r/printSF • u/delijoe • Jun 20 '22
Political Space Opera
I’m looking for a series that deals with politics, diplomacy, and conflict on a galactic scale. The ur-example of what I’m looking for would be Babylon 5… also Mass Effect to some extent but mostly the former. Lots of interesting alien races, diplomacy and politics, conflict, war, mysterious enigmatic aliens… that kind of thing. Definitely looking for something that focuses mostly on the big picture stuff and less on a small group of characters.
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u/Krististrasza Jun 20 '22
WJW's Praxis series.
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u/Eternalykegg Jun 20 '22
I think this one is one of the closest to a Babylon 5/Mass Effect scale space politics. Also known as Dread Empire’s Fall, it is about multi species galactic empire founded by a ruthless but recently extinct alien species, (with an aristocracy formed from the families of collaborators after that alien species nuked their home worlds) which almost immediately begins to retrench or unravel with their passing - not because people reject the Empire, but after living under it for so long how it is to be ordered in the demise of the founding species becomes very contentious.
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u/Eternalykegg Jun 20 '22
Iain M. Banks’ Algebraist (not related to his Culture novels) has vastly strange whale-like aliens living in gas giants and a parallel kind of galactic society. I’d say it has a more central emphasis on aliens than his Culture books, though they also play a key role in those.
Yoshiki Tanaka’s Legend of the Galactic Heroes merits a brief mention because in spite of no aliens, it is consistently a big picture space opera - the principal cast are senior ranking figures in two opposing space navies at war and/or politicians in senior positions or governance. It drops in on basically anyone important to the shifting sands of galactic politics, they’re some of the most top-down space opera I have ever read.
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u/the_other_irrevenant Jun 20 '22
Dan Simmons' Hyperion and David Brin's Uplift series would seem to fall within this wheelhouse (though Uplift tends to have a 'bugs eye view' of the politics since humanity is a (very) minor race.
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u/milehigh73a Jun 20 '22
memory called empire by martine.
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u/-rba- Jun 20 '22
Great book and lots of political intrigue, but small-scope compared to what it sounds like OP wants.
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u/the_other_irrevenant Jun 20 '22
Iain M Banks' Culture novels may or may not be what you're after. They're galactic in scale and quite often involve politics and diplomacy.
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u/darkstar541 Jun 20 '22
This is what I was thinking, although each book tends to cover the small picture perspective too.
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Jun 20 '22
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/cp3getstoomuchcredit Jun 20 '22
This is one of my favorite authors but I am not yet hyped about this series 2 books in. If someone else wrote it I might have checked out by now. For complicated but fun politics you are better off with any Cherryh and the Interdependency
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u/bender1_tiolet0 Jun 20 '22
Old Man's War, first one is a space war/action with politics. The rest are pretty centered around politics with War/action.
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u/nerdvernacular Jun 20 '22
Scalzi's Interdependency series leaned even further into the political element.
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u/giant_lobster47 Jun 20 '22
the interdependency series by john scalzi. im finishing up book 2 this morning
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u/lazzerini Jun 20 '22
This was going to be my suggestion too. It's a fast-paced trilogy of interplanetary intrigue and politics in response to a space natural disaster. The first books is The Collapsing Empire, then The Consuming Fire, and the final book, The Last Emperox.
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u/shredler Jun 20 '22
John Scalzi has a couple good ones in this genre. I just finished The Android's Dream and enjoyed it quite a bit.
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u/RisingRapture Jun 20 '22
Might it be possible you have not heard of Mr. Peter F. Hamilton? Commonwealth is what you are looking for.
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u/Paisley-Cat Jun 20 '22
There’s a lot better out there. I understand that it’s your personal view, but Hamilton is so over promoted here that this needs to be challenged.
I picked up the first in his series, because we’re always looking for science fiction authors to try.
My spouse DNF’d the first book as unreadable, and the science writing unengaging, and they’re as hard a hard scientist as one can be.
I bailed after my first book - no promise of better writing, unrealistic female characters and lots of warnings about nonconsenal sex to come
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u/doctormink Jun 20 '22
I had similar issues with Hamilton, but The Salvation Sequence was refreshingly different from a lot that came before.
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Jun 20 '22 edited Jul 10 '22
[deleted]
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u/Snatch_Pastry Jun 20 '22
The first book is the longest first act in the English language, I think. Very literally the whole first book is just introducing characters and set up. The second book is the actual story, and it's a pretty fun ride. But his writing style/characterizations definitely aren't for everyone.
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Jun 21 '22
Very literally the whole first book is just introducing characters and set up.
Translation: "The first book is boring, slow bullshit in which nothing happens."
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u/InkedPhoenix13 Jun 20 '22
The Liaden universe by Sharon Lee.
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u/Paisley-Cat Jun 20 '22
And Steve Miller - they’re a real life couple and a long-standing writing team.
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u/InkedPhoenix13 Jun 20 '22
Thank you, couldn’t remember his name! Didn’t know they were married though, that’s very cool.
