Category Archives: Space Opera

Winter’s Orbit

Posted on 9 July 2022 by Barbara Howe

Irresponsible Prince Kiem isn’t ready to be married. But his cousin, Prince Taam, died in a crash, tearing a hole in the carefully arranged structure of alliance marriages binding the seven-planet Iskat Empire together. Someone has to salvage the situation … Continue reading →

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The Collapsing Empire

Posted on 20 August 2021 by Barbara Howe

Without faster-than-light transportation, is interstellar travel possible? In The Collapsing Empire, the first book in the Interdependency series, author John Scalzi imagines a strange phenomenon called “The Flow”, unknown to our current physics. Using normal rocket propulsion to reach a … Continue reading →

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Provenance

Posted on 11 July 2020 by Barbara Howe

Ingray Aughskold is an insecure, needy kid. Well, not a kid, exactly. She’s in her twenties, with a good job on her home planet Hwae, but her politically powerful mother has encouraged competition between her foster children: Danach, the son … Continue reading →

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The Murderbot Diaries

Posted on 28 February 2020 by Barbara Howe

If I were to make a movie of All Systems Red by Martha Wells, I would open with this voiceover: I murdered 57 humans. And then I went rogue. Murderbot, as the part-organic android security unit (SecUnit) privately calls itself, … Continue reading →

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Imperial Radch: Ancillary Justice

Posted on 2 November 2019 by Barbara Howe

The Imperial Radch trilogy by Ann Leckie, consisting of the books Ancillary Justice, Ancillary Sword, and Ancillary Mercy, is one of the most astounding and engrossing works I’ve had the pleasure of reading in a long time. Given the number … Continue reading →

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Shards of Honor

Posted on 18 August 2019 by Barbara Howe

In Shards of Honor, the superb introduction to Lois McMaster Bujold’s many-volume Vorkosigan saga, Commander Cordelia Naismith, citizen of Beta Colony and head of a planetary survey mission, is down planet with a small team of scientists when they are … Continue reading →

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The Witches of Karres

Posted on 6 August 2017 by Barbara Howe

The Witches of Karres, a whimsical space opera by James H Schmitz, is an old favourite. I think I must have first read this in high school, but it still appeals. A young man, Captain Pausert, is on his way … Continue reading →

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