Five years ago, we asked the Discover Sci-Fi community to vote for the Top 10 Space Opera Books and Series of all Time. Since then, thousands more readers have joined our community and simultaneously, countless new space opera titles have been released. With all these changes, we decided it was high time to re-evaluate and see how the favorites have shifted over the past five years.

And so, over the past two weeks, we conducted another poll, gathering thousands of votes from sci-fi aficionado both here on the blog and in our Discover Sci-Fi Facebook group. As a side note, this poll sparked some great discussion about what constitutes a space opera, and whether some of the reader nominated books actually met the criteria. If you're not in the group, we encourage you to get in there and throw your two cents in on this conversation, and those like it!

Now... on with the show...

Today, we’re thrilled to reveal the Top 10 Space Opera Books and Series as chosen by you, our discerning and passionate readers, ranked below from 10 to 1. Voting was tight on this one, seeing a tie for first place, and other spots on the list decided by a single vote.  Compared to our list from 2019, there have been a couple notable changes with two wildly popular entries being ousted in favor of something different. 

Scroll on to dive in and please don’t forget to share your thoughts in the comments below or in our Facebook group. We’re eager to hear whether you agree with the rankings and if not, what you'd change. 

10. Blood on the Stars by Jay Allan

Read the first book in Jay Allan’s blockbuster Blood on the Stars series.

A duel, in the deepest darks, a savage fight between two veteran warriors, two captains, two heroes.

An epic battle that only one can survive. A fight to determine if there is peace, or a bloody war where billions will die.

The Confederation battleship Dauntless has spent ten months patrolling the border, alone, watching for an attack from the enemy Union. The crew is exhausted, and the aging vessel needs repairs.

The fleet is mobilized, ready for the war it knows is coming. The forward bases are overloaded beyond capacity, and Dauntless is sent clear across the Confederation, to a base along the peaceful and sleepy sector known as the Far Rim.

But the quiet frontier isn’t quite what it seems, and a distress call from a mining colony at the edge of Confederation space, sends Captain Tyler Barron and his ship forward into the unknown.

Barron and his crew have their ship—and each other—but they can expect no reinforcements. His superiors believe that Union deceit is at play, that the attack is merely a diversion, intended to draw Confederation forces from the disputed border. Their orders are clear: no ships will be transferred from the main front. Stopping whatever is happening on the Far Rim is Barron’s responsibility, and his alone.

Barron is the grandson of the Confederation’s greatest hero, and his name has always carried great privilege, along with crushing responsibility. Now he must prove that he has inherited more than just a name from his famous ancestor.

He must face the enemy, and win the victory.

Before the Confederation is caught between two enemies and destroyed.

Read Duel in the Dark here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

9. Hyperion by Dan Simmons 

A stunning tour de force filled with transcendent awe and wonder, Hyperion is a masterwork of science fiction that resonates with excitement and invention, the first volume in a remarkable epic by the multiple-award-winning author of The Hollow Man.

On the world called Hyperion, beyond the reach of galactic law, waits a creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all.

On the eve of Armageddon, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set forth on a final voyage to Hyperion seeking the answers to the unsolved riddles of their lives. Each carries a desperate hope—and

Grab Hyperion here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

8. Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds 

This highly acclaimed first novel in the Revelation Space universe has redefined the space opera with a staggering journey across vast gulfs of time and space to confront the very nature of reality itself . . .

Nine hundred thousand years ago, something annihilated the Amarantin civilization just as it was on the verge of discovering space flight. Now one scientist, Dan Sylveste, will stop at nothing to solve the Amarantin riddle before ancient history repeats itself. With no other resources at his disposal, Sylveste forges a dangerous alliance with the cyborg crew of the starship Nostalgia for Infinity. But as he closes in on the secret, a killer closes in on him. Because the Amarantin were destroyed for a reason, and if that reason is uncovered, the universe and reality itself could be irrevocably altered . . .

Get your copy of Revelation Space here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

7. Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold

Read Shards of Honor on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

6. The Culture Series by Iain M. Banks

The first book in Iain M. Banks's seminal science fiction series, The Culture. Consider Phlebas introduces readers to the utopian conglomeration of human and alien races that explores the nature of war, morality, and the limitless bounds of mankind's imagination.

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.

 Grab Culture here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

5. The Commonwealth Saga by Peter F. Hamilton

The year is 2380. The Intersolar Commonwealth, a sphere of stars, contains more than six hundred worlds interconnected by a web of transport “tunnels” known as wormholes. At the farthest edge of the Commonwealth, astronomer Dudley Bose observes the impossible: over one thousand light-years away, a star . . . disappears. Since the location is too distant to reach by wormhole, the Second Chance, a faster-than-light starship commanded by Wilson Kime, a five-times-rejuvenated ex-NASA pilot, is dispatched to learn what has occurred and whether it represents a threat.

