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The Top 10 Space Opera Books and Series of All Time!

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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

When Cordelia Naismith and her survey crew are attacked by a renegade group from Barrayar, she is taken prisoner by Aral Vorkosigan, commander of the Barrayan ship that has been taken over by an ambitious and ruthless crew member. Aral and Cordelia survive countless mishaps while their mutual admiration and even stronger feelings emerge. A science fiction romance by a Hugo and Nebula Award winning master. Bujold's SHARDS OF HONOR is the first book in her SF universe to feature the Vorkosigan clan, followed by the Hugo award-winning BARRAYAR. The Nebula award-winning FALLING FREE precedes it by internal chronology in the same future history.

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.

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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.

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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.

2021 Space Opera Novels That Will Transport You To Another Galaxy!

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Want a BIG story with heaps of action and larger than life characters? Space opera is the genre for you! This sci-fi sub-genre has become wildly popular in the last few years and as interest has grown, so has the number of series available. If you've been on the hunt for a new one to dive into, look no further than this round-up featuring some of the best space opera books released this year!

Star Wars: Thrawn Ascendancy (Book 2: Greater Good) by Timothy Zahn

Release Date: April 27, 2021

Thrawn’s latest triumph still rests newly on his shoulders. He has led the Chiss to victory and brought glory to the House of Mitth, but the true threat to the Ascendancy has not yet been extinguished. Their foes do not send threats or ultimatums, do not mass ships on the edge of the Chaos. Their weapons come cloaked in smiles and generosity: Gifts offered freely. Services granted unconditionally.

Across the Ascendancy, seemingly inconsequential events could herald the doom of the Chiss. As Thrawn and the Expansionary Defense Fleet rally to uncover the plot, they discover a chilling truth: Rather than invade Chiss capitals or pillage resources, their enemy strikes at the very foundation of the Ascendancy, seeking to widen the rifts between the Nine Ruling Families and the Forty Great Houses below. As rivalry and suspicion sow discord among allies, each warrior must decide what matters most to them: the security of their family or the survival of the Ascendancy itself.

Read Star Wars: Thrawn Ascendancy, Book 2 here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Foresight by M. R. Forbes

Release Date: July 27, 2021

As a development platform for desperately needed advanced technology, the experimental starship Foresight is the greatest hope humankind has to flee the alien hordes. For test pilot Captain Nicholas Shepherd, the success of the program is even more personal. Successful completion means delivering his wife and son safely off-world and leaving the war behind for good. But when Foresight suffers a critical malfunction during her final scheduled flight, what should have been a minor setback becomes a major fight for survival.

With his family caught in the crossfire, Nicholas realizes that the flawed starship offers the best chance to escape. It isn’t long before even the frantic evacuation turns sideways, and he discovers that not only is the war harder to get away from than he thought, but Foresight is more than just a prototype.

Much, much more.

Joined by an unintended crew of survivors, Nicholas is about to embark on an impossible mission that will take them far beyond the outer reaches of space. If he fails, humankind won’t just be lost.

We’ll be completely erased.

Read Foresight here on Amazon.

Hold Fast Through the Fire by K. B. Wagers

Release Date: July 27th, 2021

Zuma’s Ghost has won the Boarding Games for the second straight year. The crew—led by the unparalleled ability of Jenks in the cage, the brilliant pairing of Ma and Max in the pilot seats, the technical savvy of Sapphi, and the sword skills of Tamago and Rosa—has all come together to form an unstoppable team. Until it all comes apart.

Their commander and Master Chief are both retiring. Which means Jenks is getting promoted, a new commander is joining them, and a fresh-faced spacer is arriving to shake up their perfect dynamics. And while not being able to threepeat is on their minds, the more important thing is how they’re going to fulfill their mission in the black.

After a plea deal transforms a twenty-year ore-mining sentence into NeoG service, Spacer Chae Ho-ki earns a spot on the team. But there’s more to Chae that the crew doesn’t know, and they must hide a secret that could endanger everyone they love—as well as their new teammates—if it got out. At the same time, a seemingly untouchable coalition is attempting to take over trade with the Trappist colonies and start a war with the NeoG. When the crew of Zuma’s Ghost gets involved, they end up as targets of this ruthless enemy.

With new members aboard, will the team grow stronger this time around? Will they be able to win the games? And, more important, will they be able to surmount threats from both without and within? 

