Huzzah! My final book review column of 2024 is out in the @washingtonpost! This time, I look at three new space opera books, and see just how varied and exciting space opera is getting lately.
Gift link: wapo.st/3OYUTPH
A few years ago I wrote a piece for Esquire about space opera (www.esquire.com/entertainmen...). The gist was that The Expanse (and Alien) had moved space opera into focus on "blue collar" characters who were thrown into huge situations. There were so many books along those lines.
So it was interesting to look at three new space opera books that don't really fit the Expanse model. Interstellar Megachef by Lavanya Lakshminarayan is so fun and colorful — it felt like a cousin to Space Opera/Space Oddity by Cat Valente. Space politics seen thru the lens of culture.
Sweep of Stars/Breath of Oblivion by Maurice Broaddus have the feel of an old-school space opera at first. The fate of worlds is at stake, starships are boldly exploring, a lot of characters are leaders. But these are philosophical works about holding onto yourself in extreme situations. So much fascinating stuff about African diaspora and the philosophies behind Muungano come into play in these books. They're so rich and so full of interpersonal, introspective discovery rather than just discoveries in deep space. They're exciting on so many levels.
The Peter F. Hamilton book, Exodus, feels the closest to a classic space opera — it has a lot in common with Iain M. Banks, Ken MacLeod, some of the stuff Charles Stross was publishing a while back. But the politics get pretty twisty and complicated — mind control is the real killer widget here.
