Grrl Power #866 – Rooftop rally
This is one of those transitional pages that doesn’t by itself contribute a lot. It doesn’t really land any big jokes or develop any characters (we already know Cora is a bit cavalier when it comes to distribution of ordnance, for example) but is useful for general continuity.
I really wanted to include the first panel from the next page at the end of this one as an answer to Sydney’s question, but it just wouldn’t fit. At least not unless I made the panels tiny. I maybe could have put panels 4 and 5 on the same line, then scooted panel 6 over, but the panel 1 from 867 is visually a little complex, and would have been diminished by trying to cram it all in.
So, instead, let’s talk Space Opera. If you happen to have a series you adore, share it. I’ve been hankering for a new book to read lately, and there’s so many damned novels with space ships on the cover, there’s just no way to make an informed guess about what might be good or not. You guys know that I like Star Justice and Three Square Meals as I’ve recommended them quite a few times. I think the thing I like about them… well, they’re solid male power fantasy pulp. I don’t necessarily need a harem, but a decent romance subplot definitely doesn’t hurt a book. Really the thing I like is a main character that is mildly to wildly OP who goes around kicking a lot of ass for good reasons.
Wildly OP is really tough to get right though. TSM does it right IMO. I mean, without spoiling the MC’s origin story… he gets pretty fucking powerful – but there are always appropriate challenges waiting for him and his crew. Like fighting a literal dragon with a battleship level shield generator and plasma weapons strapped to its back. Yeah. TSM has dragons.
Honestly, a smaller cast helps too. I like a “cozy” book in that regard. I generally get lost when I’m reading about how the MC’s contact talked to the Subchancellor of Mission Comptrollers and there’s a 45 page chapter about the 90 people that work for that dude. A little politics is fine, but I want a book about a dude or chick righting wrongs with railguns and a spaceship that has a sexy AI that no one else knew about, because there’s always a sexy AI on the spaceship.
Allow me to recommend a book that is… well, not a space opera, but has some space stuff at the beginning. It’s called “Upon a Savage Shore” and it’s basically “Enemy Mine” but replace Louis Gosset Jr. with three alien catgirls. The author for some reason never collected it into a book and put it up at Amazon or elsewhere, so you can only find it at Literotica. It does have some sex in it, but the vast majority of the story is shipwreck survivors making it on an alien planet while the one human guy tries to navigate all the cultural pitfalls of his co-castaway’s society.
That’s another thing I like. Some good, hard xenoanthropology. I don’t know why, but it pushes all the right glands in my brain that squirt out the happy juice.
Oh, here’s a tip for you guys that do a lot of reading online. Get Calibre, then get a plugin called FanFicFare. It lets you paste in the first chapter of a story from a variety of sites, then the plugin rips all the chapters into an e-book. It does an excellent job 99% of the time. Then you can set up Calibre with your kindle’s email address and have it send those books to you without fiddling with USB cables. One warning though, since I’ve discovered this combo (along with another one creatively called “Generate Cover” my kindle has become littered with tons of “books” with shitty covers that came from various websites.
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SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
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SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
The Deathstalker series by Simon R Green has some OP space ass kicking.
early it was good. once he gets into the madness maze and realizes he built in in one of the more insane paradox loops ever conceived it kind of goes down hill from there. his girl going insane and becoming the big bad they have been trying to stop because she couldn’t process her grief…. that was one heck of a shark to be jumped.
I absolutely love the Deathskalker series. I will happily admit it’s not without it’s problems, but even then, I still love it.
While I am currently (and have been for 6 years) writing something that somewhat fits your description, my recommendation is going to be a webcomic rather than a book. https://starpowercomic.com/ is coming to a close sometime in the next year, but it is a great story about an awesome woman using super powers to help the galaxy, kicking butt for the right reasons, pushing forward science and understanding, and maintaining her friendships along the way. A nice chunk of xenoanthropology as well. I would also recommend Space Vixen for many of the same reasons, but unfortunately it got put on hiatus before the first story arc could even be completed (note: Space Vixen is so far one of only two web-fandoms I have ever taught merch for, that’s how much I love it [the other being Spinnerette webcomic, also recommend, but not in the Space Opera category]).
