Here are 100 books that Space Opera fans have personally recommended if you like
Space Opera.
Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
I have a weird imagination and care deeply about being kind in all areas of life. I think people, in general, need to be kinder to one another and to the earth. I find humanity to be too anthropocentric and dismissive of the intelligence of other creatures. The incredible complexity and interconnectedness of nature fascinate me, and I constantly look for connections between two seemingly disparate systems. Writing my book allowed me to put insects at the focal point of planetary control. It was an incredibly fun story to write.
I loved the nuanced solutions Robinson proposes in this book to fix the biggest problems of today. Although the book wasn’t my favorite in terms of plot, I appreciated Robinson’s work in detailing realistic solutions that meaningfully address climate change. It provoked me to really scrutinize what we are and are not doing to tackle rising global temperatures.
“The best science-fiction nonfiction novel I’ve ever read.” —Jonathan Lethem
"If I could get policymakers, and citizens, everywhere to read just one book this year, it would be Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future." —Ezra Klein (Vox)
The Ministry for the Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, using fictional eyewitness accounts to tell the story of how climate change will affect us all. Its setting is not a desolate, postapocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us. Chosen by Barack Obama as one of his favorite…
I used to love dystopian books, but recently, I’ve become increasingly interested in hopeful narratives. I’ve been a climate activist in a couple of movements, and I care deeply about the world, but with all the challenges and negativity we are facing, it’s easy to fall into despair. That’s why I think stories that show cooperation, community, respect for nature and each other, working for a better world, and making it happen are so important. We need those stories to get inspired to act instead of thinking that we’re all doomed anyway. They are also healing—a refuge for a tormented mind.
This is such a beautiful, gentle and cozy book that I couldn’t put it down. In this story, people were left with no choice but to completely rebuild their society, and they did something wonderful.
This book is like a breath of fresh air, like a quiet, healing journey that doesn’t rely on action—it’s an exploration, a celebration of nature, and society, and connection. It touched me in a profound way. It made me go outside to check if it was raining and stand with my bare feet in the grass, enjoying the coldness and softness of the sensation.
It's been centuries since the robots of Panga gained self-awareness and laid down their tools; centuries since they wandered, en masse, into the wilderness, never to be seen again; centuries since they faded into myth and urban legend.
One day, the life of a tea monk is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honour the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of 'what do people need?' is answered.
But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how. They're going to need to ask it a lot.
I am passionate about looking for new ways to see our future. As a futurist and trend researcher for over 30 years, I am drawn to books, ideas, and people that lead us away from narrow black-and-white thinking. With the help of these mavericks, outliers, and new systemic thinking, we can shift from a naive, optimistic, or miserable pessimistic mindset to what I call a “possibilistic” outlook on society and business. We all need purpose, and mine is to show that more things are possible than we think; sometimes, we just need to look in unusual places and into unusual minds and books to find new solutions for a better future.
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.
Big ideas that just might save the world. the Guardian
A serious book on an important subject. Without imagination, where are we? Sir Quentin Blake
What if we took play seriously? What if we considered imagination vital to our health? What if we followed nature's lead? What if school nurtured young imaginations?
What if things turned out okay?
Rob Hopkins asks the most important question that society has somehow forgotten - What If? Hopkins explores what we must do to revive and replenish our collective imagination. If we can rekindle that precious creative spark, whole societies and cultures can change…
A fast-paced literary thriller with a strong sci-fi element and loaded with existential questions. Beyond the entertainment value, this book takes a hard look at the perilous world of publishing, which is on a crash course to meet the nascent, no-holds-barred world of AI. Could these worlds co-exist, or will…
I come from a reservation town in Wisconsin, and make my livelihood as a horticulturist in the water-strapped state of Colorado. I’m mix-race and LGBT. These influences have shaped what I look for in stories. I write and seek to read about communities in which the person creating medicine and the person growing food is just as important as the fighter, because let me tell you: if you don’t have the means to make food and heal wounds, all the guns in the world won’t save you. I particularly appreciate stories that explore ecology, agriculture, and plant science in innovative ways. These make my little horticulture-geek heart sing.
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.
A glittering landscape of twenty-five speculative stories that challenge oppression and envision new futures for America—from N. K. Jemisin, Charles Yu, Jamie Ford, G. Willow Wilson, Charlie Jane Anders, Hugh Howey, and more.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In these tumultuous times, in our deeply divided country, many people are angry, frightened, and hurting. Knowing that imagining a brighter tomorrow has always been an act of resistance, editors Victor LaValle and John Joseph Adams invited an extraordinarily talented group of writers to share stories that explore new forms of freedom, love, and justice.…
I grew up curious about the world and perplexed that people saw the same problems I did but didn’t feel the same urgency. With a science teacher for a father, I became a lover of the natural world. Science fiction gave me hope and the ability to picture solutions. It puts readers in a mindset to consider “what could be.” I continue to study and read science while writing and publishing sci-fi novels through my publishing house, Epitome Press. It’s my way of exploring possible futures and inviting the world to see them with me. I hope this list of unexpectedly thought-provoking sci-fi gets you thinking, dreaming, and taking action.
This book infused me with that sense of wonder and broadened horizons that come with being transported into the unknown. I especially loved that the creatures featured and portrayed in this work of sci-fi were strange enough to challenge my preconceptions about sentience.
CS Lewis artfully balanced adventure with a comfortable pacing that allowed me to sink into the new world and alien cultures he created. In this book, values like honor, integrity, and community transcend the barriers of other worlds and alien beings. I also love that the plot of this one stands alone while still building a larger through-line that continues in the next book.
