Z Space Opera
Farm boy with not so good childhood gets out of there and becomes a dodgy bloke named Ferret. A conflict with an even worse nogoodnik ends up in some deaths, and he moves on to be trained as a martial arts trained warrior priest and leader of the birth of a rebellion about the interstellar [...]
I still love you, even if you destroyed your fleet and made a whole planet commit suicide. 3.5 out of 5
Continue reading about The Wayfarer’s Advice – Melinda M. Snodgrass
Simple kid’s book as the author explains in an intro for this republication. A spaceship’s overdrive fails, much damage to craft, so bailing out to a planet is necessary, where three disparate characters have to try and survive the environment and aliens. An intuitive synthesist, a logician and a strong guy. 2.5 out of 5
Ranks of Bronze finds a Roman Legion shanghaied and put to work for a group of interstellar traders. These rapacious types have agreements to solve conflicts by conflict – but only at the technology level of the locals. So if you have primitive barbarians with swords and shields – you send in your slave legion [...]
Shaula ship whammy. 2.5 out of 5
Explorata hate. 3.5 out of 5
Continue reading about For Love’s Delirium Haunts The Fractured Mind – Mercurio D. Rivera
Wormer artifact berkelium emission. 3.5 out of 5
Ghost pilot neutron strongbox. 3.5 out of 5
Continue reading about The Engine of Recall – Karl Schroeder
Stellar catastrophe dooms Earth and the solar system – and seedships are sent out to enable the human race to survive. On a settled planet the last of such ships arrives, needing assistance with their ice shield to enable them to make it to their final destination. A planet that has some tectonic issues. Sort [...]
Continue reading about The Songs of Distant Earth – Arthur C. Clarke
Not too Bright fight role. 3.5 out of 5 http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/clare_01_12/
Continue reading about All the Painted Stars – Gwendolyn Clare
I’m an alien. 3 out of 5 http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/stabback_12_11/
Continue reading about In Which Faster-than-light Travel Solves All Of Our Problems – Chris Stabback
“The Ivoire dipped, then rose, then flipped and doubled back. Inside the bridge, the crew could feel no difference despite the rapid movements. The only way anyone could tell if something had changed was the flow of data coming through all the monitors. The six-person bridge crew had fallen into their various roles, speaking rarely. [...]
Continue reading about City of Ruins 1 – Kristine Kathryn Rusch
The Al-Buraq, a ship capable of instantaneous interstellar travel starts doing its thing with its crew. What they run into isn’t very nice. Something is devouring large swathes of interstellar real estate. And what do you do if this is actually something alive? A maker, destroyer or universal being and the means to communicate with. [...]
Continue reading about The Unreasoning Mask – Philip Jose Farmer
Here’s a fun space opera that takes a rather more Blake’s 7 take on the Federation as opposed to Star Trek. A woman, brought up by said Federation to be a highly trained agent – finds out she has a brother with a scientific inclination. Despite this being not supposed to happen then stick together. [...]
Opened the second of this series first apparently, but no big deal. Space adventure with a guy and his robots. And strange boojum things and all of course being a long way from home. Shipworlds, meerkat-like aliens. And our protagonist is no emo whiner loser. Pretty much nothing fazes him, which is very entertaining. Although [...]
Continue reading about Strange Attractors – Jeffrey A. Carver
“We are at a tipping point in history. The Ghosts were driven back from Cthuga at the beginning of the war, and now they are reaching out towards Cthuga again. It is clear that they came to Fomalhaut because they wish to communicate with the Mind. We do not know if it wishes to communicate [...]
Continue reading about In the Mouth of the Whale 9 – Paul J. McAuley
An excellent original anthology of tightly put together stories in this shared world of deliberately reduced technology level. Which of course leads to lots of skullduggery. New Ceres Nights : Smuggler’s Moon – Lee Battersby New Ceres Nights : Murder in Laochan – Aliette de Bodard New Ceres Nights : Fair Trade – Stephen Dedman [...]