Get your copy of Hold Fast Through the Fire here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Release Date: August 3rd, 2021

The war is over. Its heroes forgotten. Until one chance discovery . . . Idris has neither aged nor slept since they remade him in the war. And one of humanity's heroes now scrapes by on a freelance salvage vessel, to avoid the attention of greater powers. After earth was destroyed, mankind created a fighting elite to save their species, enhanced humans such as Idris. In the silence of space they could communicate, mind-to-mind, with the enemy. Then their alien aggressors, the Architects, simply disappeared—and Idris and his kind became obsolete. Now, fifty years later, Idris and his crew have discovered something strange abandoned in space. It's clearly the work of the Architects—but are they returning? And if so, why? Hunted by gangsters, cults and governments, Idris and his crew race across the galaxy hunting for answers. For they now possess something of incalculable value, that many would kill to obtain.

Read Shards of Earth here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

The Exiled Fleet by J. S. Dewes

Release Date: August 17th, 2021

The Sentinels narrowly escaped the collapsing edge of the Divide.

They have mustered a few other surviving Sentinels, but with no engines they have no way to leave the edge of the universe before they starve.

Adequin Rake has gathered a team to find the materials they'll need to get everyone out.

To do that they're going to need new allies and evade a ruthless enemy. Some of them will not survive.

Grab The Exiled Fleet here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

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The Scavenger Door by Suzanne Palmer

Release Date: August 17th, 2021

Fergus is back on Earth at last, trying to figure out how to live a normal life. However, it seems the universe has other plans for him. When his cousin sends him off to help out a friend, Fergus accidently
stumbles across a piece of an ancient alien artifact that some very powerful people seem to think means the entire solar system is in danger. And since he's the one who found it, they’re certain it’s also his problem to deal with.
 
With the help of his newfound sister, friends both old and new, and some enemies, too, Fergus needs to find the rest of the artifact and destroy the pieces before anyone can reassemble the original and open a multidimensional door between Earth and a vast, implacable, alien swarm. Problem is, the pieces could be anywhere on Earth, and he’s not the only one out searching.

Get your copy of The Scavenger Door here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

The Light Chaser by Peter F. Hamilton and Gareth L. Powell

Release Date: August 24th, 2021

Amahle is a Light Chaser – one of a number of explorers, who travel the universe alone (except for their onboard AI), trading trinkets for life stories.

But when she listens to the stories sent down through the ages she hears the same voice talking directly to her from different times and on different worlds. She comes to understand that something terrible is happening, and only she is in a position to do anything about it.

And it will cost everything to put it right.

Dive into Light Chaser here on Amazon.

Inhibitor Phase by Alastair Reynolds

Release Date: October 12, 2021

For thirty years a tiny band of humans has been sheltering in the caverns of an airless, crater-pocked world called Michaelmas. Beyond their solar system lie the ruins of human interstellar civilization, stalked by a ruthless, infinitely patient cybernetic entity determined to root out the last few bands of survivors. One man has guided the people of Michaelmas through the hardest of times, and given them hope against the wolves: Miguel de Ruyter.

When a lone human ship blunders into their system, and threatens to lead the wolves to Michaelmas, de Ruyter embarks on a desperate, near-suicide mission to prevent catastrophe. But an encounter with a refugee from the ship—the enigmatic woman who calls herself only Glass—leads to de Ruyter's world being turned upside down.

Get your copy of Inhibitor Phase here on Amazon.

Leviathan Falls by James S. A. Corey

Release Date: November 16th, 2021

The Laconian Empire has fallen, setting the thirteen hundred solar systems free from the rule of Winston Duarte. But the ancient enemy that killed the gate builders is awake, and the war against our universe has begun again.
 
In the dead system of Adro, Elvi Okoye leads a desperate scientific mission to understand what the gate builders were and what destroyed them, even if it means compromising herself and the half-alien children who bear the weight of her investigation. Through the wide-flung systems of humanity, Colonel Aliana Tanaka hunts for Duarte’s missing daughter. . . and the shattered emperor himself. And on the Rocinante, James Holden and his crew struggle to build a future for humanity out of the shards and ruins of all that has come before.
 
As nearly unimaginable forces prepare to annihilate all human life, Holden and a group of unlikely allies discover a last, desperate chance to unite all of humanity, with the promise of a vast galactic civilization free from wars, factions, lies, and secrets if they win.
 
But the price of victory may be worse than the cost of defeat.

