Space Opera is a 2018 science fiction novel by Catherynne Valente, about a galactic version of the Eurovision Song Contest. It was first published by Saga Press.
In space everyone can hear you sing.
A century ago, the Sentience Wars tore the galaxy apart and nearly ended the entire concept of intelligent space-faring life. In the aftermath, a curious tradition was invented-something to cheer up everyone who was left and bring the shattered worlds together in the spirit of peace, unity, and understanding.
Once every cycle, the civilizations gather for the Metagalactic Grand Prix - part gladiatorial contest, part beauty pageant, part concert extravaganza, and part continuation of the wars of the past. Instead of competing in orbital combat, the powerful species that survived face off in a competition of song, dance, or whatever can be physically performed in an intergalactic talent show. The stakes are high for this new …
Space Opera is a 2018 science fiction novel by Catherynne Valente, about a galactic version of the Eurovision Song Contest. It was first published by Saga Press.
In space everyone can hear you sing.
A century ago, the Sentience Wars tore the galaxy apart and nearly ended the entire concept of intelligent space-faring life. In the aftermath, a curious tradition was invented-something to cheer up everyone who was left and bring the shattered worlds together in the spirit of peace, unity, and understanding.
Once every cycle, the civilizations gather for the Metagalactic Grand Prix - part gladiatorial contest, part beauty pageant, part concert extravaganza, and part continuation of the wars of the past. Instead of competing in orbital combat, the powerful species that survived face off in a competition of song, dance, or whatever can be physically performed in an intergalactic talent show. The stakes are high for this new game, and everyone is forced to compete.
This year, though, humankind has discovered the enormous universe. And while they expected to discover a grand drama of diplomacy, gunships, wormholes, and stoic councils of aliens, they have instead found glitter, lipstick and electric guitars. Mankind will not get to fight for its destiny - they must sing.
A one-hit-wonder band of human musicians, dancers and roadies from London - Decibel Jones and the Absolute Zeroes - have been chosen to represent Earth on the greatest stage in the galaxy. And the fate of their species lies in their ability to rock.
Cuando hace unos pocos años, por 2018, me enteré de la existencia de este libro, tanto por su título como por su sinopsis (obligan a la Tierra a participar en un concurso galáctico que es como Eurovisión en el espacio, en el que tendrá que demostrar que es digna de pertenecer a la gran civilización interplanetaria, o morir), lo primero que me dije fue: "¿Cómo es que no estoy leyendo ya esta maravilla?" Así que en cuanto me enteré de que la habían traducido allá que me fui a comprarla.
As other reviews stated, this book is in the style of Douglas Adams. The main idea was what convinced me to read this book, but the story was a bit light. The chapters switched between story and background and the background chapters felt like they were written to be as wordy as possible for the sake to be as wordy as possible, a bit like this sentence. Also, the end was a bit too much Deus Ex Machina, which as a bit meh compared to the buildup.
I did enjoy the story for all its imperfections, but would not be quick to recommend it to others.
An exhausting, hyperactive attempt to capture the magic of Douglas Adams, one of my favourite authors, that utterly fails for me. I was confident after a couple of pages that I wouldn't enjoy it, but persevered since it was such an easy read. I regret giving it my time. Half an extra star for being inventive and very occasionally amusing or slightly moving.
An exhausting, hyperactive attempt to capture the magic of Douglas Adams, one of my favourite authors, that utterly fails for me. I was confident after a couple of pages that I wouldn't enjoy it, but persevered since it was such an easy read. I regret giving it my time. Half an extra star for being inventive and very occasionally amusing or slightly moving.
Pretty sure this one is a DNF. It does have very funny moments that I enjoyed (and even laughed out loud at), but the whole rhythm is off for me - it reads like Douglas Adams on cocaine and verbosity cranked to 11. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, mind you - but for me, it's just too much.
This book wasn't very good, and I would have quit about 30 minutes into it if I had had the foresight to bring more than one audio book on my Christmas vacation.As it was, I actually hate-listened all the way to the end.
It appears that the author tried to approximate the style of Douglas Adams, but forgot that there as more to the Hitchhiker's Guide than the endless footnotes of unnecessary exposition, and that the exposition needs to be there for a reason, and picked up on at a later point. And you can't have an entire book with characters modeled after Zaphod - you need an Arthur Dent as your straight man. What little story there is, is wilfully absurd, without ever reaching genuinely funny, there's not a single quotable paragraph, and in the end, everything resolves in a puff of deus ex machina.
If only I remembered …
This book wasn't very good, and I would have quit about 30 minutes into it if I had had the foresight to bring more than one audio book on my Christmas vacation.As it was, I actually hate-listened all the way to the end.
It appears that the author tried to approximate the style of Douglas Adams, but forgot that there as more to the Hitchhiker's Guide than the endless footnotes of unnecessary exposition, and that the exposition needs to be there for a reason, and picked up on at a later point. And you can't have an entire book with characters modeled after Zaphod - you need an Arthur Dent as your straight man. What little story there is, is wilfully absurd, without ever reaching genuinely funny, there's not a single quotable paragraph, and in the end, everything resolves in a puff of deus ex machina.
If only I remembered who recommended this to me, so I could stop listening to them in the future.
The story itself is quote easy to follow: a washed up, broken up band is asked to participate in the Metagalactic Grand Prix, the Universe version of the Eurovision Song Contest. The catch? If they lose, their whole species is incinerated.
Space Opera is written extremely dense. The back and forth between the plot and the past contests, the other participants, and the history of the whole arrangement makes it a rich world with a lot of different species and places to keep in mind. You definitely need to focus, or you'll miss all the little details.
Having only just started reading Valente's works, I'm once more surprised by her flexibility in style. This reads different than anything I have previously read of hers.
Basically, it's Aliens make themselves known to humanity and in order to not die in a horrific blaze of non-sentience, humanity must place better than last in Eurovision IN SPACE. Oh, and most everyone from the list of recommended representatives is dead so it's down to Decibel Jones, or as I liked to call him while reading it "Freddie-Bowie-acci" a glam-rock singer who was the big thing for all of 15 minutes years ago. And hasn't spoken to one of his band mates in years. And the other band mate is dead. So yeah, off to a great start.
The book owes a lot of inspiration to Douglas Adams in terms of off the wall world building and absurdism in science fiction. If you like Hitchhiker's, you'll probably enjoy this.
I imagine Catherynne Valente thought to herself...
I think I'll write something sort of like Douglas Adams, but with MORE!
If you throw a lot of words at me, all trying to be super funny, a few of them will land. But when you do it in every single sentence with no guidance at all from an actual plot or characters, it becomes exhausting. So exhausting, in fact, that I stopped reading about 2/3rds of the way through.
I imagine Catherynne Valente thought to herself...
I think I'll write something sort of like Douglas Adams, but with MORE!
If you throw a lot of words at me, all trying to be super funny, a few of them will land. But when you do it in every single sentence with no guidance at all from an actual plot or characters, it becomes exhausting. So exhausting, in fact, that I stopped reading about 2/3rds of the way through.
This book may make sense for people who enjoy music, but without that context, it dragged so very much. Valente is a whimsical font of imagination and world building, but even that couldn't save it for me.
It is really hard to follow a story if every sentence as another in joke or pun in it. I would be okay with it if at least 20% would be funny, but sadly it was not my kind of humor.