Longevity and datacrystal blackmail. 3.5 out of 5
Continue reading about The Piece Of Ice In Miss Windermere’s Heart – Angela Slatter
Reverend shooting and smuggling. 3.5 out of 5
Just let a missile hit that spot for later cunning plan. 3.5 out of 5
Dead bull. Really big marsupial. 3.5 out of 5
“Nowhere else in the Archipelago is privilege and status so nakedly displayed as in Thule, the thistledown city, the city of tiers. It was built by swarms of machines long before the first generation of Quicks was created from their seedship’s genetic templates. The machines dropped a superstring of entangled gravitons into the centre of [...]
Continue reading about In the Mouth of the Whale 8 – Paul J. McAuley
Doing something about the reactionaries, in whichever body. 3.5 out of 5
Continue reading about Prosperine When It Sizzles – Tansy Rayner Roberts
A youg man with off the wall inventing ideas involving moving to an artificial body is drafted into a secret military project. The discovery of an alien ship, to his surprise. This occupies him for a decade until disillusionment causes a parting of the ways and his transfer. Not too pleased, he comes back, breaking [...]
Continue reading about The Black Seas of Infinity – Dan Henk
The cop and the Feminoid. 3.5 out of 5
Continue reading about Blessed Are The Dead That The Rain Falls Upon – Martin Livings
By a dwarf race that likes a bit of experimenting. 3.5 out of 5
Continue reading about A Captivity In Serpens – Clark Ashton Smith
Protosentient metal detection totem case. 4 out of 5
Continue reading about Manhattan In Reverse – Peter F. Hamilton
Mary Benet story. 3 out of 5
An ok for original anthology bunch of stories for kids at 3.25. Life On Mars : Attlee and the Long Walk – Kage Baker Life On Mars : The Old Man and the Martian Sea – Alastair Reynolds Life On Mars : Wahala – Nnedi Okorafor Life On Mars : On Chryse Plain – Stephen [...]
Descrutinised Scaper adventure. 3.5 out of 5
Continue reading about The Old Man and the Martian Sea – Alastair Reynolds
Big one, Tash. 3 out of 5
“”All that happened here, when we returned, was to deny Dragon information so it would snatch back its dracoman, like it did before, but also, to make it think we had followed up on our proposed plan but were then entertaining suspicions. I think that if Dragon had known that we knew what had really [...]
Continue reading about Gridlinked Scooby Ending – Neal Asher
Our slightly disreputable lacking in memory trader ship captain is in need of a job – so will not turn down a highly lucrative offer from a 700 year old brain in a year to transport a well preserved scientist to a new planetary claim. On an odd, dangerous planet. 3.5 out of 5
This was surprisingly good. The story of a trader captain and her motley crew of AI and aliens in need of a new cargo coinciding with an overthrown ruler on a barbaric planet’s need for escape. His ‘wizard’ adviser – an ex-crewmember of the Gravity Rose. Plotting and entanglements await. Shades of Poul Anderson – [...]
A Well of Souls reboot – with a horribly boring first half of random American ramblings until we see some signs of the Well and transformations later on – but still feels all aimless and padded, glimpses of Brazil and Chang notwithstanding. 2.5 out of 5
Continue reading about Echoes of the Well of Souls – Jack L. Chalker
Vavacq hate. 3.5 out of 5
A fixup of Moorcock’s Sojan The Swordsman stories so that they resemble a novel with some alteration. An ex-Earthman and now mercenary warrior puts his talents to good use with sword and shield and pistol where he can help or just relieve his own boredom. 3 out of 5 A man out of place and [...]
A fixup of Moorcock’s Sojan The Swordsman stories so that they resemble a novel with some alteration. An ex-Earthman and now mercenary warrior puts his talents to good use with sword and shield and pistol where he can help or just relieve his own boredom. 3 out of 5
Continue reading about Sojan the Swordsman – Michael Moorcock
A man out of place and on the run ends up at a secret project that has created its own universe in a bottle. Agreeing to be their lab rat and with no other prospects ends up a war leader after rescuing both a prince and princess. Now he gets to help them defeat Lovecraftian [...]