* bought
Star Power: https://starpowercomic.com/comic/chapter-1/?nav=next
Space Vixen: https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/space-vixen-deep-space-k9/episode-0-prologue-pyramid-scheme/viewer?title_no=207049&episode_no=1
Spinnerette: https://www.spinnyverse.com/comic/02-09-2010
I have read “Upon a Savage Shore” and the other side stories that the author has written. I liked them quite a bit. I am still reading TSM, as well. Although, I am a couple of chapters behind, I totally agree. I love when “Sparks” comes up with new tech and, although there is quite a bit of sex, I totally live for the battles and upgrades. Highly recommend.
I’ve also been reading a series called “Lucky’s Marines” by Joshua James, but definitely a good read. Kind of the “I don’t want to be a hero, but I’m definitely a hero” kind of thing. Lucky also has a smart-ass AI embedded in his skull, so that is a bonus too.
*Sorry for the double post.*
Schlock Mercenary. It finished it’s twenty year run recently so this is a good time to read it. It starts out poor but it steadily increases in quality from there, it starts getting good after a hundred or so strips and by the end it is truly epic in many senses of the word.
The artwork starts poor. The humor was amazing, takes a dip after year 3 or so, then comes back.
I’m in the midst of reading that too, I’m loving it!
Anyone curious looking for a link- https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2000-06-12
Not a Space Opera, but “Azerith Healer” on Royalroad.com is a good OP female lead, that eventually becomes a defacto superhero.
On the book side, my favorite space opera series is David Weber’s Honor Harrington series. Commonly described as C.S. Forester’s Horatio Hornblower in space, both loosely modeled on British Admiral Nelson.
For sci-fi books, I also really enjoyed John Ringo’s Posleen War (Rednecks and anti-matter, with Sluggy Freelance references), Troy Rising (giant asteroid battle stations, loosely modeled on Schlock Mercenary), and Loooking Glass series. His books tend more towards infantry side of sci-fi than ships.
Finally for series which works sex into decent storyline, I’ve enjoyed “Home for Horny Monsters” by writerannabelle on Literotca.
David Weber’s Honor Harrington series is an amazing military space sci-fi series. The tech is well thought out and aesthetics are appropriate for how the tech works. On Basilisk Station is the first novel in the series and I strongly recommend it. Maxima, Dabbler, and Sydney are the 3 heaviest hitters in Arc-Swat and Maxima knows this. What kind of situation needs all three?
So I don’t know about OP space asskicking (it’s more exploration/survival, though there is some fighting), but it definitely has some great xenoanthropology – have you read the Ringworld series by Larry Niven? I wouldn’t say it has a romance subplot because the protagonist doesn’t fall in love, but there’s certainly sex in the books, including sex for anthroplogy’s/not-offending-the-culture’s sake. The main cast consists of 3 or 4 people, if memory serves, and then the aliens they meet along the way. But you always know who your core group is. It might change a bit from book to book (apart from the protagonist) but you always have a small core cast. Honestly, it’s been quite a few years since I read them, but I remember really enjoying the series.
The options for getting to NYC are still under debate. Have they considered taking Cora’s ship? Hopefully it has a cloaking mode and they can arrive unseen and park it out of the way. On the journey home I think Sydney would ask Cora for a favor. Her reply would be “Yes, we are passing by DC on the way. But why would you want to land downtown without the cloak activated? And why do want to know if my suit has a ‘Gort’ mode?”
For older Space Opera, check out two series by Cordwainer Smith: the Lensman sries, and the Skylark series. Written in the 40s, and dated, but cracking good stories.
In the same vein is the Warlord of Mars series by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and he wrote a lot of Nerd-becomes-badass adventures in a recipe-like fashion. But the recipe IS tasty.
Nah, that’s “Doc” Smith. Cordwainer Smith wrote Norstrillia, which granted is also good SF, though I’m not sure I’d call it space opera.