The first novel in C.S. Lewis's classic sci-fi trilogy which tells the adventure of Dr Ransom who is kidnapped and transported to Mars
In the first novel of C.S. Lewis's classic science fiction trilogy, Dr Ransom, a Cambridge academic, is abducted and taken on a spaceship to the red planet of Malacandra, which he knows as Mars. His captors are plotting to plunder the planet's treasures and plan to offer Ransom as a sacrifice to the creatures who live there. Ransom discovers he has come from the 'silent planet' - Earth - whose tragic story is known throughout the universe...
The best stories are the ones that take very silly ideas seriously. This doesn’t mean that they’re not funny; on the contrary, you don’t really hear the truth until it makes you laugh. These books all lean heavily on tropes, specifically B-movie tropes. I used to write detailed reviews of terrible movies, afterschool specials, and creature features. I host a podcast all about the funnier parts of TV criticism. Figuring out how something simple speaks to the core of us is the height of fiction, and all five of these do that and do it with humor.
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 can honestly say I can't think of another book that ever made me laugh this much. Ever' Patrick Rothfuss, New York Times bestselling author of The Name of the Wind
Ensign Andrew Dahl has just been assigned to the Universal Union Capital Ship Intrepid, flagship of the Universal Union since the year 2456. It's a prestige posting, and Andrew is even more delighted when he's assigned to the ship's Xenobiology laboratory. Life couldn't be better ... although there are a few strange things going on:
(1) every Away Mission involves a lethal confrontation with alien forces
Hunted by those who want to study his gravity powers, Jes makes his way to the best place for a mixed-species fugitive to blend in: the pleasure moon where everyone just wants to be lost in the party. It doesn’t take long for him to catch the attention of the…
From dancing on a crane in a meteor shower, to earning a history degree at the top program in my country; bathing under a waterfall to cradling the dying as a physician—I’ve always straddled the line between adventure and hunger for the truth beyond. Some books are the same way: they pull you in with fun and plot, and colors, and they leave you with bigger thoughts and questions about the Universe at large. All genres have this capacity for surprise and depth, but space opera’s best—here’s a list of reads with that special metaphysical power.
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.
A Sector General Novel In the far future Humans are part of an intergalactic civilization populated with countless alien races. Humans are prized for their medical expertise and make up almost all of doctors in the galaxy. Dal Timgar is the first non-human to attempt to become a qualified physician recognized by the Hospital Earth. But, before he reaches his goal he and his companions find a plague planet that may change the course of history.
From dancing on a crane in a meteor shower, to earning a history degree at the top program in my country; bathing under a waterfall to cradling the dying as a physician—I’ve always straddled the line between adventure and hunger for the truth beyond. Some books are the same way: they pull you in with fun and plot, and colors, and they leave you with bigger thoughts and questions about the Universe at large. All genres have this capacity for surprise and depth, but space opera’s best—here’s a list of reads with that special metaphysical power.
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!
No sooner has Darth Vader's funeral pyre burned to ashes on Endor than the Alliance intercepts a call for help from a far-flung Imperial outpost. Bakura is on the edge of known space and the first to meet the Ssi-ruuk, cold-blooded reptilian invaders who, once allied with the now dead Emperor, are approaching Imperial space with only one goal; total domination. Princess Leia sees the mission as an opportunity to achieve a diplomatic victory for the Alliance. But it assumes even greater importance when a vision of Obi-Wan Kenobi appears to Luke Skywalker with the message that he must go…
I'm very interested in neuroscience, and it turns out that when you are in a state of wonder, you activate parts of the brain that correlate with creativity, gratitude, hope, and connection with oneself and others. In a way, wonder is an antidote to the doom-and-gloom ideologies that surround us. I'm very drawn to art and ideas that help me connect with my sense of wonder and remind me that I'm connected with a vast and mysterious universe!
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!
Your Illustrated Guide to Becoming One with the Universe will set you free on a visual journey of self-discovery. Set against a surreal backdrop of intricate ink illustrations, you will find nine metaphysical lessons with dreamlike instructions that require you to open your heart to unexplored inner landscapes. From setting fire to your anxieties to sharing a cup of tea with your inner demons, you will learn how to let go and truly connect with the world around…
Constance is a wild, stubborn young girl growing up poor in a small industrial town in the late 1800's. Beneath her thread-worn exterior beats the heart of a dreamer and a wordsmith. But at age twelve, she’s orphaned. Running away to join the circus—like kids do in adventure books—seems like…
A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, I was educated at Stanford and MIT. I taught for four years at Yale and 24 years at Princeton before moving to USC, where I am Chair of the Philosophy Department. I specialize in the Philosophy of Language, History of Philosophy, and the Philosophy of Law. I have published many articles, authored fifteen books, co-authored two, and co-edited two. I am fascinated by philosophy's enduring role in our individual and collective lives, impressed by its ability to periodically reinvent itself, and challenged to bring what it has to offer to more students and to the broader culture.
In this book, one of the great philosophers of the first half of the 20th century sketches his take on two central philosophical tasks -- explaining what kinds of things exist in reality, and how they are related, and delineating what we can know and how we know it. In so doing, Russell illustrates the new method of logical and linguistic analysis he used in The Philosophy of Logical Atomism (1918), to lay the foundations of an epistemological and metaphysical system rivaling the great systems of the past. A key transitional figure linking the history of the subject to contemporary concerns, he raised logic and language to central subjects of philosophical study in their own right, without losing sight of their relevance for more traditional philosophical quests.
Immensely intelligible, thought-provoking guide by Nobel Prize winner considers such topics as the distinction between appearance and reality, the existence and nature of matter, idealism, inductive logic, intuitive knowledge, many other subjects. For students and general readers, there is no finer introduction to philosophy than this informative, affordable and highly readable edition.