Continue reading about Under the Warrior Star – Joe R. Lansdale
I love McAuley’s Quiet War stories. The only problem with this collection is that it doesn’t have all of them! Maybe he’ll do another, and then an omnibus. What is does have is a new story not available anywhere else in Karyl’s War, a novella. And a very good one about what happens to one [...]
Continue reading about Stories From the Quiet War – Paul J. McAuley
He gets taken prisoner and put to work – offered ship fixing duty instead of 6 years prison camp labour, where he finds the daughter of Avernus. 4 out of 5
Space Martian Elan, with a bit of ground squirrel. 3.5 out of 5
An excellent collection, led by Pigeons From Hell. It also contains several good poems along with the novel Almuric. Thunder Of Trumpets : Pigeons From Hell – Robert E. Howard Thunder Of Trumpets : A Thunder Of Trumpets – Robert E. Howard Thunder Of Trumpets : Almuric – Robert E. Howard Thunder Of Trumpets : [...]
With Rooan on the Space Turd to Aurora Station. 3.5 out of 5
Squishy’s ancapa fears. 3.5 out of 5
A message for our cosmological descendants safety margin cheat messup. 3.5 out of 5
A solid Polity outing as the story deals with the aftermath of the planet Masada joining the Polity along with all the other things of interest there. Such as the degenerate Atheter Gabbleducks, AI investigation into the same, an Atheter AI and the Technician, a Hooder-like ancient Atheter war machine. Rising Atheter activity also means [...]
“”Flurrrrgh glarrrgh expostulate the rectal rod!” hollered Avila. Oh, intermittently useful telepathic fungus. I’ve learned a great deal about both Martian anatomy and Martian vulgarity in the years since this incident, imaginary reader. To this day I still have no idea what Avila was driving at. Whoosh whoosh hiss. The spider-creature didn’t bellow back at [...]
Continue reading about Queen of the Iron Sands 7 1 Fifinella and the Invisible Men – Scott Lynch
100AU Starfish message, mum. 3.5 out of 5 http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/mellor_09_11/
“Instead, he sighed and let his arms fall to his sides. “Salvage, Rose?” It was her turn to shrug. “Once a cargo monkey, always a cargo monkey,” she said with less levity than she had planned. “Still,” he said, “someone as brilliant as you shouldn’t work salvage.” “I needed time off from being brilliant,” she [...]
“Ye gods, Carson Napier, but are you ever going to do something proactive? The character’s passivity in Carson of Venus starts to get maddening. Perhaps it’s prudent to bide time within the enemy city of Amlot for the right time to act; but in an Edgar Rice Burroughs adventure, heroes should be bombastic and risk-taking, [...]
Continue reading about Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Venus Part 3: Carson of Venus – Ryan Harvey
Mars change double ended. 3.5 out of 5
Continue reading about Map Ref. -4.296° N 239.193° E 5 – Zachary Jernigan
The old wife trade, with hug-juice, captain. 3.5 out of 5
Continue reading about A Troublesome Day For Jacky Midnight – Matthew Farrer
Brain blight and ugly Martians. 3 out of 5
In space coffee. 3.5 out of 5
But not the full space. 3.5 out of 5 http://www.tor.com/stories/2011/08/a-vector-alphabet-of-interstellar-travel
Continue reading about A Vector Alphabet of Interstellar Travel – Yoon Ha Lee
You could always marry an Earthworm girl. 3.5 out of 5
Surviving the Dead Pool gets the lot if you can do it. 3.5 out of 5
Yep, those humans will shoot us aliens. In space too. 3 out of 5
La Malcontenta – Liz WilliamsShorn woman is torn between foxy pursuits. 3 out of 5 http://www.strangehorizons.com/2005/20050307/malcontenta-f.shtml
Carry human souls, Hawk and Knifer the boss. 4 out of 5
Checking out some Metamorphs. 3.5 out of 5
Continue reading about The End of the Line – Robert Silverberg
Herbivores are dangerously relentless. 3.5 out of 5
As of August. http://freesf.strandedinoz.com/spaceoperalist.html
Ship Dive seduction. 3.5 out of 5
Ship step shift crew losing ghost. 4 out of 5
“The parade on the second planet continues in Lost on Venus. This one of the most controversial works that Edgar Rice Burroughs ever published, although it surprises me that enough readers managed to get through the lackluster first book, Pirates of Venus, to want to pick up the sequel and be able to argue about [...]