I would like to second the recommendation for the Lensman series by E.E. “Doc” Smith. Galaxy-spanning adventure with lots of alien races, low-tech high-tech (they use slide-rules) to make spaceships with ever-increasing amounts of power and speed, and a plot that arcs through the whole series (well, starting with book 2 I think, so you can skip the first one if you’re in a hurry to get to the good stuff). There’s romance, rivalry, spies, space-barbarians, drug smugglers, tyrants, evil and benevolent super-intelligent aliens, and a planet of naked amazon women. You’ll love it.
I recommend starting with Galactic Patrol, then Gray Lensman, followed by Second Stage Lensman.
Then go back and read Triplanetary and First Lensman for some nice history/backstory. And finally finish with Children of the Lens. (That was the original publication order after all).
Don’t insult Cordwainer Smith’s name by associating it with those books. But The Instrumentality of Mankind is classic sci-fi, definately space opera, truly epic and a must read for anyone who calls themselves a sci-fi fan.
Try out the stardancer trilogy by Spider and Jeanne Robinson. It’s an interesting fairly low tech look at the space opera genre. More earth and humanity centric than far flung space exploration. Love the way they write movement in orbit though. Has some actual scientific grounding in it
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The same problem as wanting to edit. The notification belongs ONLY to the post that has it, so cannot be undone by any other post. You’ll just have to suffer for a couple of weeks, then the barrage will stop. Mostly. Eventually. One day.
I am sure that someone else has mentioned it, but John Ringo’s “Council Wars” series is pretty good pulp.
And then, of course, there’s Schlock Mercenary. Not a novel, but 20 years of daily webcomic strips of solid-to-awesome space-opera, with continuously improving art and increasingly-high-stakes is good stuff. And there’s some romance in there for ya too.
I’ll give my standard warning about John Ringo: He is a misogynist of the worst stripe. If you read any of his novels, expect to find female characters with huge tits who love to be dominated by men. You’ll also run across plenty of good old fashioned rape. Some of the typical one-off variety, but also often of the systemic, months or years long variety. With of course some of the rape victims coming to love their rapists.
I stopped reading his books once I clued in to how his personal predilections made their way into most of what he writes, and how most of his main characters are obvious author inserts.
Lot of his series are not like that.
Council Wars has rape, but it is just one aspect of the complete collapse of global society.
Troy Rising has none I can remember, and only stacked females in it are of kicking-ass mentality.
Same goes for Posleen War series.
Looking Glass series has almost no references to sex, much less rape.
Have not read his Black Tide Rising or Paladin of Shadows series, so can’t comment on those.
Just please don’t ascribe such elements to all of his works.
No. A writer can write a dozen novels about a post-collapse society without once going into the ‘culture’ of the rape-harem of a petty dictator. The way Ringo lovingly details how some of the girls fall in love with the monster who abducted them and is serially raping over months of time is simply not necessary.
You can make excuses for anything, if you try hard enough. What you need to be cautious of is making an excuse which actually attempts to justify reprehensible behavior.
Instead it settles for being just terrible. Bad science makes for bad science fiction. And the obvious author-insert of a guitar playing main character who saves the day, in a space battle between space ships, by playing that guitar? This is so beyond sophomoric that it is difficult to describe.
I’ll admit I haven’t read many of them, though the misogyny is pretty on, I think. In the novel or two that I read it wasn’t blatant (plenty of ‘strong female characters’) but definitely there.
Hence, “Pulp”, as in, “printed on the cheapest paper because it’s not worth much aside from a little entertainment”.
These may or may not have been mentioned, I got a little blurry trying to pick out all the titles people are coming up with, but for ‘space operas’ and other sort of related series, in no particular order I always liked…
The ‘Well of Souls’ series by Jack L Chalker
The Deathworld Trilogy by Harry Harrison
The Riverworld series by Philip Jose Farmer (if you’ve seen the tv series, please read the books)
Image of the Beast and Blown also by Farmer…warning: extreme nsfw throughout both
The ‘Warlock’ series by Christopher Stasheff…Sci-fi AND Fantasy together :)
Hiero’s Journey by Sterling E. Lanier, I’ve waited almost 50 years for this to become a movie :(
and so many more I’d better stop now :)
I suppose ‘space opera’ is a personal definition, you could include everything from Dune to Ringworld, and I like a little Fantasy in my Sci-fi as much as I like a little Sci-fi in my Fantasy ;)
Nowadays, what exactly IS ‘atypical’ for New York ?
