The Sword and Laser discussion

Multiple POVs, many characters, a familial dynasty, entire populations threatened, interstellar battles, the feeling of loneliness in deep space... Downbelow Station has every Space Opera's characteristics and reminds me a little of Battlestar Galactica in the way the story is constructed.

As difficult as this reading is, I'm really enjoying this book. I must admit that I'm not as familiar with the genre in literature as I'd like to be. Here in France, Space Opera has a very bad reputation. «That's not real literature» I heard many times. Downbelow Station isn't even available in French libraries... Thanks Amazon... «Not serious enough.» Really ? Thousand deaths, grief, despair, and ever-lasting wars aren't serious enough ? Please...

Go European Space Opera writers, go ! Er... By the way, do you know any ?

Off the top of my head, from the UK you have:
- Alastair Reynolds
- Peter F Hamilton
- Gary Gibson
- Some of Charles Stross's stuff is space opera (I'm thinking Saturn's Children, Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise as well as his latest Neptune's Brood.)
- Some of Neal Asher's stuff is space opera as well, including the Polity books and his new Owner trilogy.
- I haven't read any (yet), but Eric Brown's stuff looks like space opera.
- Michael Cobley
- Ken MacLeod
- Paul McAuley's Quiet War books are some of the best space opera around at the moment.

Hannu Rajaniemi is Finnish, and his The Quantum Thief and the The Fractal Prince are definitely space opera (brilliant, but pretty heavy going).

I can't really talk to non-English language writers, but I am told that Alliette de Bodard has some excellent short fiction out in French and English that looks like space opera to me.

Hope that helps.

You piqued my interest, and I ran off to look up the exact requirements for a space opera. I suspected Downbelow Station would fall right smack in line, though personally I'd heard the term applied most often to the more Star-Trek-formula scifi where you have a regular crew running from adventure to adventure. As it turns out, there's a reason for the confusion; the term has changed pretty drastically since it was first created. Check out the wikipedia article. I may try to do some extra poking around and make "space opera" my topic for this month.

Yeah, space opera was actually a pejorative term when it was first used. Over time, SF writers "took it back".

There are so many arguments about what constitutes "proper" space opera. I tend to be pretty broad myself. For me, if it involves spaceships regularly travelling from astronomical object to astronomical object, and societies on different astronomical objects or artificial habitats interacting with each other through this primary method of transport, and the narrative isn't solely-focused on military matters (though these can be prominent), I'll call it space opera.

You missed Iain M Banks

AndrewP wrote: "You missed Iain M Banks"

Wow, you're right, yet another scotsman. For some reason I thought he was an American.

There must be something in the water up there - half the writers on that UK list are scottish.

Do brits count? If so you have Simon R. Green's deathstalker books good space opera and also decent parodies of the genre all at the same time.

Depends how literally you define the term. Several authors in this short story collection 'Space Opera' are European http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41...
and it has some of the most memorable stories I've read.

'Space Opera Short Story' sounds like a bit of an oxymoron :)

Andrew - let me try to make it clearer. When I said 'literally', I meant Opera in Space.

Here's the description from the link above:

"Twenty original science fiction tales based on the theme of music--by such authors as Marion Zimmer Bradley, Charles de Lint, and Gene Wolfe--include the story of a singer whose ear for music helps her fight crime."