Continue reading about Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Venus Part 2: Lost on Venus – Ryan Harvey
Collective kids. 3 out of 5
Continue reading about Attlee and the Long Walk – Kage Baker
A nobleman whose family has been casually destroyed gathers what is left of his resources and sets out to infiltrate the organisation of the ruler who ordered it. This first involves smuggling and seduction before he can trigger his final weapon. 3.5 out of 5
Two blood brother spacers get separated – and one has fallen into the Cult of the Witch as a result of living too long on an extremely unpleasant planet. When his friend does the same, he ends up in their clutches too – but with the idea of obtaining freedom. 3.5 out of 5
Continue reading about Hunt the Space-Witch! – Robert Silverberg
Grabbie retrieval failure. 3.5 out of 5 http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/snapshots-i-brought-back-from-the-black-hole/
Continue reading about Snapshots I Brought Back From The Black Hole – K. C. Ball
“Of all the “Origin Novels” from Edgar Rice Burroughs’s various series, Pirates of Venus is the weakest — and by a significant margin. Stacked against A Princess of Mars, Tarzan of the Apes, and At the Earth’s Core, all of which were written pre-1920, this is some tepid, weary storytelling going on here on Amtor. [...]
Continue reading about Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Venus Part 1: Pirates of Venus – Ryan Harvey
NeoMartian music legend, with ninja bugs and the odd mermaid. 3.5 out of 5
Continue reading about Death And Dancing In New Las Vegas – Ernest Hogan
A Galactic Empire with a doddering Emperor faces simmering discontent. When a High Priest on a rebellious world is tortured to death over the location of an Empire breaking mythic weapon, things spill over via his son. Except at this point, no-one knows what this Hammer is and even if it exists. 3.5 out of [...]
Continue reading about The Hammer and the Flame – Robert Silverberg
A short anthology of planetary romance stories, with Brackett by far the highlight. The Anderson is reasonable and Hamilton’s is fun, complete with lightsaber duels. Swordsmen In the Sky : Swordsman of Lost Terra – Poul Anderson Swordsmen In the Sky : The People of the Crater – Andre Norton Swordsmen In the Sky : [...]
Continue reading about Swordsmen In the Sky – Donald A. Wollheim
Stuart Merrick is adventure, broke with no rellos – so a good subject to transport to another world on a planetary romance adventure. This time fighting spider-men with a trusty blaster AND a lightsaber by his side. 3 out of 5
Continue reading about Kaldar World of Antares – Edmond Hamilton
Tork or not, take me, Lotan! 2.5 out of 5 http://www.erbzine.com/mag0/0037.html
Continue reading about A Vision of Venus – Otis Adelbert Kline
An omnicollection of the end of Flandry’s career when he is an Admiral and some other Technic history stories. Flandry’s Legacy : A STONE IN HEAVEN – Poul Anderson Flandry’s Legacy : THE GAME OF EMPIRE – Poul Anderson Flandry’s Legacy : A TRAGEDY OF ERRORS – Poul Anderson Flandry’s Legacy : THE NIGHT FACE [...]
This omnicollection deals with an experienced Flandry, with the first story highly excellent and the rest only so-so. Sir Dominic Flandry The Last Knight of Terra : THE PLAGUE OF MASTERS – Poul Anderson Sir Dominic Flandry The Last Knight of Terra : HUNTERS OF THE SKY CAVE – Poul Anderson Sir Dominic Flandry The [...]
Continue reading about Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight of Terra – Poul Anderson
An omnibus of three novels set early in Flandry’s career. Young Flandry : ENSIGN FLANDRY – Poul Anderson Young Flandry : A CIRCUS OF HELLS – Poul Anderson Young Flandry : THE REBEL WORLDS – Poul Anderson Flandry is fresh out of the military joint at 19, and shows some quick thinking and nereve in [...]
