Space Opera Fans discussion

There are quite a few books that get disparaged as Mary Sue or the male equivalent of Marty Stu or Larry Stu. Personally I prefer the term competency p*rn, because it’s rarely said disparagingly and is gender neutral. The basic idea is a story where the main character is unbelievably competent. A heckuva lot of the SF I read as a teen in the 1970s had a male main character that fit this term.

Some books I can think of that fit this category are listed below. I’m not saying they are great books, but they scratch an itch I get sometimes.

Luna of Earth by Laura Jo Phillips
The Eons-Lost Orphan by Laer Carroll
Black Eye Galaxy Arbitrators by C.R. Daems
A Galaxy Unknown by Thomas DePrima
The Riss Proposal by C.R. Daems

And by the time in the series that Bob from Bob's Saucer Repair by Jerry Boyd is an Admiral, he’d fit the category. Super fast reflexes, extremely good fighting skills in multiple disciplines, multiple weapons, and strategic skills with a fleet of warships, over and above his original ability to fix machines using nonstandard parts.

Do you know any to add to the list?

While it isn’t space opera, another for this category that I give 4 stars to is Emergence by David Palmer. Child genius, survived the apocalypse alone in a bomb shelter.

Thanks for these comments Teresa - I've decided to try The Riss Proposal, and have just bought a copy. But first I just need to finish Newton's Wake.

I think that Mary Sue/Marty Stu is qualitatively different from Competency P0rn.

As an example, James Bond is a superspy who is hyper-competent at several things. A Mary Sue version would be a previously unknown girl who shows up out of nowhere and saves James Bond’s life in a situation he can’t get out of and thus he falls in love with her and they live happily ever after.

As a James Bond counterexample, there is an excellent comic called Velvet written by Ed Brubaker, the conceit of which is “what if Miss Moneypenny were a better spy than James Bond?” This is straight up Competency P0rn rather than a Mary Sue story because Velvet is the main character and not an author insert into an existing story.

Like many storytelling things, “Mary Sue” comes from Star Trek. In this case it was fanfic where Captain Kirk needed rescuing and Ensign Mary Sue did that, causing Kirk to fall madly in love with her. Mary Sue was a stand-in/self-insert for the woman who wrote the piece.

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Side note on the Trek thing:

Another common phrase is “bottle episode” used for TV series where the entire episode takes place in a single location. During production of Star Trek TOS, to save money they would have stories set entirely on the Enterprise. The cast and crew started calling these “ship-in-a-bottle episodes”, shortened to “bottle episode”.

Bottle episodes are actually some of my favorites. “The One Where No One Is Ready” from Friends is a particular favorite. Not only is it contained within Monica and Rachel’s apartment, it takes place entirely in the main room of the apartment. Another is “Dinner Party” from Frasier where he and Niles plan said party. We use “blackball!” all the time because of it. https://youtu.be/c6rCpx3XbPA

Trike wrote: "Like many storytelling things, “Mary Sue” comes from Star Trek. In this case it was fanfic where Captain Kirk needed rescuing and Ensign Mary Sue did that, causing Kirk to fall madly in love with her. Mary Sue was a stand-in/self-insert for the woman who wrote the piece."

I've also heard that a character who becomes instantly popular with everyone she encounters might be considered a Mary Sue. Maybe that perception was drawn from the same fanfic. I should probably try to read it some day, seeing as it was influential enough to spawn a trope.

I wasn’t involved with fanfic, and learned the term by seeing the disparaging remarks made in reviews of SF books that had a super competent female main character, back when having any competent (even not overly so) female character at all much less the main one was rare, while male main characters in stories filled with adolescent wish fulfillment were accepted as typical SF. So thanks for the background details on the origin.

Yet another reason for me to use competency p*rn, because that’s what I need when I’m feeling rather incompetent (usually when I’m sick or imposter syndrome hits hard).

Teresa wrote: "While it isn’t space opera, another for this category that I give 4 stars to is Emergence by David Palmer. Child genius, survived the apocalypse alone in a bomb shelter."

I liked the look of this one Teresa, but its hard to find - and based on that, Amazon are taking advantage by charging £11.21 for the kindle version! So I won't be reading it just yet.

Thanks Teresa, Linn and Trike - this "Mary Sue" discussion is fascinating. I can't believe I'd never heard of it until now.

Emergence is just as expensive on Kobo, so odds are it’s the price set by the publisher. I can’t recall if it was at a deal price when I bought the ebook or not. I loved the book when it first came out, decades ago, so I may have bought the ebook even at that ridiculous price.

Okay looked up my order details for Emergence. I purchased the ebook in 2018 for $5.99 so I have no clue why the heck the price is so high now. It was a paperback decades ago!

The re-issued paperback is £17.26. I suspect the fact that its difficult to find is driving the price up. A follow-up - Tracking - is currently unavailable on Amazon.

But I've managed to find a used copy of Emergence for £3.50 so I've ordered that - with the bonus that its not from Amazon.

Tracking wasn’t nearly as good IMO. I hope you like Emergence and Riss Proposal.

My copy of Emergence arrived in the post today. It looks even older and more battered than me! But I'm hoping that's a sign that its been read and enjoyed by many people, and I'm looking forward to starting it soon.

Didn't have the patience to wait, so now 20-odd pages into my first Mary Sue read (as far as I know).

From Trike’s definition, Emergence isn’t really a Mary Sue. It is indeed competency p*rn though.

I finished, and really enjoyed, The Riss Proposal but I'm sort of stuck in the middle of Emergence - which I'd started first and expected to race through because I liked it so much. I'm not sure why I'm dragging my heels at the moment - the writing style, which was interestingly unusual at first, is now starting to grate on me a bit, and there are too many pages where absolutely nothing interesting happens. Is this just a mid-book lull - will it get better?

I don’t remember at what point she starts out in search of other people. There is definitely action quite a few times. What is she doing where you bogged down?

Oh and my apologies: Riss Proposal is second in the series. I meant to give the first. I assume the book made sense anyway since you liked it.

Teresa wrote: "I don’t remember at what point she starts out in search of other people. There is definitely action quite a few times. What is she doing where you bogged down?"

She's met up with - and saved the life - of a young male and they are about to set off together.

Teresa wrote: "Oh and my apologies: Riss Proposal is second in the series. I meant to give the first. I assume the book made sense anyway since you liked it."

That's Ok Teresa - you'd told me that it was the second of the series - and it didn't impair my enjoyment of it. I'll probably go back and read the first book anyway because I love the Riss.

I’ve read that entire series at least three times.

I'm still stuck in the middle of Emergence - I'm just finding it tedious at the moment so I'll lay it aside for a couple of weeks and then come back to it, hopefully to finish it.