Great Space Operas
Explore the best space operas with our curated list of epic sci-fi books. Dive into grand adventures, interstellar battles, and cosmic drama in these must-read novels.
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The Pride of Chanur
by C. J. Cherryh
A human finds refuge on a spaceship operated by catlike beings. A sequel is Chanur's Venture.
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On Basilisk Station
by David Weber
She has been exiled to Basilisk Station in disgrace and set up for ruin by a superior who hates her. But they have made a serious mistake. They have made her mad.
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Barrayar
by Lois McMaster Bujold
Anarchy threatens Barrayar when the emperor dies leaving his five-year-old son as heir, and only one man, Aral Vorkosigan, and his extraordinary wife, Cordelia Naismith, can keep the empire united.
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The Snow Queen
by Joan D. Vinge
An epic, Hugo Award-winning novel that draws upon the classic Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale The Snow Queen.
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Foundation
by Isaac Asimov
The first novel in Isaac Asimov’s classic science-fiction masterpiece, the Foundation series THE EPIC SAGA THAT INSPIRED THE APPLE TV+ SERIES FOUNDATION • Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read For twelve thousand years the Galactic Empire has ruled supreme. Now it is dying. But only Hari Seldon, creator of the revolutionary science of psychohistory, can see into the future—to a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that will last thirty thousand years. To preserve knowledge and save humankind, Seldon gathers the best minds in the Empire—both scientists and scholars—and brings them to a bleak planet at the edge of the galaxy to serve as a beacon of hope for future generations. He calls his sanctuary the Foundation. The Foundation novels of Isaac Asimov are among the most influential in the history of science fiction, celebrated for their unique blend of breathtaking action, daring ideas, and extensive worldbuilding. In Foundation, Asimov has written a timely and timeless novel of the best—and worst—that lies in humanity, and the power of even a few courageous souls to shine a light in a universe of darkness.
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Triplanetary
by Edward Elmer Smith
From the atomic age in Atlantis to the far-flung future, here is a story of interstellar war with Earth as the prize for the victor. The elder race of our galaxy, the Arisians, using advanced mental science, has foreseen the invasion of our universe by the evil Eddorians. The Arisians begin a breeding program on every world that can produce intelligent life, the goal to produce super warriors who can repel the Eddorians. Triplanetary is the early history of that breeding program on Earth, illustrated with the lives of several warriors and soldiers. It ends with the discovery of the interstellar space drive, formation of the Galactic Patrol, and the first Lens-an Arisian device that provides its wearer with mind-reading and telepathic abilities-given to the first Lensman on Earth.
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Consider Phlebas
by Iain Banks
The war raged across the galaxy. Billions had died, billions more were doomed. Moons, planets, the very stars themselves, faced destruction, cold-blooded, brutal, and worse, random. The Idirans fought for their Faith; the Culture for its moral right to exist. Principles were at stake. There could be no surrender. Within the cosmic conflict, an individual crusade. Deep within a fabled labyrinth on a barren world, a Planet of the Dead proscribed to mortals, lay a fugitive Mind. Both the Culture and the Idirans sought it. It was the fate of Horza, the Changer, and his motley crew of unpredictable mercenaries, human and machine, actually to find it, and with it their own destruction. Consider Phlebas - a space opera of stunning power and awesome imagination.
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A Fire Upon The Deep
by Vernor Vinge
A Fire Upon the Deep is the big, breakout book that fulfills the promise of Vinge's career to date: a gripping tale of galactic war told on a cosmic scale. Thousands of years hence, many races inhabit a universe where a mind's potential is determined by its location in space, from superintelligent entities in the Transcend, to the limited minds of the Unthinking Depths, where only simple creatures and technology can function. Nobody knows what strange force partitioned space into these "regions of thought," but when the warring Straumli realm use an ancient Transcendent artifact as a weapon, they unwittingly unleash an awesome power that destroys thousands of worlds and enslaves all natural and artificial intelligence. Fleeing the threat, a family of scientists, including two children, are taken captive by the Tines, an alien race with a harsh medieval culture, and used as pawns in a ruthless power struggle. A rescue mission, not entirely composed of humans, must rescue the children-and a secret that may save the rest of interstellar civilization. A Fire Upon The Deep is the winner of the 1993 Hugo Award for Best Novel.