Space Opera

by Catherynne M Valente

"Mankind will not get to fight for its destiny. They must 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 by the remnants of civilization. Something to cheer up everyone who was left. Something to celebrate having escaped total annihilation by the skin of one's teeth, if indeed one has skin. Or teeth. Something to bring the shattered worlds together in the spirit of peace, unity, understanding, and the most powerful of all social bonds: excluding others. Once every cycle, the great galactic civilizations gather for Galactivision--part gladiatorial contest, part beauty pageant, part concert extravaganza, and part, a very large, but very subtle part, continuation of the wars of the past. Thus, a fragile peace has held. This year, a bizarre and unsightly species has looked up from its muddy planet-bound cradle and noticed the enormous universe blaring on around it: humanity. Where they expected to one day reach out into space and discover a grand drama of diplomacy, gunships, wormholes, and stoic councils of grave aliens, they have found glitter. And lipstick. And pyrotechnics. And electric guitars. A band of human musicians, dancers, and roadies have been chosen to represent their planet on the greatest stage in the galaxy. And the fate of Earth lies in their ability to rock"--

• ISBN10: 1481497502
• ISBN13: 9781481497503
• Publish Date: 18 December 2018 (first published 10 April 2018)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Simon & Schuster
• Edition: Reprint ed.
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 304
• Language: English

Reviews

[dragononabook]

I had a vague idea that this was going to be Hitchhikers meets Eurovision, but I didn't realise exactly how much. Catherynne Valente has done Douglas Adams proud; if you like anything he has written and like glam, you will like this book. However, I think that it should carry a warning: do not read if you have broken ribs or a really bad cough. You will regret it.

[MurderByDeath]

I hemmed and hawed over whether to give this 4 or 4.5 stars.  While generally, 4 stars is sort of my default for 'this was good', in this case, several pertinent facts should be kept in mind:   - I don't like space related books.     - I don't like fantasy books that involve names I can't pronounce without physically hurting myself.   - I am not a fan of Eurovision.   Given all this, my 4 stars is a downright declaration of adoration.   (For the record, I didn't go with 4.5 stars because the story sagged a bit mid-way and I thought the deus ex machina at the end was both predictable and disappointing because she went there.)   Valente wrote a truly exceptional book.  I loved the writing, though the run-on sentences took a while to get used to; MT got his fair share of dark looks whenever he spoke to me while I was reading this, as it often meant I had to go back to the beginning of the paragraph/sentence and start over again.  But her biting satire, her anger tinged humor and her way of calling humanity out while holding it up was almost miraculous for the balancing act involved.     I'd recommend this to almost anybody, though some might find Valente's refreshing honesty and brutal truth confronting.     Speaking of brutal truths, I'll leave you with Goguenar Gorecannon's 11th General Unkillable Fact (you were right BT, it is sadly too long to put on a t-shirt):   You can't stop people being assholes.  They do love it so.  The best you can hope for is that some people, sometimes, will turn out to be somewhat less than the absolute worst. When they manage to trip and fall over that incredibly low bar, they'll make you want to end it all.  But when they leap over it, they'll make you believe this whole mess really was created for a reason...

[empressbrooke]

Catherynne Valente's book either really, really work for me, or really, really don't. The high points make me love her so much that I support her on Patreon and follow her on Twitter, and I will read anything she puts out. After fully expecting to fall in love with this one based on all the love it's gotten this year, I'm disappointed to place it in the "really, really doesn't" category. It is mostly massive sentences that breathlessly describe things at such length that I'd forgotten what was being discussed by the time I got to the end. She has such a distinctive writing style that I would recognize anywhere, but it's like she tried to out-Valente herself and got lost in it. The overwroughtness got in the way of making any of the various alien species' backstories memorable, so that I'd forgotten who was what and why almost immediately. And every now and then there was a reference to someone/something named Robert and I never had any idea who or what Robert was. I'm sad that I didn't find the joy in it that so many other readers did.

[jamiereadthis]

The theme of the week: me sulkily quitting a book. Because the writing makes me so tired.

Catch a load of this:

“Life isn’t difficult, it isn’t picky, it isn’t unique, and fate doesn’t enter into the thing. Kick-starting the gas-guzzling subcompact go-cart of organic sentience is as easy as shoving it down a hill and watching the whole thing spontaneously explode. Life wants to happen. It can’t stand not happening.”

On its own, fine. As every sentence in the book, it’s exhausting. What’s that thing where the space between the notes is just as important as the notes? Yeah, that.