Space opera

The Legacy of Heorot was published back in 1989. Written by powerhouse duo Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle (with a bit of help from Steven Barnes), it tells the tale of a group of humans who endure a ten-year frozen trip out to a new planet to start a human colony.

Spoilers ahead

Pandora’s Star is a beloved space opera novel by British author Peter F Hamilton and the first in his epic Commonwealth series of books. Coming in at a whopping 768 pages, it’s about 3x the length of a typical novel. Can it live up to the hype?

Spoiler review

Space trains.

Those two words compelled me to pick up a secondhand copy of Night Train to Rigel by Timothy Zahn. At the time I’d just moved to Sydney with my wife — we were house hunting, I was searching for a co-working space and adjusting to a new life in a new city. I suppose, to help me deal with all the stress, I was looking for a fun read… 300 pages of entertaining escapism.

Enter the first entry in Mr Zahn’s Quadrail series.

Spoilers ahead

Books don’t get much bigger than Asimov’s Foundation. Awarded “Best All-Time Series” in 1966, Foundation was a trailblazer — some say it even invented the space opera genre. Needless to say, it’s difficult not to have high expectations.

Spoilers ahead.

🎵 Jetsons theme song plays 🎵

Meet Emperor Leto… His boy Duncan… Daughter Siona… Hwi his wife…

🎵 Jetsons theme song ends 🎵

Spoiler review: God Emperor of Dune

Heretics of Dune continues the long and sometimes bizarre Dune saga, which began with Frank Herbert’s original Dune, written in 1966. After the lacklustre snoozefest that was God Emperor of Dune, I was hoping this book would lift the franchise near to its potential. And you know what? It kinda did.

Spoilers ahead!

In 2020, veteran sci-fi author Timothy Zahn dipped his toes into self-publishing for the first time, releasing the original novella Ghost Riders In The Sky. Zahn is the author of the Quadrail books, the three Cobra trilogies and more recently the Sybils War trilogy, just to name a few. However, he is perhaps best known for his Star Wars tie-in novel series Heir To The Empire.

Spoilers ahead!