I’ve been trying to read more, including audiobooks while I’m on the road, so naturally I’m looking for some science fiction, including space opera… all the better to inform my own operatic tales. Thankfully, Tim O’Brien has a list of 55 space operas from the past not-quite century done for Barnes & Noble, who admittedly has a vested interest in getting you hooked on series. I have read many, but far from all, of the…
The beginning of the end of Star Trek: Discovery‘s five-year mission streams this Thursday, April 4th. Originally, this fifth season of Discovery was apparently not intended to be the final one, which has caused all kinds of rampant speculation online. However, Trek overall, is not only not going anywhere, the powers that be want to maintain what isn’t just a franchise, but a veritable Intellectual Property (IP) empire. In a longform cover story for Variety,…
I’ve mentioned before how much I like the now firmly cult show Farscape and I see no reason to stop now, especially as its vision of a galaxy full of wonders and nightmares is a clear influence on the upcoming seasons of my own space opera. At 25, its best episodes still pack a punch and aren’t shy about embracing the weird. So if it’s checking out this retrospective by Ryan Britt for Inverse, backing…
It’s probably obvious that I’m a science fiction fan and, if you look at my own series, Rogue Tyger, a fan of the “crew on a ship and mayhem ensues” sci-fi sub-genre. And while it’s a very different show from what I’m trying to do, the landmark anime series Cowboy Bebop was and is a huge influence — and not just in terms of the title. So, of course I’m going to check out the…
Continuing from the musings about the soon-to-be Foundation TV series, I thought about the different series that have massive, interstellar empires… and it turns out I’m not alone. Quinn (who’s videos you should check out if you want to know waaaay more about Dune before that film adaptation comes out later this year) does some comparisons of three literary biggies:
The time-tested pop culture event that is the San Diego Comic Con is virtual this year thanks to the pandemic, so I believe the videos are online sooner than ever before. On Monday, I posted the Star Trek panel, but as longtime readers may recall, I love Farscape, so of course I watched this panel:
I’ve mentioned science fiction tropes here before, back in 2016 and also this year. Heck, I’ve even written a Jabberwocky Audio special that parodies the many tales of crews boarding derelict ships. This is quite established, as the crew over at Generation Films knows well: Warning, this will have spoilers for The film Ad Astra The TV series The Expanse The video game Dead Space The film Sunshine The film Alien The film Predators The film Event Horizon The film Pandorum
Hopefully you’re not having a crappy Monday, but if you give a crap or, rather, need to crap, Daniel from Spacedock understands. Also, why YT-1300 freighter designers, WHY?!? Have you no concept of personal space?
Speculative fiction writer Charles Stross has written a blog post about space opera clichés which has been brought to my attention by one of the denizens of MOSF. I haven’t read too much of Charles Stross, though I like his imaginative and subtly disturbing short story, “Rogue Farm.” It sounds like he enjoys being a bit harder with his sci-fi and space opera than some, which comes through in this list. For that reason, I…