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Space Opera
Anthology of great space opera. First paperback publication. Introduction, Foreword (Is Everything an Illusion?) and Afterword (Envoi) by the editor, and these Zirn Left Unguarded, the Jenghik Palace in Flames, Jon Westerley Dead (1972) by Robert Sheckley; Honeymoon in Space (excerpt) [Stories of Other Worlds] (1975) by George Griffith; Tonight the Sky Will Fall (1952) by Daniel F. Galouye; "Precipices of Light That Went Forever Up . . . ." (1974) (essay) by Brian W. Aldiss; The Star of Life (1947) by Edmond Hamilton (Excerpt); After Ixmal (1962) by Jeff Sutton; Sea Change (1956) by Thomas N. Scortia; Exile Is Our Lot (1974) (essay) by Brian W. Aldiss; Colony (1953) by Philip K. Dick; The Sword of Rhiannon (Excerpt) (1949) by Leigh Brackett; All Summer in a Day (1954) by Ray Bradbury; The Mitr (1953) by Jack Vance; The Godlike Machines (1974) (essay) by Brian W. Aldiss; The Storm [Mixed Men] (1943) by A. E. van Vogt; The Paradox Men (1949) by Charles L. Harness; Time Fuze (1954) by Randall Garrett; The Last Question (1956) by Isaac Asimov.
243 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1974
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161 people want to read
About the author
Brian W. Aldiss
834 books673 followersPseudonyms: Jael Cracken, Peter Pica, John Runciman, C.C. Shackleton, Arch Mendicant, & "Doc" Peristyle.
Brian Wilson Aldiss was one of the most important voices in science fiction writing today. He wrote his first novel while working as a bookseller in Oxford. Shortly afterwards he wrote his first work of science fiction and soon gained international recognition. Adored for his innovative literary techniques, evocative plots and irresistible characters, he became a Grand Master of Science Fiction in 1999.
Brian Aldiss died on August 19, 2017, just after celebrating his 92nd birthday with his family and closest friends.
Brian W. Aldiss Group on Good Reads
Brian Wilson Aldiss was one of the most important voices in science fiction writing today. He wrote his first novel while working as a bookseller in Oxford. Shortly afterwards he wrote his first work of science fiction and soon gained international recognition. Adored for his innovative literary techniques, evocative plots and irresistible characters, he became a Grand Master of Science Fiction in 1999.
Brian Aldiss died on August 19, 2017, just after celebrating his 92nd birthday with his family and closest friends.
Brian W. Aldiss Group on Good Reads
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
May 5, 2022
Though it contains some good stories (many of which I wouldn't call space opera), this is a somewhat mediocre, lackluster anthology. The theme was perhaps too broad, or Aldiss's definition too limited, and I thought he could have picked different stories that would have much more closely serviced his goal. In a few cases he included abbreviated versions of novels, which is rarely a good idea. The excerpt from Leigh Brackett's The Sword of Rhiannon was particularly annoying. There's a funny Robert Sheckley, and good work from Ray Bradbury, A.E. van Vogt, and Isaac Asimov, but there have been many other far better anthologies on the topic.
June 25, 2024
I thought this was a book I had read back in high school or before; I do distinctly remember it being on the public library shelves, and I do seem to recall checking it out, but now I'm starting to wonder if I ever actually read it cover-to-cover back then; parts in the beginning were familiar, but the further I got, the less I remembered.
Having said which: This is one of a pair of anthologies that Brian Aldiss put together back in the 70s (the companion being a book called Space Odysseys, which I didn't know existed until fairly recently); the stories mostly date from the 1950s, with a couple of outliers (one from 1900; one from 1972). And they're all pretty solid stories, but I was surprised at how few of them felt to me like something I'd consider space opera, even as Aldiss defines it in the introduction. Instead, several of them are stories of planetary exploration (George Griffiths' "Honeymoon in Space", the 1900 story; Philip K. Dick's "The Colony") or just kind of general 1950s planetary SF (Thomas N. Scortia's "Sea Change"; Ray Bradbury's "All Summer in a Day") or even Stapledonian cosmological stories (Jeff Sutton's "After Ixmal"; Isaac Asimov's "The Last Question").