Boss has been leading her team of divers and people with the genetic markers to survive the stealth tech all over to try and recover it before the Empire types gets their hands on it. This leads her to a planet that appears to have some – and suffer devastating disasters where the ground just [...]
Continue reading about City of Ruins – Kristine Kathryn Rusch
A military science fiction space opera with a couple of tweaks. A really good officer instrumental in helping his side win a space battle is critically injured in doing so. He gets the ‘we can only freeze him until we have the technology treatment’. He wakes up to discover the side he was fighting for [...]
Continue reading about Exodus – Steve White and Shirley Meier
The Clockwork Rocket is about a species living in a universe where different colours of light move at different speeds. The particular species in question on the planet that is the initial setting also have a very different biology. They can morph their bodies to gain extra limbs, or to use their skin as notepads [...]
A daughter’s arrival is in the middle of an attempted coup by dropship. 3.5 out of 5
Romance tourism Proctor setup. 3.5 out of 5
Naked man candles and stolen Caesium. 3.5 out of 5
Continue reading about The Widow’s Seven Candles – Thoraiya Dyer
Planets For Sale – all for us. 3.5 out of 5
Continue reading about A Preliminary Assessment Of The Drake Equation – Vernor Vinge
It can now be found here :- http://freesf.strandedinoz.com/spaceoperalist.html
Alien dispute four language street fighting Fleet deception. 4.5 out of 5
Message Integration Turbulence Attack. 4 out of 5
Space tomb raider archaeology deal. 3.5 out of 5
“Vendacious raised his heads. “All true, my lord. And I am proud of my ‘treason.’ Woodcarver has allied with the mantis queen and her maggots.” “Maggots?” Tycoon’s eyes were wide. “Yes, my lord. ‘Mantis’ and ‘maggot’ refer to different aspects of the same creatures, humans as they call themselves. ‘Mantis’ is the appropriate term for [...]
Continue reading about The Children of the Sky 00 – Vernor Vinge
“My problem was I had no idea what to write. All I knew was it needed a ray gun and I wanted it to have a Blade Runner/Ghost in The Shell vibe. Nothing came to me until my wife and I were watching TV about a week later. A protect-your-identity commercial came on. I think [...]
Continue reading about HOW I CAME TO WRITE THIS STORY – Chad Eagleton
“Point zero: initiate. A sense kicked in. Something like vision. Not because it emulated sight, but because it revealed. Himself: Nikko Jiang-Tibayan. An electronic pattern scheduled to manifest at discrete intervals. Nikko Jiang-Tibayan. He’d been an organic entity once. Not now. Point one: identify. Personality suspended on a machine grid: He is the mind of [...]
Just stopping the Thousand Minds from taking over Earth. 3 out of 5 http://www.archive.org/stream/TheMartianCirce/TheMartianCirceByRaymondF.Jones1947#page/n2/mode/1up
Shot myself in the back, universally. Bugger. 3.5 out of 5 http://qd2.blogspot.com/2011/06/quasardragon-presents-around-infinity.html
An omnicollection containing these books :- To the Galactic Rim : The Road to the Rim – A. Bertram Chandler To the Galactic Rim : To Prime the Pump – A. Bertram Chandler To the Galactic Rim : The Hard Way Up – A. Bertram Chandler To the Galactic Rim : The Broken Cycle – [...]
Continue reading about To the Galactic Rim – A. Bertram Chandler
From the Best of Leigh Brackett. 5 out of 5
Continue reading about Leigh Brackett’s Mars Maps – Leigh Brackett
“As always, before the warmind and I shoot each other, I try to make small talk. “Prisons are always the same, don’t you think?” I don’t even know if it can hear me. It has no visible auditory organs, just eyes, human eyes, hundreds of them, in the ends of stalks that radiate from its [...]
Continue reading about The Quantum Thief 1 – Hannu Rajaniemi The Thief and the Prisoner’s Dilemma
Saved by a Martian water finding monkey in the life diamond death duel between Red Kelly and Knuckles Roker. 3.5 out of 5 http://www.archive.org/details/DeathDesert