“Polite interaction between members of opposite political parties” is high on the list these days.
A lot of perfectly good pulp has been recommend, but for seriously amazing space opera I think you basically can’t beat Yoon Ha Lee’s “Ninefox Gambit” and its sequels.
For “timberclads in space” style space opera, I would go for the Daniel Leary books over Honor Harrington.
If you want space opera that reads like the author really loved Stellaris and is indulging himself and his readership who also really loved Stellaris, go read anything by Glynn Stewart, it’s all great pulpy stuff with good characters.
Chris Fox has a couple sci-fi series that are amazing, the Void Wraith Saga and the Magitech Chronicles. If you like OP MCs, go for the Magitech Chronicles.
The Seafort Saga by David Feintuch is a great series of books. Highly recommended.
‘A Fire Upon the Deep’ (1992) by Vernor Vinge is one my favorite SF books of all time. Space travel, aliens, super-advanced societies, and an improbable answer to where all our neighbors are in the galaxy (Fermi Paradox). Lots of cool ideas referencing the early days of computer networking and communications (anyone remember USENET?). Also a cool concept of how higher technology than ours could transmit malign viral payloads of terrifying capability. God-like beings and galaxy-shaping actions. HIGHLY recommended.
I was thinking about “A Fire Upon The Deep” the first time I read about the “mysterious acceleration” the Voyager probes were apparently displaying as they got further outside the Heliopause, hoping that we could find out the boundary of local “slow space”.
Dave, for suggestions for space opera books… I don’t know if it quite counts, it kinda does in my opinion… but… The Bobiverse Trilogy. Audible has a brilliantly narrated audio book version that dare I say is better than the dead tree version.
The Revenger trilogy by Alastair Reynolds – Revenger, Shadow Captain, Bone Silence – is great. Space piracy, ancient forgotten tech, aliens, millennia-old secrets. His previous books, the Revelation Space series, are also great, but more transhumanist
you also cant go wrong with the 3 Sprawl Trilogy books by William Gibson for your AI fix.
THE Outsider webcomic by Jim Francis. The year is 2160 A.D. Earth is caught between two interstellar empires- the Umiak, which can best be described as giant cyborg bugs, and the telepathic Loroi. Earth has sent out five scout ships to make diplomatic contact with one of the empires, as neither side will accept claims of neutrality. The story is from the point of view of the sole survivor of one of the scouts, who is now a prisoner of the Loroi.
Another sole survivor webcomic is Res Nullius http://resnullius.the-comic.org/comics/first/ — https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Webcomic/ResNullius — junior navy officer and saurian coed navigate through a warzone with only their wits and a few hundred trillion dollars of petty cash — it’s an understated romance
I’d strongly second that recommendation – here’s a link to the series’ homepage. Be warned, though: it’s very much quantity over quality. I wouldn’t bet on the page count reaching 200 by 2022, but there is a lot of worldbuilding behind it, and the author is very good at making that sort of ‘behind-the-scenes’ background visible in its own right rather than only on the comic page.
“The Sculpted Ship” by K. M. O’Brien. It’s the story of a young woman and her first starship. The ship is totally sweet, but it’s also broken, so she has to fix it before she can get off the planet.
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Try posting to the same thread and uncheck the email box on that comment.
While I would also recommend the Honor Harrington (and related) books by David Weber, that may be a little bit intimidating, eighteen-plus books in the series. It might be better to start smaller, with “The Stars At War”, an omnibus edition of three novels, collaboration between David Weber and Steven White. William C. Deitz’s Foreign-Legion-in-Space series, staring with Legion of the Damned. Either of David Drake’s series, Hammer’s Slammers (ground combat, 7 books or 3 omnibuses, 1979-2007) or the RCN series, staring with “With the Lightnings”, available from Baen’s Free Library, https://www.baen.com/with-the-lightnings.html
The RCN books are more space oriented, and maybe not operatic per se, but occasionally musical. No promises about being on-key because, well, rum-soaked sailors, you know… the spacedrive mechanics of this universe directly hearken back to the age of sail.