Which isn't to say that any of them are bad or that I didn't enjoy them; just that they weren't quite what was advertised on the tin.
The actual space opera stories were pretty great, though, including Robert Sheckley's "Zirn Left Unguarded", an excerpt from Edmond Hamilton's The Star of Life, and A.E. van Vogt's "The Storm", which had all of the trans-galactic empires, mighty stellar battleships and sword-and-blaster play that one might expect.
(And the other highlight of the book, maybe the highlight of the book was an excerpt from Leigh Brackett's The Sword of Rhiannon, although that's really more sword & planet than space opera.)
So all told there are many worse ways to spend an afternoon or so; just calibrate your expectations accordingly.
Having said which: This is one of a pair of anthologies that Brian Aldiss put together back in the 70s (the companion being a book called Space Odysseys, which I didn't know existed until fairly recently); the stories mostly date from the 1950s, with a couple of outliers (one from 1900; one from 1972). And they're all pretty solid stories, but I was surprised at how few of them felt to me like something I'd consider space opera, even as Aldiss defines it in the introduction. Instead, several of them are stories of planetary exploration (George Griffiths' "Honeymoon in Space", the 1900 story; Philip K. Dick's "The Colony") or just kind of general 1950s planetary SF (Thomas N. Scortia's "Sea Change"; Ray Bradbury's "All Summer in a Day") or even Stapledonian cosmological stories (Jeff Sutton's "After Ixmal"; Isaac Asimov's "The Last Question").
Which isn't to say that any of them are bad or that I didn't enjoy them; just that they weren't quite what was advertised on the tin.
The actual space opera stories were pretty great, though, including Robert Sheckley's "Zirn Left Unguarded", an excerpt from Edmond Hamilton's The Star of Life, and A.E. van Vogt's "The Storm", which had all of the trans-galactic empires, mighty stellar battleships and sword-and-blaster play that one might expect.
(And the other highlight of the book, maybe the highlight of the book was an excerpt from Leigh Brackett's The Sword of Rhiannon, although that's really more sword & planet than space opera.)
So all told there are many worse ways to spend an afternoon or so; just calibrate your expectations accordingly.
June 28, 2010
"Great flaming faculae" !! This is a mediocre collection of science fiction short stories!
The first quote is one of my favorite exclamations from an excerpt of Charles Harness' book the Paradox Man, which is included in this collection. I rate this collection as average because it did not satisfy any urge for conclusion. Several of the stories are excerpts (Sword of Rhiannon, Paradox Man, The Star of Life). So the passages themselves are pretty good overall, but they are just excerpts. So it's analogous to channel-surfing when you don't actually see the end of several movies, and in some cases didn't see the beginnings either.
Given that, the best pieces in the book were the Asimov story, the Van Vogt, and the Harness. I was disappointed in the short piece by Jack Vance (The Mitr), which was printed here in its entirety, as I am a Jack Vance fanatic. But apparently not enough of one to enjoy this story.
There's a lot of scientific mumbo-jumbo and alien names, which is what I expect in the best (worst?) space opera. However, having read it, I have not learned the difference between what Aldiss is calling space opera and what most people call science fiction.
The first quote is one of my favorite exclamations from an excerpt of Charles Harness' book the Paradox Man, which is included in this collection. I rate this collection as average because it did not satisfy any urge for conclusion. Several of the stories are excerpts (Sword of Rhiannon, Paradox Man, The Star of Life). So the passages themselves are pretty good overall, but they are just excerpts. So it's analogous to channel-surfing when you don't actually see the end of several movies, and in some cases didn't see the beginnings either.
Given that, the best pieces in the book were the Asimov story, the Van Vogt, and the Harness. I was disappointed in the short piece by Jack Vance (The Mitr), which was printed here in its entirety, as I am a Jack Vance fanatic. But apparently not enough of one to enjoy this story.
There's a lot of scientific mumbo-jumbo and alien names, which is what I expect in the best (worst?) space opera. However, having read it, I have not learned the difference between what Aldiss is calling space opera and what most people call science fiction.