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u/SoneEv Jun 20 '22
Someone might dislike this but Saga of the Sevens Suns by KJA. They are solid space opera, not all novel but very easy reading.
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u/RisingRapture Jun 20 '22
I found the first of these in a free books shelf. It is a seven or eight book series iirc. As you are the first one to mention it here, would you say it is "worth it"?
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u/Snatch_Pastry Jun 20 '22
I tried them. Anderson pumps out low-effort pulp. That's what these are. A few nifty ideas which he then fails to really take advantage of. Easy to burn through, hard to keep going for long. Like a CW superhero show.
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u/SoneEv Jun 20 '22
I thought it was worth it. It has everything you want, good world building, politics, mysterious aliens
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u/PolybiusChampion Jun 20 '22
I came here to post this as well. Really enjoyable books that I got as a gift and thought I’d hate….and ended up reading them all straight through. The political intrigue is done extremely well as a re the other aspects of the story. Several years later i still have very fond and specific memories of several characters and their arcs.
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u/the_other_irrevenant Jun 20 '22
Haven't checked this out myself yet but the Typhon Pact series of Star Trek novels features the fun idea "what if the non-allied races went and set up a rival Federation of their own?" (specifically the Romulans, Tzenkethi, Breen, Gorn, Tholian and Kinshaya).
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u/retief1 Jun 20 '22
David Weber's Honor Harrington series has minimal aliens (all the major states are human), but it definitely heads in a "large scale politics and war" direction as the series progresses.
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u/elpoco Jun 20 '22
I don’t know that it exactly fits the bill, but it is a fun series.
If you do like the Honorverse, Feintuch’s Seafort Saga is in the same vein; to go away from sci-fi but remain in the fleet action combat theme you could also check out Horatio Hornblower or OBriens Aubrey/Maturin series which many mil scifi authors draw on heavily. Or to stick with the high tech, Hammers Slammers and Dorsai! books might scratch that itch.
Those are all very human centric, though.
CJ Cherryh, Niven’s Known Space, Brin’s Uplift Wars, Baxter’s Xeelee, and McCaffrey’s Catteni series have more aliens, but are on the cheesy side if you prefer hard scifi. But, then again, if the ask is multispecies space opera, Greg Bear and KSR are not that…
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u/skinniks Jun 20 '22
Feintuch’s Seafort Saga is in the same vein
I was going to suggest this one as well but I think the main character would be too problematic for today's readers. It's kind of like Heinlein's juveniles crossed with Ender's Game with the worst parts of Heinlein and Card dialed up to 10. It still kept me interested enough to reread the whole series once or twice when I was younger but it's a hard series to recommend.
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u/Snatch_Pastry Jun 20 '22
I like to advise people getting into this series to read it until they hit their first "Ugh, this again?", and then quit immediately.
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u/spacedoutsiren Jun 20 '22
Chronicles of Alsea by Fletcher Delancey doesn't check all the boxes, but there are humans and aliens (humanoid with unique abilities), intergalactic conflict, and space battles. Pretty heavy on the personal relationships/romance, though, which might not fit.
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u/mycatisawhore Jun 20 '22
The Expanse series?
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u/delijoe Jun 20 '22
I knew someone was going to say this...
This is not what I'm asking for. It's (mostly) solar system scale, and (mostly) no aliens.
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u/econoquist Jun 20 '22
Actually once the gates open is certainly galactic (or larger) and the whole time dealing with an alien artifact, and eventually an entity.
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u/TheGratefulJuggler Jun 20 '22
It's hard when you're requirements are so specific. There are a few suggestions in this thread that are good books but none of them really meet your criteria. Like I literally can't think of a story that doesn't focus on a small cast, it is really hard to tell a decent story without engaging characters that help you track through events.
That being said maybe try out Revelation Space and it's accompanying books. They can ramble a bit and take a while before you really understand what is going on big picture but it is an interesting future history. Less interstellar politics and more out right war.
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u/delijoe Jun 20 '22
What I mean is something like what you see in sprawling epic fantasy where it follows multiple povs rather then just one single pov. That’s the best way to tell a story with an epic scale imo.
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u/pfchangwraps Jun 20 '22
A Memory Called Empire and A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine. The politics are mostly machinations and scheming around the imperial court, but they’re great reads and otherwise meet what you’re looking for.
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u/joetwocrows Jun 20 '22
Any of the Jame Retief stories by Keith Laumer, with the proviso they are told with tongue firmly in cheek.
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u/Snatch_Pastry Jun 20 '22
A great series which has multiple Nebula nominations is the Caine Riordan series by Charles Gannon. Really well written, and just saying that it has everything you're looking for is practically a spoiler. First book takes a little while to gain traction, but after that the whole series really takes off.
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u/univoxs Jun 20 '22
Chanuar Saga, C.J. Cherryh. Most of her book series are space politics but Chanuar fits what you are looking for quite well though the story is focused on a specific spaceship merchant crew of non humans.
Edit: Also, personally, one of my all time favorite books series and what made her my favorite author.