Space Opera Fans discussion

Greetings Space Opera Fans!

It's that time of the month to nominate what space opera books we'd like to read as a group in October. Up this month we have the following categories:

READER PICK: Dead trees is where it's at for the Reader Pick, which should be widely available in both paperback and ebook at most chain bookstores and public libraries. Books can't be exclusive to Kindle Unlimited since we're a global community.

INDIE PICK: This is for those newer, edgier books where the author has to do it all. Books that have been published by a micropress that helps you upload the thing, but YOU otherwise do the work and marking are okay, or if you got your backlist back, still qualify.

YOUNG ADULT FRIENDLY PICK: This is where YOU guys help me indoctrinate set a good example for my teenagers and hook them up with good books that won't make them roll their eyes. That means: Must be written FOR a young adult and STAR a young adult protagonist (age 17 or less) and not have been published any earlier than the year 2000 AD (yeah, I know you all think Heinlein is young adult, but the Y2K kids think he's sooooo 1966).


(If the cover looks like this, chances are a teen will spurn it...)

Since it's hard to find purely space opera YA books, any sci-fi book that has a strong space or space-yearning element will probably be acceptable. Gotta still have spaceships and aliens.

Drop your nomination into the thread below and, on the first of the month (or so), we'll spin it through Random.org to pick three brand new group reads.

Be epic!

Anna Erishkigal
SOF Borg Queen

P.S. - drive-by spam nominations not allowed, so if you're not an active member, we reserve the right to disqualify anything fishy.

YA recommendation:

Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Dawn (Book 1 in a series)


First part in a Japanese Novel series I want to read. I assume it's YA friendly since it has had an anime adaptation I hear, though it isn't a "kids book" (it's not a traditional Japanese fantasy light novel). The Goodreads description says the main character is a military prodigy.

"drive-by spam nominations not allowed, so if you're not an active member, we reserve the right to disqualify anything fishy. "

I'm a new member who hasn't posted much [at all?]. I've been participating a lot with other groups and picking up books for Halloween, so haven't had as much time to delve into space opera.

I picked up two SciFi books recently (Ubik and The Gods Themselves), but I'm not sure how space opera-ish they are (trying to read them without looking at a synopsis too closely).

How about Frontier Incursion for YA? A lost colony on another planet has empathic felines the size of panthers, and the bad guys come to town.

There is a new Nathan Lowell out Milk Run, which is well suited to teen readers, but the protagonist is 22-ish.

I haven't really read any good grown-up scifi lately, but some of these YAs are getting better. The conflicts are smaller and more intriguing than some of the "bigger" space-opera.

I nominate

for reader pick and

for indie pick.

For indie:
Liberty by Alasdair C. Shaw, I love these characters. It was great.

YA: Mars Evacuees (Mars Evacuees #1) Sophia McDougall

Reader: A Soldier's Duty (Theirs Not to Reason Why, #1) by Jean Johnson *i am a broken record for this series.

Laz wrote: "How about Frontier Incursion for YA? A lost colony on another planet has empathic felines the size of panthers, and the bad guys come to town.

There is a new Nathan Lowell out [boo..."

Hi Laz, although I'm really happy you've nominated Frontier Incursion (as I wrote it!), it was read in the YA section a little while back....and I think they only get one go :-)

Hey Leonie! Great minds... I've got book 2 in queue.

Laz wrote: "Hey Leonie! Great minds... I've got book 2 in queue."

Wonderful to hear!

YA Pick:

Reader Pick:

I'm pretty sure that when Anna refers to 'drive-by nominations' she means authors dropping by to nominate their own books before disappearing once more into the aether...

I'd like to nominate an indie - Girl From Above: Betrayal - I read a linked short story by this author and really liked it.

Hope wrote: "Reader's Pick: On Basilisk Station (Honor Harrington, #1) by David Weber by David Weber. It's still free on Amazon, so no excuses for not reading it! ;)"

Hope, we already read this book, in August 2015. But you could nominate the next in the series.

Hope wrote: "Hope, we already read this bo..."
Whoops- totally forgot to check if it had been read yet! I'll nominate book 2 then instead - The Honor of the Queen (Honor Harrington, #2) by David Weber. "

FYI, that one is also free on Baen Books Free Library.
http://www.baen.com/categories/free-l...

Steph wrote: "...I'd like to nominate an indie - Girl From Above: Betrayal - I read a linked short story by this author and really liked it."

Unless this has caught anyone else's eye, can I withdraw this one? I've realised it's not on Kobo, so I can't read it anyway...

Hope wrote: "Betsy wrote: "Hope wrote: "Reader's Pick: On Basilisk Station (Honor Harrington, #1) by David Weber by David Weber. It's still free on Amazon, so no excuses for not reading it! ;)"

Hope, we alread..."

The two books in this series are Whispersync [discount on audio upgrade if you bought a digital copy] eligible.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.htm...

And my nomination also has an Audible audiobook [no whispersync though].
http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fant...

Is there a poll up?

Sorry guys ... been a BAD mod this week ... am behind my work on everything!

Here are the Random.org winners ... will prettify it up as soon as I can:

A Soldier's Duty by Jean Johnson
Star Nomad by Lindsay Buroker
Frontier Resistance by Leonie Rogers