Start reading Leviathan Falls here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Discordia by Kristyn Merbeth

Release Date: December 7th, 2021

Scorpia is finally back among the stars, far away from the memories of the war she and her family started – and ended – on Nibiru. Her first order as captain of the Memoria is to keep her crew safe, and she is all too happy not to get involved in dangerous political games for once.

Corvus is haunted by what he experienced at the hands of the Titan attack, and he’s just as eager for a new beginning. He knows that not all Titans are built for war, and that the system can find peace, even as Deva and Pax begin to rattle their sabers.

Though the Kaisers may be responsible for diverting a multi-planet war, the planetary leaders are wary of the knowledge they hold. Better to lock them up and keep their dark secrets hidden. But the Kaisers are the only ones who know the truth about the threat of the ancient world-ending alien weapons rooted in each planet – and they may be the only ones who can save the system from total annihilation. 

Grab Discordia here on Amazon.


Which of these space operas will make their way into your (e)bookshelf? Which ones are you most excited for? Let us know here in the comments, or over in the Discover Sci-Fi Facebook group! 

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

The Top 10 Space Opera books or series of all time

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Well, we did it, folks. Together with votes on this blog and on the Discover Sci-Fi Facebook group you nominated, discussed, and voted for the top Space Opera books (or series). This poll had some heated debate over on the Facebook group about what books should count as Space Opera!

Now, ordered from 10th to the very top Space Opera book, we present the top 10 selections for the best Space Opera books and series of all time.

Click on the links to check out the books featuring these favorites to add to your collection, and then add your comments at the bottom of this post (or in our Facebook group) to let us know if you agree (or not!).

Want to see who didn't make the cut? Click here to view the original poll that inspired this list.

*The results were decided by you based on votes tallied up between our Facebook group and on our blog.

10. Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons

The title of this series comes from the first two books, Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion. It now refers to the 4 book series, and some short stories. Several of the books have won awards, including the Hugo, Locus, and British Science Fiction Association Awards, and the series has been nominated for various science fiction awards.

The story arc of the series at first follows the stories of travelers on a pilgrimage to the Time Tombs on Hyperion to a creature called Shrike. Some worship it, some want to destroy it. It is Armageddon, and the entire galaxy is at war.

The first two books are influenced by The Canterbury Tales and the poetry of John Keats (in the form of dreams of John Keats), respectively. Later, in the third and then fourth book, the story jumps forward in time and deals more focusedly on a few characters as they encounter various futuristic religious complications.

Click here to find Hyperion on Amazon.

9. Old Mans War by John Scalzi

Old Man's War is a six-book, military space opera series and an extra short fiction. Each book is set in the same world, but follows a different main character.

It starts with John Perry, a 75-year old whose wife has just passed and he has become a volunteer recruit for the Colonial Defense Forces who protect human interplanetary colonists. He joins other retirees who all obtain souped-up bio-tech younger bodies to fight the war. The story follows Perry's tale from recruit through battles and challenges to his eventual promotion as captain.

Although each book is unique, the world-building links the tales together and is really phenomenal at developing a vivid world out there.

Click here to find the first book in the series, Old Man's War, on Amazon.

8. The Culture Series by Iain M. Banks

The Culture series gets its name from an extremely advanced, post-scarcity society called The Culture comprised of various humanoid races and AIs. There is little need for laws or enforcement since there are no dramatic needs such as food, or work. The members live in spaceships and other off-planet constructs. However, The Culture is just one of several “Involved” civilizations that take an active part in galactic affairs. And the differences between these civilizations has landed them in inter-galactic warfare.

The first book in the series, 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 book follows the story of a shapechanging agent of the Iridans during the Culture-Iridan war, who undertakes a clandestine mission to a forbidden planet in search of an intelligent, fugitive machine whose actions could alter the course of the conflict.

Click here to find the first book in the series, Consider Phlebas, on Amazon.

7. The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold

The Vorkosigan Saga is a series of 30-publications and counting, including novels and a few shorter stories. While it is a series, each book is written intended to be a stand-alone piece, so a reader could theoretically jump in anywhere. Works in the series have received numerous awards and nominations, including five Hugo award wins including one for Best Series. The order of recommended reading is a bit up for debate since the chronology of publication does not follow the internal chronology of the Vorkosigan world. The author recommends reading the books in order of the internal chronology. So that's probably the best place to start!