I don’t know if it fits “space opera” but it takes place on multiple worlds and in space, Acorna series by Anne Mccaffrey. Anything else I’ve read by her is also good, Rowan, Pern etc.
McCaffrey’s works rarely involve more than one or two ships on a side, in either her Federated Sentient Planets books or the Brain/Brawn universe. I’m forgetting which of the two Pern landed in, the latter IIRC. Space Opera usually (but not always) involves larger-scale actions.
yeah tower and the hive series doesn’t have a lot of ships on a side… but it doesn’t have to when a council of like 6 or 7 Primes (capitalize that word!) scattered across the human worlds can destroy an entire invasion force… twice. then make sort of peace with the insectoid invaders. the machine/being hybrid was too focused on its goal and so it had to die.
Pern, Mcaffery never said which one and we can’t press her on the subject sadly. it could be in any universe, but it would have to be hundreds if not thousands of years out of sync because it was after a war we’ve heard of nowhere else and from first fall to The white dragon its over 1,000 years unless Anne couldn’t add again. given that the Primes can manage some time travel and whatever universe Aconia is in has time travel its not impossible but there is that Oort cloud thing. do we really want that roaming the universe? it would challnge even Archon.
Well if you havent already been reading this I would highly recommend Deathworlders as it has a little something for everyone and is one of the better sci fi stories I have stumbled across. https://deathworlders.com/ Part of the HFY style of writing
+1 on the following recommendations:
Honor Harrington series by David Weber
Various series by Glynn Stewart – Castle Federation series is complete with 6 novels and a prequel novella; Starship’s Mage is ongoing; Duchy of Terra is ongoing; all are on Kindle Unlimited, so you can only get them via Amazon right now.
Lt Leary series by David Drake
Council Wars series by John Ringo (caution: series is on indefinite hold and very much NOT finished)
The Expanse series by James S A Corey
Expeditionary Force by Craig Alanson
Valor and Peacekeeper series by Tanya Huff (Valor quintet comes first, followed by the Peacekeeper series)
Lt Leary series is officially called the RCN series, but yes. Ringo’s books seemed to feature busty blonde gunbunnies almost every time, which may or may not be a selling point for new readers. I find him a little over the top sometimes.
A good “space opera” series I recently read was the Pinwheel series by Snek Guy. It can be found on Literotica (for free) or Amazon. It’s mostly what you described except the hero in each book/story isn’t the one that’s op, it’s the aliens that are. Each story can be read as a standalone story or as a set, the ones I suggest are Pinwheel (Book 1), Purple Heart, Black Velvet & Birds of Prey.
Space civilization (or Cora’s section of it, anyway) must be like the Old West when it comes to law, judging by her remark (“Unless they REALLY need a shootin'”). Even into the early 1900s, out West it was a recognized defense to a murder charge to state, “He needed killin’,” and unless one’s actions were just downright heinous (sometimes if they were), you would often as not be acquitted or even have your case dismissed by the judge.
Historically, when it comes to space opera, the first has always been best – E. E. Smith’s Skylark and especially Lensman series.
For something contemporary and lighter, check out the light novel Invaders of the Rokyjuoma and the accompanying anime adaptation of volumes 1-7 (available on Crunchyroll). I am presently up to volume 18 rereading the light novels (note that volumes 7.5 and 8.5 are one continuous side narrative that greatly influences the latter mainline volumes). The premise is that the hero finds that four girls want to take over his $50 /month flat – the poltergeist who lived there first, a cosplayer who is pretending to be a magical girl protecting the apartment from evil magical girls (or is she just a cosplayer?); a priestess of an underground civilization who wants to use it as base to invade the surface; and, an alien princess who has to conquer the apartment to prove her worthiness for the throne. The the space opera aspect, complete with giant mecha, is slow to develop, but note “rereading volume 18.” The series has very little ecchi which could be a plus or minus.
