Sister Alice
Space opera often relies on the use of vast stretches of distance or time to imbue a sense of vastness into a story.
In fact, a lot of the time "space opera" is just sci-fi jargon for "epic".
But that depends somewhat on how epic you like your epics.
Isaac Asimov's Foundation series encompassed large chunks of the entire galaxy, with events stretching out for centuries.
Frank Herbert's Dune series took place over tens of thousands of years.
But John C. Wright's The Golden Age unfolded "only" in our solar system, with one other star system getting involved, over the course of several weeks.
Then there is Robert Reed's Sister Alice, which manages to cram in half the galaxy and hundreds of thousands of years in 358 pages, without lapsing into the cheesiness that afflicts this sub-genre.
In this compact epic, millennia pass with the flip of a page, whole worlds are shattered in a few short paragraphs, and years of near-light-speed space travel are conveyed as a meandering stroll down an icy beach.
Beginning his tale about 10 million years in the future, Reed takes wholeheartedly to Arthur C. Clarke's famous observation that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".
The main characters are members of an elite group of one thousand Familes that alone are allowed to possess mankind's most advanced -- and dangerous -- technologies. They command awesome powers capable of transforming cold, dead worlds into ones rich with life. They can create artificial structures the size of many solar systems.
These abilities are referred to as "talents" and are usually some complicated piece of machinery crafted out of dark matter, the theoretical stuff that some scientists think accounts for the 90 percent of the universe we can't see but should be there. Talents are not only for mega-scale engineering projects. There are ones that target psychology and neuroscience, or use advanced logic bombs called "eschers" to assault computer systems.
The story focuses on Ord, who at about 140 years old (if I remember correctly) is the baby of the Chamberlains, who terraforming skills have made them the most beloved and respected of the thousand Families. Alice, one of Ord's most ancient and talented sisters, has committed an error that threatens the entire galaxy. It falls to Ord to try to put things right while avoiding two childhood friends from rival Families who have been outfitted with the most advanced psychological and military talents to try to stop him.
The writing is nothing short of excellent. Reed's terse, stark prose is well-suited to the light-years of hard vaccuum and cold mental isolation of the characters. In terms of writing and sheer inventiveness, I would put Reed up there on my shelves with Richard Paul Russo's amazing Carlucci series and John C. Wright's The Golden Age trilogy.
Highly recommended.
In fact, a lot of the time "space opera" is just sci-fi jargon for "epic".
But that depends somewhat on how epic you like your epics.
Isaac Asimov's Foundation series encompassed large chunks of the entire galaxy, with events stretching out for centuries.
Frank Herbert's Dune series took place over tens of thousands of years.
But John C. Wright's The Golden Age unfolded "only" in our solar system, with one other star system getting involved, over the course of several weeks.
Then there is Robert Reed's Sister Alice, which manages to cram in half the galaxy and hundreds of thousands of years in 358 pages, without lapsing into the cheesiness that afflicts this sub-genre.
In this compact epic, millennia pass with the flip of a page, whole worlds are shattered in a few short paragraphs, and years of near-light-speed space travel are conveyed as a meandering stroll down an icy beach.
Beginning his tale about 10 million years in the future, Reed takes wholeheartedly to Arthur C. Clarke's famous observation that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".
The main characters are members of an elite group of one thousand Familes that alone are allowed to possess mankind's most advanced -- and dangerous -- technologies. They command awesome powers capable of transforming cold, dead worlds into ones rich with life. They can create artificial structures the size of many solar systems.
These abilities are referred to as "talents" and are usually some complicated piece of machinery crafted out of dark matter, the theoretical stuff that some scientists think accounts for the 90 percent of the universe we can't see but should be there. Talents are not only for mega-scale engineering projects. There are ones that target psychology and neuroscience, or use advanced logic bombs called "eschers" to assault computer systems.
The story focuses on Ord, who at about 140 years old (if I remember correctly) is the baby of the Chamberlains, who terraforming skills have made them the most beloved and respected of the thousand Families. Alice, one of Ord's most ancient and talented sisters, has committed an error that threatens the entire galaxy. It falls to Ord to try to put things right while avoiding two childhood friends from rival Families who have been outfitted with the most advanced psychological and military talents to try to stop him.
The writing is nothing short of excellent. Reed's terse, stark prose is well-suited to the light-years of hard vaccuum and cold mental isolation of the characters. In terms of writing and sheer inventiveness, I would put Reed up there on my shelves with Richard Paul Russo's amazing Carlucci series and John C. Wright's The Golden Age trilogy.
Highly recommended.
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