The stories feature different planetary systems in the “Vorkosiverse,” a galaxy colonized by humans. The stories feature several planetary systems, each with its own political organization, including government by corporate democracy, rule by criminal corporations, monarchies, empires and direct democracies. The main character viewpoints include a diverse set of characters including several women, a gay man, a pair of brothers, one of whom is physically handicapped and the other a clone, and others.

According to the internal chronology, the first book is Falling Free. It has about four to five character points of view, but mainly follows Leo, a teaching engineer, and his students, the Quaddies (who have an extra set of arms instead of legs), a genetically modified species of humans designed to function in zero gravity environments. The students are not treated as full humans, and have been raised as such. When the company that owns the Quaddies abandons them, Leo has to decide how, and whether to, save them.

For the first book in the internal chronology of the Vorkosigan Saga, Falling Free, click here.

6. The Expanse series, by James S.A. Corey

The Expanse is a series of (so far…) eight science fiction novels (and related novellas and short stories) by James S. A. Corey, the joint pen name of authors Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck. The first novel, Leviathan Wakes, was nominated for a Hugo Award and Locus Award and the series as a whole was nominated for the Best Series Hugo Award in 2017.

Leviathan Wakes introduces Captain James Holden, his crew, and Detective Miller. When they are confronted with a case of a single missing girl they realize it leads to a solar-system-wide conspiracy. With fantastic character development and truly Space Opera-tic levels of adventure, it seems almost cinematic. And indeed, the book was turned into an Amazon Prime Original series!

Click here to find the first book in the Expanse series, Leviathan Wakes on Amazon.

5. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Ender's Game is the first book in a quartet, but can definitely be read as a stand-alone book. It actually originated as a short story by the same name, in 1977, and became a book in 1985, updated again in 1991 to reflect contemporary political events. It has won the Hugo and Nebula awards and has been developed into a somewhat controversial film, as well as into two comic book series.

The first book, Ender's Game, follows the story of a boy, Ender, who is selected to go up into space for a the training program, Battle School. He, and other boys, are put through a variety of technically challenging “games” during which Ender's prowess as an analyzing and creative leader is revealed. Battle School prepares them to fight the war against the “Buggers,” an undergoing war which they might be close to losing…

Click here to find Ender's Game on Amazon.

4. Lensman series by E.E. “Doc” Smith

The Lensman series, written by Edward Elmer “Doc” Smith, is a six-book series (plus sequel) that was a runner-up for the 1966 Hugo award for Best All-Time Series.

E.E. “Doc” Smith is sometimes referred to as “the father of space opera” because of this series. It is a truly remarkable world-building saga. It opens with the book Tripleplanetary in which a inhabitants of the planet Nevia descend on earth to loot it of iron. After destroying the city of Pittsburgh the Nevians head home with with three human specimens in its hold. Among them is Conway Costigan, an undercover intelligence operative for the Triplanetary Patrol. From deep within the bowels of the enemy ship, Costigan must do the impossible: find a way to defeat the Nevians before every man, woman, and child on Earth is annihilated.

Find Tripleplanetary, and the rest of the Lensman series here on Amazon.

3. Dune by Frank Herbert

The Hugo and Nebula award-winning book Dune is the first of many Dune books (you can find the full list and order here). It started in 1965, and after the original author, Frank Herbert, died in in 1986, his son, Brian Herbert, and science fiction author Kevin J. Anderson published a number of prequel novels, as well as two which complete the original Dune series. It has been adapted to film and TV multiple times, and is currently under development as a film by Warner Bros. which will be released in November 2020.

In the first novel, Dune, noble families of the distant future control fiefs of an inhopsitable planet, Arrakis, covered in sand dunes. A drug called “spice melange” is the only substance of value and is coveted across the universe. Through sabotage and treachery some nobles cast young Duke Paul Atreides out into the planet's harsh environment to die. He doesn't die, however, and grows up with a tribe of desert dwellers who become the basis of the army with which he will reclaim what's rightfully his. As he grows up, he realizes he has unique powers, and appears to be the end product of a very long-term genetic experiment designed to breed a super human. He might even be a messiah…

You can find the start of the Dune saga on Amazon here.

2. Blood on the Stars series by Jay Allan

The most recent Blood on the Stars book, The Colossus, was just released in April 2019, and the next one, The Others is coming out this month!