You might want to try the “pride of chanur” series by C.J. Cherryh. Not so much male power fantasy but really good none the less.
Space opera, I would suggest Perry Rhodan, the most successful science fiction book series ever written and you have probably never heard of it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Rhodan The excellent Lemuria cycle (https://www.amazon.de/Perry-Rhodan-Lemuria-Stars-English-ebook/dp/B015D6J0O2) is available in English the remaining extreme amount of it is as far as I know German only.
It started out as a pulp series in ’61 and they published more then 3000 of the little booklets of about 100 pages each so far with various authors over the decades. About every German SciFi Author has written for Perry Rhodan at some point. Normally 6 booklets get collected into a hard cover of about 300-400 pages(silver backs, you know because the covers are silver). Then the (some) cycles get collected into omnibuses.
I’m ashamed of all of YOU !!! 4 pages of comments and I did NOT see a single mention of ;
https://starstruckcomics.com/episode-1/cover/
Lets add together what we know about psychics, magicans and other mental attackers in the grrlpower-universe.
Cora claims Fel ships leak *psychic* radiation and that this radiation can transform people into monsters.
Some supers like Jabberwocky and Vehemence have magic rooted powers.
High tech post-ftl civilisations sacrifice psychs to make Aethrial causeways.
Sydney’s bubble helped against Vehemences violence aura.
Sconia’s robot hypnotised Maxima and the author strongly implies that is, because it contains vampire blood.
Dabbler claims psychic illusionairy light can be only detectable by organic systems if she asked about why her mechanical eye doesn’t detect Sydney’s balls and she states that there is apparently a third way to detect it, because “she isn’t detecting that either.”
Dabbler establishes the 7 schools of magic as ways to use the same concept.
It’s possible to absorb magic and cancel it out, because Sconia’s kill puppets do it all the time.
Magic powers can interfere with other magic tricks(Dabbler’s kiss).
Magic can resemble physical objects(the defense of the small demon).
Magic can be locked into objects and shaped for specific purposes(the vault)
Advanced enough magic users can use it for interstellar travel(Sconia’s wormhole)
Aetheral causeways don’t leave for Cora detectable traces(Sydney’s arrival)
Illusionist are rare on earth(Deus after hearing about the truesight orb)
Magic can be kept functional without human power sources(the Veil)
Magic can be channeled(soulbreaker sword against heavenly sword)
Magic isn’t reality bending(Krona bends reality, but still can’t get teachers).
All times Aether is involved there is magic or psychic involved.
Sydney’s orbs are undetectable for magic users(Archon’s introduction)
Sconia possesses a super named Esconia who can Alter minds.
Feel free to add
As others have mentioned, Honor Harrington by David Weber.
Also, The Lost Fleet series by Jack Campbell
A stand-alone, but pretty good ass-kicking and starship book is In Fury Born by Weber
Sexy OP ass-kicker (but on Earth, not in space) would be Paladin of Shadows by John Ringo
Empire of Man by Ringo is also good
I second recommendations for Glynn Stewart, as well as the Honor Harrington and Lt. Leary series. More military fiction in space than space opera, but all ripping stuff.
If you don’t mind moving to fantasy, I think you would like the Daniel Black series by E William Brown. First book of the series (there are 4 so far) is “Fimbulwinter”. Has a protagonist that is sent to an alternate world and given great magic power and a quest to protect a witch for her divine patron. He proceeds to kick all sorts of ass and increase in power exponentially while barely keeping up with ever more deadly situations. Definitely qualifies as harem fiction and has a fair bit of sex, but the story and the inventive use of magic (within fairly well defined laws) is entertaining and interesting.
How old and weird do you want to go? There’s a fan site of a kids cartoon that only had one season- and a group of writers turned the bones of that series into a 5 seasons of ‘TV scripts’ that get into full space opera stuff towards the end. It was a pretty neat ride while it lasted. http://www.buckyohare.org/webseries.shtml
My kids liked that one and I ended up watching it with them…let’s croak us some toads !! ;)