100 books like Space Opera

Robinson’s writing project has been to build utopias, but when faced with the climate crisis, he was forced to come up with an optimal outcome rather than an idealistic one.

It transforms a powerful set of ideas into a compelling human story that will undoubtedly influence the real world as it plays out.

Things can get dystopian quickly when you’re writing or thinking about technology. Becky Chalmers has the rare gift of writing optimistic fiction about the future that doesn’t feel saccharine (or sponsored). I care about smart homes because I care about both technology and home, and this book made me feel at home with myself and our coming technological future.

There’s some psychological safety here and a reminder that if we want a better future, we must build it together and for all of us.

I loved this book because it takes us beyond the “me me me” way of thinking about society to a more “we and me” based approach.

Community and consideration are often underrated and misunderstood in our society. It takes us back to looking at systems of accounting that count what matters.

By turns uplifting, bloody strange, heartbreaking, and joyful, this story collection touches on so many things: gender relations, race, hope, the need to feel safe, and the need to feel dignity among them. There are versions of America in this series that I dread, and versions of America that I long for. This is a book we need right now: a collection of dire warnings and beautiful dreams, hopes, and fears. We’re at a crossroads in history. This book reminds us that we can take a turn into the dark or the light. And wherever we go, we’ll be taking our whole selves and all our facets along for the ride: good and bad, kind and cruel, genetic and historical.

Strap in.

On the surface, OOTSP is about a British linguist who’s kidnapped to Mars, then escapes to meet pensive furry seal-people who teach him Earth sucks. Lewis borrows from H.G. Wells’ space travel and—this was written pre-space-age—his haunting, fantastical solar system doesn’t match what we’ve learned since, but his totally unique take on the physics of interdimensional beings rips the pants off anything anyone else ever wrote in metaphysical sci-fi. These angels aren’t your church’s cherubs, they’re not Frank Peretti’s white-robed super-soldiers, and they’re not Aslan and friends: Lewis actually took the limited science he had at the time about space and dimensional theory, and applied that science to his spirituality with fascinating imagination. The second book in this series, Perelandra, was always my favorite for its tense philosophy, gorgeous floating continents, and tortured protagonist, but Out of the Silent Planet—with ideas comparable in scope to Vernor Vinge’s “Zones… show more.

It’s hard to beat Scalzi for nailing the execution of a high concept.

Redshirts could have so easily been nothing but a gimmick, but Scalzi really gets into the guts of the horror and humor of being a character written for the sole purpose of dying. I picked up the book with a cynical eye, expecting to hate it, but it drew me in.

Scalzi went so much further with the concept, shined a light on every corner of the idea, that he managed to create a deconstruction and reconstruction of the same trope at the same time. 

I’m a physician, so it’s probably not surprising that a book by a physician about an alien physician might hit my list of meaningful space operas. What is surprising is Star Surgeon’s double-twist—the patients aren’t who we think they are, and the secret to getting Earth into the prestigious Galactic Confederation isn’t what we think it is—both of which actually had huge real-world thematic implications. On face level, it’s a medical thriller: the protag’s the first alien to graduate from human medical school, and he’s got to prove himself by curing an epidemic on a remote planet without arousing the ire of his human teachers. (I felt like this in residency.) But on a metaphysical level, Star Surgeon is a quiet manifesto dissecting the origins of racism—and the very biology of sentience itself. 

Yes, this is a Star Wars book, and on the surface it’s about Luke Skywalker and a reptilian alien invasion. Perhaps the biggest tragedy of Disney’s soulless, still-expanding media monopoly is the complete replacement of creative risk with bland corporate product, and Truce at Bakura hails from, as Obi Wan would put it, “a more civilized age.” Tyers investigates indoctrination, challenges concepts of “right to wealth” with a wise eye towards social justice before that’s even a term, and creates the most fascinating self-healing interaction with a parasite I’ve ever read. Unexpected metaphysical depth for sure!

I love the dreamy art and timeless wisdom in this unique book. It reminds me that I'm in an eternal state of oneness with the universe right here and right now. This book is soothing and beautiful and speaks to the deepest longings of the soul!

Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, by many accounts, is the most accurate and true portrayal of Hell. It has been long speculated whether or not Dante, by means of dreaming or some other metaphysical affair, was truly able to visit Hell—the ways in which he describes the deadly sins of human life proves to be both very emotional and very comprehendible, in a way that can push one to both care more for the way that they choose to live, care more for the ways that they treat others, as well as understand the burdens of life and thus realize that it could, in some way, be worse off than it presently seems.