One of the best things about this series is that the cast of characters is so well developed that even some of the “bad guys” are characters you want to root for. The series opens with Duel in the Dark which introduces the leaders of opposing captains of space battleships. It is a heavy, gritty, emotional read. When the exhausted crew of the Confederation battleship Dauntless are sent to the Far Rim as the sole assistance to a distress call out there, captain Barron knows it is his sole responsibility to stop the attack at the disputed border and to win victory to prove his worth as the lineage of a family of heroes.

You can find book one of the Blood on the Stars book Duel in the Dark on Amazon here, or the first three books in a three box set, here.

1. Honor Harrington series by David Weber

And the number one, all time best space opera as selected by DiscoverSciFi readers is the Honor Harrington series! Otherwise known as The Honorverse, most of the more than 20 novels and anthology collections cover events between 4000 and 4022 AD. Much of the series' political drama follows that of Europe's political scene from the 1500's to 2000's.

The first book, On Basilisk Station, follows Commander Honor Harrington and Her Majesty’s light cruiser Fearless during their assignment to the Basilisk system. Actually, Honor Harrington has been essentially exiled to the Basilisk, her crew is annoyed with her, and her ship is aged and can hardly be expected to police an entire star system. As much as the Basilisk system was supposed to be a less-than-interesting punishment assignment, it turns out to be a bit of a linch pin in a the aggressive plans of the Haven Republic. And the only one in position to stop them is Honor Harrington and her crew.

You can find book one of the Honor Harrington series, On Basilisk Station on Amazon here.

The space opera genre is full of great, mainly military series, and not everyone agrees on what exactly fits into the category. What do you think? Did you agree with all of the books chosen on this list? Join us here in our Facebook group to chime in on the debate, and then check out our most recent poll while you're there. Don't have Facebook? You can share your views in the comments below.

*Some book-related copy in this post was pulled from Amazon & Wikipedia.

You Can Only Choose One: Best Space Opera

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Last week you entered your nominations for the best Space Opera book or series of all time.

After hundreds of votes and nominations here on our blog and in our Facebook group, we have narrowed it down to a top ten list for you to vote from.

Want to see the full list you guys put up to the vote? Click here to check it out and see which books didn't make the cut.

*The results were decided by you based on votes tallied up between our blog and on our Facebook group.

Which book or series is the best Space Opera of all time?
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What’s your pick for the top Space Opera book series of all time?

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THE DEBATE IS ON!

Space opera is a sub-genre of science fiction literature that emphasizes space warfare, melodramatic adventure, interplanetary battles, chivalric romance, and risk-taking. Set mainly or entirely in outer space, it usually involves conflict between opponents possessing advanced abilities, futuristic weapons, and other sophisticated technology. The term has no relation to music, but is instead a play on the terms “soap opera” and “horse opera”, the latter of which was coined during the 1930s to indicate clichéd and formulaic Western movies.

This week we want your votes and submissions to determine which Space Opera book series deserve to be considered best of all time.

Next week we'll move the top 10 to a final round to determine their rankings from 10 to 1.

Weigh in on the poll below (feel free to add your own suggestions) and then duke it out in the comments!

What's your pick for the top Space Opera book series of all time?
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How Space and Cyberspace are Merging in the 21st Century Battlefield

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CYBERSPACE AND OUTER space are merging to become the primary battlefield for global power in the 21st century. Both space and cyberspace systems are critical in enabling modern warfare—for strike precision, navigation, communication, information gathering—and it therefore makes sense to speak of a new, combined space-cyberspace military high-ground. From the moment Sputnik was launched in 1957, and everyone’s head turned skyward, space has occupied the military high-ground, defining much of the next fifty years of global geopolitics. Space-based systems, for the first time, broke the link between a nation’s physical territory and its global ability to gather information, communicate, navigate, and project power.

In the 1980’s, the rise of information and communications technology enabled the creation of the internet and what we’ve come to call cyberspace, a loosely-defined term that encompasses the global patchwork collection of civilian, government and military computer systems and networks. For the same reasons that space came to occupy the military high-ground—information gathering, navigation, communication—cyberspace is now taking center stage.

From a terrestrial point of view, space-based systems operate in a distant realm, but from a cyber point of view, space systems are no different than terrestrial ones. In the last decade, there has been a seamless integration of the internet into space systems, and communications satellites are increasingly internet-based. One can make the case that that space systems are now a part of cyberspace, and thus that space doctrine in the future will be heavily dependent upon cyber doctrine. The argument can also be made that cyberspace, in part, exists and rests upon space-based systems. Cyberspace is still based in the physical world, in the data processing and communications systems that make it possible. In the military domain, cyberspace is heavily reliant on the physical infrastructure of space-based systems, and is therefore subject to some of the same threats.

