How you may ask? After a devastating civil war in the galaxy, a singing competition was instated to test sentience. Humanity has reached the brink of leaving for space, and now the sentient creatures of the universe are auditioning us for space adulthood. Catherynne Valente’s Space Opera takes a very similar premise, and spins it into one of the funniest novels this side of Scalzi’s Redshirts (it’s funnier than Scalzi). It is a dark novel that provides an unsettling answer to the Fermi paradoxon, and its logic is grounded in our history of colonialism and imperialism. The situation is simple: in the future, with humanity having colonialized the solar system and about to step outside, someone notices we exist and might be a threat, and, just to be safe, nukes the whole of humanity before coming in and mopping up what’s left. One of my favorite science fiction novels is The Killing Star by Charles Pellegrino and George Zebrowski. (Aug.Valente, Caterynne, Space Opera, Saga Press Agent: Howard Morhaim, Howard Morhaim Literary. This collection is best suited for completists and devoted fans of Valente’s short works. Even the most straightforward offerings are often beautiful and sometimes frustrating, and some, such as “The Long Goodnight of Violet Wild,” are almost impenetrable in their surreal language and artistic construction. “Major Tom” focuses on the intersection of humanity and artificial intelligence.
Thompson as it asks just what the Elder Gods are waiting for.
“Down and Out in R’lyeh” reads like a hybrid of H.P. “Two and Two Is Seven” gleefully plays with alliteration as it examines the lives of ancient machines resigned to life in a hidden valley. In the title story, set on a drowned Earth, the last humans dwell on floating cities of garbage, forever holding out vain hope for dry land. Her multilayered, complicated narratives require careful, in-depth reading to grasp their full meaning.
Her approach is dreamlike, even hallucinatory, leaping from one idea to the next with dizzying frequency and skill. In this challenging collection of 15 reprints and originals with a variety of tones, themes, and styles, Valente’s unique knack for bending genres and confounding the senses is on full display.
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