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A review by ngfs92
Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente
2.0
Aptly described as a mixture of THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY and EuroVision, with a punny title, excellent cover art and a beguiling slogan (“In space, everyone can hear you sing”), Catherynne M Valente’s SPACE OPERA promises a silly read. Unfortunately the silliness occupies so much of the glammed up stage that behind the theatrics there is little action, and less story.
The premise of SPACE OPERA is that after a terrible intergalactic war, the sentient species of the universe have formed a sort of peace treaty where they meet every 46 years to compete in a musical competition, the Grand Prix, where the loser is no longer recognized as sentient and faces extermination. Humankind has just been invited, and while not the aliens’ nor Earth’s first choice, a washed-up glam rocker must get his band back together and attempt to not lose the competition.
The story itself is solid, and the characters are well-developed. Decibel Jones is a fantastic anti-protagonist who continually makes poor decisions, but ones that contribute to both his character development and the plot. Fans of Valente will enjoy reading her masterful tactile descriptions, so vivid you can feel and smell them with the mind’s nose and hands. In the same way the Valente uses repetition to achieve a fairy tale structure in her 2011 novel DEATHLESS, Valente writes in Adams’ style of long, long, and longer sentences full of narrative asides in a loving, beautiful homage to Adams’ work.
However, these long sentences are also the novel’s undoing. The novel is so intentionally over the top with its long descriptions that the plot gets lost in it. Clocking in at roughly 300 pages, the actual plot only occupies about a third of the novel. The other two-thirds are used to help set the stage, to explain what the other sentient species have done, but it’s so much information that once the various aliens do appear, you can’t quite remember which one was from the planet that did that one weird thing next to the wormhole maybe? SPACE OPERA reads like one long, never-ending meme.
This is not to say SPACE OPERA is a bad story. It is a testament to hope in the face of hopelessness, and for perseverance in the face of suffering. Yet the writing is so focused on the style that the reader drowns in the paragraph long sentences. Had the novel focused solely on Jones’ storyline from his present onward, Space Opera would be an absolutely amazing novella and would have earned a much higher rating. As it is now, it’s just too much.
The premise of SPACE OPERA is that after a terrible intergalactic war, the sentient species of the universe have formed a sort of peace treaty where they meet every 46 years to compete in a musical competition, the Grand Prix, where the loser is no longer recognized as sentient and faces extermination. Humankind has just been invited, and while not the aliens’ nor Earth’s first choice, a washed-up glam rocker must get his band back together and attempt to not lose the competition.
The story itself is solid, and the characters are well-developed. Decibel Jones is a fantastic anti-protagonist who continually makes poor decisions, but ones that contribute to both his character development and the plot. Fans of Valente will enjoy reading her masterful tactile descriptions, so vivid you can feel and smell them with the mind’s nose and hands. In the same way the Valente uses repetition to achieve a fairy tale structure in her 2011 novel DEATHLESS, Valente writes in Adams’ style of long, long, and longer sentences full of narrative asides in a loving, beautiful homage to Adams’ work.
However, these long sentences are also the novel’s undoing. The novel is so intentionally over the top with its long descriptions that the plot gets lost in it. Clocking in at roughly 300 pages, the actual plot only occupies about a third of the novel. The other two-thirds are used to help set the stage, to explain what the other sentient species have done, but it’s so much information that once the various aliens do appear, you can’t quite remember which one was from the planet that did that one weird thing next to the wormhole maybe? SPACE OPERA reads like one long, never-ending meme.
This is not to say SPACE OPERA is a bad story. It is a testament to hope in the face of hopelessness, and for perseverance in the face of suffering. Yet the writing is so focused on the style that the reader drowns in the paragraph long sentences. Had the novel focused solely on Jones’ storyline from his present onward, Space Opera would be an absolutely amazing novella and would have earned a much higher rating. As it is now, it’s just too much.