Space and cyberspace have many similarities. Both are entirely technological domains that only exist due to advanced technology. They are new domains of human activity created by, and uniquely accessible through, sophisticated technology. Both are vigorous arenas for international competition, the outcomes of which will affect the global distribution of power. It is no coincidence that aspiring powers are building space programs at the same time as they are building advanced cyber programs.

Space and cyberspace are both seen as a global commons, domains that are shared between all nations. For most of human history, the ability of one group of humans to influence another was largely tied to control of physical territory. Space and cyberspace both break this constraint, and while there is a general common interest to work cooperatively in peace, there has inevitably been a militarization in both domains. As with any commons, over time they will become congested, and new rules will have to be implemented to deal with this.

Congestion and disruption are problems in both space and cyberspace. Ninety percent of email is spam, and a large proportion of traffic over any network is from malware, which clogs up and endangers cyberspace. Cyberattacks are now moving from email as the primary vector, to using customized web applications using tools such as the Blackhole automated attack toolkit. Cyberattack by nation-states is now joining the criminal use of spam, viruses, Trojans and worms as deliberate attempts to attack and disrupt cyberspace.

The congestion analogy in space is that entire orbital regions can become clogged with debris. Tens of thousands of objects, from satellites and booster rockets to smaller items as nuts and bolts, now clog the orbital space around Earth. The danger of this was dramatically illustrated when an Iridium satellite was destroyed when it was hit by a discarded Russian booster in February of 2009. The situation can be made dramatically worse by purposely creating debris fields, as the Chinese did when they conducted an anti-satellite test in 2007 using a kinetic kill. Over time, entire orbital regions could become unusable.

Another similarity is that while traditional the air-sea-land domains are covered under the UN—Law of the Sea, Arctic, Biodiversity—outer space and cyberspace still operate under ad-hoc agreements mostly outside of UN frameworks. They both expand the range of human activity far in advance of laws and rules to cover the new areas being used and explored. Because space can be viewed as a sub-domain of cyberspace, any new rules brought into effect to govern cyberspace, will also affect outer space.

If there are many similarities between space and cyberspace, there are some critical differences, the most important being that space-based systems require massive capital outlays, while in comparison, cyberspace requires very little. As James Oberg points out in his book Space Power Theory, the most obvious limitation on the exercise of space power is cost, with the astronomical cost of launch first among these. Cyberspace, on the other hand, has a low threshold for entry, giving rise to the reality that governance of an extremely high-cost domain, space systems, will be dictated by rules derived from the comparatively low-cost domain of cyberspace. Space power resides on assumption of exceptionalism, that it is difficult to achieve, giving nations possessing it a privileged role in determining the balance of global power. In contrast, cyberspace, and the ability to conduct cyberwar, is accessible to any nation, or even private organizations or individuals, which have the intent.

Cyberwar has already started, and is beginning to gain in frequency and intensity. To most people, the term cyberwar still has a metaphorical quality, like the War on Obesity, probably because there hasn’t yet been a cyberattack that directly resulted in a large loss of life. Another important defining characteristic of cyberwarfare is the difficulty with attribution. Deterrence is only effective as a military strategy if you can know, with certainty, who it was that attacked you, but in a cyberattack, there is purposeful obfuscation that makes attribution very difficult.

The first cyberattack can be traced back to the alleged 1982 sabotage of the Soviet Urengoy–Surgut–Chelyabinsk natural gas pipeline by the CIA—as a part of a policy to counter Soviet theft of Canadian technology—that resulted in a three-kiloton explosion, comparable to a small nuclear device. Titan Rain is the name the US government gave a series of coordinated cyberattacks against it over a three-year period from 2003 to 2006, and in 2007 Estonia was subject to an intense cyberattack that swamped the information systems of its parliament, banks, ministries, newspapers and broadcasters. In 2011 a series of cyberattacks called Night Dragon were waged against energy grid companies in America. This is significant because of the Aurora Test conducted by Idaho National Laboratory in 2007, where a 21-line package of software code, injected remotely, caused a large commercial electrical generator to self-destruct by rapidly recycling its circuit breakers, demonstrating that cyberattack can destroy electrical infrastructure.