January 29, 2026
In his introduction, Brian Aldiss writes:
I’m pretty sure this is the opposite of what most people think Space Opera is, including those who wrote it. Space Opera is epic, it spans the stars and even galaxies. By definition it involves space ships spanning those distances. There are aliens, and empires, and great conflicts where the individual makes a difference and becomes a hero.
He adds later the “I resist the impulse here to define space opera”. What I think he’s really doing is just creating an expansive enough definition to be able to include whatever he feels like under the title of the book.
He ends his introduction with “My search has been, in the m main, for stories which will be unfamiliar to most readers. Too many science fiction anthologies today are content to include stories which have already been reprinted many times.”
He immediately adds that he was unable to resist including Bradbury, Van Vogt, Asimov, and Robert Sheckly. Which, when you count them up, consist of more than a quarter of the fourteen stories here. And when you add in the Philip K. Dick, the Leigh Brackett, and the Randall Garrett, the well-known authors (and stories) reach 50%.
In his defense, really good Space Opera isn’t amenable to being a short story. But then, many of these stories aren’t short stories: they’re chapters from longer books.
The stories and the chapters are all very good, and I am happy to read them again. But most of them aren’t Space Opera and most of them aren’t obscure, which turns both the front cover and the introduction into false advertising.
Reading this did remind me that I need to get the full Sword of Rhiannon, and I need to read Edmond Hamilton’s The Star of Life, whose chapter included here is possibly the best real Space Opera in the collection.
Re-reading Philip K. Dick’s 1953 “Colony” I realized that there is almost a 100% chance that it inspired the 1977 AD&D monster, the Mimic. And by “inspired” I mean, it is almost literally the same creature. The main difference is that Dick’s creature can be larger than Gygax’s appears to be able to be, and that Gygax has expanded the creature to the needs of a role-playing game where the characters are beyond the control of a writer.
Lawrence Ratzkin’s cover on my book club edition is fascinating, and as good as any story in the book. It looks like repurposed public domain art. Other covers attributed to him on the ISFDB indicate a wide variety of cover styles, with a slight preference for reworking existing documents. His cover for Silverberg’s Planet of Death makes me want to buy the book.
Science Fiction is a big muscular horny creature, with a mass of bristling antennae and proprioceptors on its skull. It has a small sister, a gentle creature with red lips and a dash of stardust in her hair. Her name is Space Opera. This volume is dedicated to her.
I’m pretty sure this is the opposite of what most people think Space Opera is, including those who wrote it. Space Opera is epic, it spans the stars and even galaxies. By definition it involves space ships spanning those distances. There are aliens, and empires, and great conflicts where the individual makes a difference and becomes a hero.
He adds later the “I resist the impulse here to define space opera”. What I think he’s really doing is just creating an expansive enough definition to be able to include whatever he feels like under the title of the book.
He ends his introduction with “My search has been, in the m main, for stories which will be unfamiliar to most readers. Too many science fiction anthologies today are content to include stories which have already been reprinted many times.”
He immediately adds that he was unable to resist including Bradbury, Van Vogt, Asimov, and Robert Sheckly. Which, when you count them up, consist of more than a quarter of the fourteen stories here. And when you add in the Philip K. Dick, the Leigh Brackett, and the Randall Garrett, the well-known authors (and stories) reach 50%.
In his defense, really good Space Opera isn’t amenable to being a short story. But then, many of these stories aren’t short stories: they’re chapters from longer books.
The stories and the chapters are all very good, and I am happy to read them again. But most of them aren’t Space Opera and most of them aren’t obscure, which turns both the front cover and the introduction into false advertising.
Reading this did remind me that I need to get the full Sword of Rhiannon, and I need to read Edmond Hamilton’s The Star of Life, whose chapter included here is possibly the best real Space Opera in the collection.
Re-reading Philip K. Dick’s 1953 “Colony” I realized that there is almost a 100% chance that it inspired the 1977 AD&D monster, the Mimic. And by “inspired” I mean, it is almost literally the same creature. The main difference is that Dick’s creature can be larger than Gygax’s appears to be able to be, and that Gygax has expanded the creature to the needs of a role-playing game where the characters are beyond the control of a writer.
