Genre: Sci-Fi, Comedy, Parody
Reviewer: Scott
Get It On Amazon
About The Book
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy meets the joy and glamour of Eurovision in bestselling author Catherynne M. Valente’s science fiction spectacle, where sentient races compete for glory in a galactic musical contest…and the stakes are as high as the fate of planet Earth.
A century ago, the Sentience Wars tore the galaxy apart and nearly ended the entire concept of intelligent space-faring life. In the aftermath, a curious tradition was invented—something to cheer up everyone who was left and bring the shattered worlds together in the spirit of peace, unity, and understanding.
Once every cycle, the great galactic civilizations gather for the Metagalactic Grand Prix—part gladiatorial contest, part beauty pageant, part concert extravaganza, and part continuation of the wars of the past. Species far and wide compete in feats of song, dance and/or whatever facsimile of these can be performed by various creatures who may or may not possess, in the traditional sense, feet, mouths, larynxes, or faces. And if a new species should wish to be counted among the high and the mighty, if a new planet has produced some savage group of animals, machines, or algae that claim to be, against all odds, sentient? Well, then they will have to compete. And if they fail? Sudden extermination for their entire species.
This year, though, humankind has discovered the enormous universe. And while they expected to discover a grand drama of diplomacy, gunships, wormholes, and stoic councils of aliens, they have instead found glitter, lipstick, and electric guitars. Mankind will not get to fight for its destiny—they must sing.
Decibel Jones and the Absolute Zeroes have been chosen to represent their planet on the greatest stage in the galaxy. And the fate of Earth lies in their ability to rock.
The Review
“Life is beautiful and life is stupid.“
Space Opera is a very particular kind of book. And by saying that, I don’t mean it’s a bad book, by any means. Quite the contrary. It’s an amazing work of science fiction that instantly catapults the author into the upper echelons of sci-fi writer-dom.
But you have to come at it in the right way.
This is not a book for those who are primarily hard sci-fi fans. The rules of physics are regularly taken out by the narrative behind the woodshed, ridiculed, spit upon, and then smashed into near-non-existence with a jewel-encrusted ball-peen hammer in this book. Genetics takes a beating too, as does pretty much everything in the cannon of supposed human knowledge about what might or might not be out there, waiting for us around other stars. Although the Dark Forest hypothesis does pretty well in this book.
Because apparently, according to Valente’s shrewd observations, what awaits humanity in the great unknown is a sprawling, murderous, way over-the-top galactic version of Eurovision.
Since the title of this madcap opus is Space Opera, you can’t say you weren’t duly warned.
Instead, as preparatory reading, I recommend a little Prachett or Addams, preferably with a side viewing of the entire Doctor Who series, which functions admirably as a warm-up act for this glorious thicket of insanity and obscure yet hilarious references.
The novel opens in the midst of a dream—or rather, some 7 billion of them–as an alien who resembles a tricked-out flamingo visits every human being on Earth at the same time, via some really cool alien technology. Earth has been discovered by the galactic commonwealth, which is trying to determine if humans are sentient… or meat. If the new species – in this case humanity – can’t do better than last place, their world will be obliterated.
And they do this by – you guessed it – holding a music contest. The bird-alien has a list of possible singers and groups that Earth might want to send, but unfortunately most of them are dead. So it falls to a washed-up band called Decibel Jones and the Absolute Zeroes to travel to Litost, a manically hapy place that would make Disneyland look like a morgue, save the world.
Dess Jones is hungover after a bender, one of a series of bad life choices that has landed him all alone after the break-up of his band. His bandmate Mira Star Wonderful died in a car crash years earlier, and the other member, Oort St. James, is now writing vacuous TV commercial jingles. After riding the fame train to startling success a decade earlier, both men are lost, in their own ways. And yet somehow they are chosen to represent all of mankind in the greatest singing contest the world has ever seen, a mash-up of Eurovision and The Hunger Games and the Cantina in the first Star Wars Film, times infinity.
This is not a fast-moving book. It’s a gloriously wordy book, full of sentences that span entire phone-screen pages. If you’re a fan of fast-paced fiction, this is not the book for you. But if you love gloriously-crafted sentences with hilarious sidetracks that twist and turn through the byzantine pathways of galactic culture in ways that often have you howling, this is exactly the book for you. As Valente says several times during the story, life is beautiful and life is stupid.
Space Opera is a top-notch example of the kind of parody sci-fi that Addams and Prachett pioneered, and that Valente has perfected.
Five stars.
The Reviewer
Scott is the founder of Queer Sci Fi, and a fantasy and sci fi writer in his own right, with more than 30 published short stories, novellas and novels to his credit, including two trilogies.