A new breed of sophisticated cyberweapon was revealed when the Stuxnet worm attacked Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment facilities in June of 2010. It was not the first time that hackers targeted industrial systems, but it was the first discovered malware that subverted industrial systems. Another game-changer was the 2012 Shamoon virus that knocked out 30,000 computers at Saudi Aramco, forcing that company to spend weeks restoring global services. Shamoon was significant because it was specifically design to inflict damage, and was one of the first examples of a military cyberweapon being used against a civilian target. The more recent Wannacry malware attacks in 2017  were reportedly initiated by North Korea and directed to disrupt Western commercial and logistics networks. It is only a matter of time before a cyberweapon targeting space-based systems is unleashed, if it already hasn’t happened.

It is worth it to back up and explore the core issues surrounding internet security. The internet was originally designed as a redundant, self-healing network, the sort of thing that is purposely hard to centrally control. In the late 80’s it evolved into an information-sharing tool for universities and researchers, and in the 90’s it morphed into America’s shopping mall. Now it has become something that is hard, even impossible, to define—so we just call it cyberspace, and leave it at that.

First and foremost, there is the issue that while everyone runs the internet, nobody is really in charge of it. ICANN— The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers—exerts some control, but the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), convened by UN in 2001, was created because nations around world have become increasingly uneasy that their critical infrastructures, and economies, are dependent on the internet, a medium that they had little control over and no governance oversight. The issue has still not been resolved. To the libertarian-minded creators of the internet, decentralized control is a feature, but to governments trying to secure nuclear power stations and space-based assets, it is a serious flaw. A large part of the problem is that we are trying to use the same internet-based technology for social networking and digital scrap-booking, and use this same technology to control power stations and satellites. Not that long ago, critical systems—space systems, power grid, water systems, nuclear power plants, dams—had their own proprietary technologies that were used to control them, but many of these have been replaced these with internet-based technologies as a cost-savings measure. The consequence is that as a result, now nearly everything can be attacked via the internet.

When it comes to software producers, while they would like their products to be secure from hackers, they have a competing interest in wanting to able to access their software installed on customers’ machines. They want to be able to collect as much information as possible, to sell to third parties or use in their own marketing, and also to want to update new features into their software remotely. Often, this is to install patches to discovered security vulnerabilities, precisely because code is poorly written to begin with, because they realize they can update it later. This backdoor into software is a huge security flaw—one that companies purposely build into their products—and is one that has been regularly exploited by hackers.

There are many consequences to all this.

The first is that, because we use the same internet-based technology to support both the private lives of individuals and operate critical infrastructure, there will be a perpetual balancing act between these two competing interests when it comes to security. Another is that until the general public really sees cybersecurity as a threat, many of the fixable problems will not be addressed, such as setting international prohibitions on cyberespionage—making them comparable in severity to physical incursions into the physical sovereign space of a nation-state—or forcing software companies to get serious about secure coding practices and eliminating backdoors into their products.

Because of the extremely high value of space-based assets, and because they are already a seamless part of cyberspace, when a major cyber conflict does emerge, space systems will be primary targets for cyberattack. Even if space systems are not directly attacked, they may be affected. There can be no known blast radius to a cyberweapon when it is unleashed. Even the Stuxnet worm, which was highly targeted in several ways, still infected other industrial control systems around the world, causing untold collateral damage.

A more difficult threat to consider than simply denying access or service to a space system through cyberattack is the problem of integrity. In the cybersecurity world, the three things to protect are confidentiality (keeping something secret, and being able to verify this), availability, and integrity of data. Integrity is by far the hardest to protect and ensure. If a cyberattacker, for example, decided on a slow (over time) modification of data in a critical space junk database, they could influence moving satellites into harm’s way or worse, drop satellites from orbit into populated areas.

Over the last fifty years, a comprehensive strategy based around deterrence was developed in conjunction with the idea of space power theory. In the future, a comparable framework and space-cyberspace power theory will need to be developed. Many questions need to be answered, most especially regarding how the international community will establish rules for cyberspace, the definition of rules for cyberwar, proportionality of response, and how to deal with the problem of attribution. Exactly how the developing cyberwar doctrine will affect the way outer space is governed remains to be seen.

Matthew Mather is author of a fictional account of the first major cyberattack, CyberStorm, which has sold close to a million copies, been translated in 23 countries and is in development for film by 20th Century Fox. You can find CyberStorm on Amazon.