Opposed to the mission are the Guardians of Selfhood, led by Bradley Johansson. Shortly after the journey begins, Kime wonders if the crew of the Second Chance has been infiltrated. But soon enough he will have other worries. Halfway across the galaxy, something truly incredible is waiting: a deadly discovery whose unleashing will threaten to destroy the Commonwealth . . . and humanity itself.

Get your copy of Pandora's Star here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

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4. Triplanetary by E.E. "Doc" Smith 

Triplanetary was first serialized in Amazing Stories in 1934 and it later on formed the first of the Lensman series, where it set the stage for what is one of the greatest space-opera sagas ever written. This original publication brings us to a distant planet inhabited by a highly developed aquatic race called the Nevians. They have managed to harness the atomic power of iron and have an enormous need for the metal to generate energy, but their planet has virtually no iron reserves. They build a spaceship to venture into the universe and find iron. Eventually they discover that Earth has huge amounts of iron and the Nevians start to extract all the iron out of Pittsburgh with a special ray. This ray shoots into the city and immediately vaporizes and removes any iron from the buildings, machines, earth, and even from human blood. It is up to Conway Costigan, a mercilessly competent, two-fisted whiz agent of the military Triplanetary Service, and his colleagues to save the planet.

Grab Triplanetary here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

3. Old Man's War by John Scalzi

Perfect for an entry-level sci-fi reader and the ideal addition to a veteran fan’s collection, John Scalzi's Old Man’s War will take audiences on a heart-stopping adventure into the far corners of the universe.

John Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First he visited his wife's grave. Then he joined the army.

The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce-and aliens willing to fight for them are common. The universe, it turns out, is a hostile place.

So: we fight. To defend Earth (a target for our new enemies, should we let them get close enough) and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has gone on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding.

Earth itself is a backwater. The bulk of humanity's resources are in the hands of the Colonial Defense Force, which shields the home planet from too much knowledge of the situation. What's known to everybody is that when you reach retirement age, you can join the CDF. They don't want young people; they want people who carry the knowledge and skills of decades of living. You'll be taken off Earth and never allowed to return. You'll serve your time at the front. And if you survive, you'll be given a generous homestead stake of your own, on one of our hard-won colony planets.

John Perry is taking that deal. He has only the vaguest idea what to expect. Because the actual fight, light-years from home, is far, far harder than he can imagine-and what he will become is far stranger.

Dive into Old Man's War here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

2. The Expanse Series by James S.A. Corey

From a New York Times bestselling and Hugo award-winning author comes a modern masterwork of science fiction, introducing a captain, his crew, and a detective as they unravel a horrifying solar system wide conspiracy that begins with a single missing girl. Now a Prime Original series.

Humanity has colonized the solar system—Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt and beyond—but the stars are still out of our reach.

Jim Holden is XO of an ice miner making runs from the rings of Saturn to the mining stations of the Belt. When he and his crew stumble upon a derelict ship, the Scopuli, they find themselves in possession of a secret they never wanted. A secret that someone is willing to kill for—and kill on a scale unfathomable to Jim and his crew. War is brewing in the system unless he can find out who left the ship and why.

Detective Miller is looking for a girl. One girl in a system of billions, but her parents have money and money talks. When the trail leads him to the Scopuli and rebel sympathizer Holden, he realizes that this girl may be the key to everything.

Holden and Miller must thread the needle between the Earth government, the Outer Planet revolutionaries, and secretive corporations—and the odds are against them. But out in the Belt, the rules are different, and one small ship can change the fate of the universe.

"Interplanetary adventure the way it ought to be written." —George R. R. Martin

Get your copy of Leviathan Wakes, here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

1A. The Foundation Series by Issac Asimov

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.

Get your copy of Foundation
here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

1B. Honor Harrington Saga by David Weber

Having made him look a fool, she's been exiled to Basilisk Station in disgrace and set up for ruin by a superior who hates her.

Her demoralized crew blames her for their ship's humiliating posting to an out-of-the-way picket station.

The aborigines of the system's only habitable planet are smoking homicide-inducing hallucinogens.

Parliament isn't sure it wants to keep the place; the major local industry is smuggling; the merchant cartels want her head; the star-conquering, so-called "Republic" of Haven is Up To Something; and Honor Harrington has a single, over-age light cruiser with an armament that doesn't work to police the entire star system.

But the people out to get her have made one mistake. They've made her mad.

Get your copy of On Basilisk Station
here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Time to sound off! Do you agree with the ranking here, or do you feel as though a well deserving space opera book or series was overlooked or didn't place as high as you think it should have? Feel free to let us know in the comments here, or join us in our Discover Sci-Fi Facebook Group to chime in on this matter and on everything else sci-fi related! 

*All book-related copy in this post was pulled from Amazon, Goodreads & Wikipedia, unless otherwise credited.