Space Opera
Date
2018
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Corsair
Abstract
Space Opera tells the story of Decibel Jones, a failed musician and member of the glam rock band Absolute Zeroes. The narrative focuses on the band’s participation in the Metagalactic Grand Prix, a song competition the author based on the Eurovision Song Contest, that involves multiple planets and species. Participation in the Grand Prix is a requirement for the human species of Earth to be considered sentient and join galactic civilization. The contestant to be placed last in the competition will see their species annihilated. The task to save the Earth falls to Decibel Jones after it is verified that all other likely candidates were dead by that time. To establish the novel’s premise in a credible way, the author confronts two hypotheses in the prologue, Fermi’s Paradigm and the Rare Earth Hypothesis. Stating that the latter is wrong, it is established that there are grounds to believe that the universe is teeming with life and that the Earth is now under the radar of the rest of the galaxy. While Space Opera delves into the mechanics of the contest and the band’s participation in it, it also explores the biological aspects of the various species in the Grand Prix and the process of first contact with aliens all over the galaxy.
Description
Keywords
science fiction , space , alien , human , species , fermi's paradigm , rare earth hypothesis
Citation
Valente, Catherynne M. Space Opera. Corsair, 2018.