he isn't as good as writer as Vinge, Banks or Bujold.

One book I haven't seen mentioned yet is Scott Westerfeld's The Risen Empire (sometimes published as a two book series) which I thought was a good Space Opera with a fairly heavy Dune influence. As far as I know he hasn't published anything in the same sub-genre (I think he's mostly a YA author now), which is a shame.