Lawrence Ratzkin’s cover on my book club edition is fascinating, and as good as any story in the book. It looks like repurposed public domain art. Other covers attributed to him on the ISFDB indicate a wide variety of cover styles, with a slight preference for reworking existing documents. His cover for Silverberg’s Planet of Death makes me want to buy the book.
August 11, 2025
I like reading old scifi because I enjoy witnessing how changes in society impacted literary themes. And short stories are a great way to get a lot of that in a single book. But the stories in this book weren't outstanding. Most of them weren't even what we call space opera nowadays, so I guess the first lesson from the book is how that term means something in 2025 than it did in 1973. Some of the short stories were good or significant but most of them weren't as good as what you'd find in any "best of" anthology of the year. So my recommendation is skip this book and spend your money and time on something like the Stellar series of sci-fi short stories from Del Rey.
October 30, 2022
Decent selection of stories. Aldiss's take on space opera, not particularly mine, however, highlights include a few of my favorite stories namely, Tonight The Sky Will Fall by Daniel Galouye, After Ixmal by Jeff Sutton, and my introduction to Bradbury, All Summer in a Day. These alone were worth me searching out this book when it disappeared from my local library as a teenager and I have sought it out since having lost my first copy. 4 stars only because some of the stories were excerpts and others only OK, but 5 stars for those mentioned.
June 4, 2020
An interesting book with a mix of classic stories I had read and some I had never seen before. Good for the most part, with dated references to women as girls or by first name only. A few pieces are book excerpts and not all of those were so great that they stood alone enough to justify using an excerpt.
December 29, 2018
An easier read since the stories were so short but meaningful. Being a collection, there were some hits and misses. However, the hits were definitely impactful as a casual sci-fi fan. Definitely worth picking up if you can find a copy.
March 15, 2024
Highlights: Edmond Hamilton’s space romp and Van Vogt’s “The Storm”, which I wished was the start of a series. PKD’s “Colony” was Twilight Zone level fun and Asimov’s “The Last Question” closed with a brilliant light.
February 12, 2019
Iba a ser un sólido 3 ⭐ pero al final se redime bastante.
October 26, 2021
An exceptional anthology
January 24, 2016
Science fiction has a grand tradition of short stories - it is in short stories that all the Asimovs and Bradburys of the world truly made their mark on the genre. Collected in this volume are many, of varying themes and quality. Robots! Space-storms! Galactic war! Illusion, beauty, and truth! Mighty machines! Shape-shifting nightmare horrors!
Of the perhaps hundreds of quality science fiction anthologies out there, this one is notable for its broad scope. You have a few all-time classics, and a few plucked from the forgotten past. The authors weave their themes artfully, and you can see just how boundless their vision is.
If the purpose of science fiction is to tell us who we are and could be in some bright future, the purpose of its cousin space opera is to delight our minds and overwhelm our senses with the infinite impossible. All you need to do is step forward into it, and believe...
Of the perhaps hundreds of quality science fiction anthologies out there, this one is notable for its broad scope. You have a few all-time classics, and a few plucked from the forgotten past. The authors weave their themes artfully, and you can see just how boundless their vision is.
If the purpose of science fiction is to tell us who we are and could be in some bright future, the purpose of its cousin space opera is to delight our minds and overwhelm our senses with the infinite impossible. All you need to do is step forward into it, and believe...
August 5, 2014
Some of the stories were fantastic, but most of them were just okay. The thing that really bothered me, though, was the inbetween segments by Aldiss and their weirdly narrow view of what space opera is.
September 30, 2015
This compilation was very good. There were a good number of memorable short stories and excerpts, and I look forward to rereading them one day. For a few of the stories, I plan on reading the books that they were taken from because the excerpts were simply not enough.
December 15, 2008
Read while in Australia.
Read
May 5, 2009Space Opera: An Anthology of Way Back When Futures by Brian Aldiss
June 16, 2009
There was some really good stuff here, but unfortunately I'd read much of that. Some of the contents were also fairly weak. Make sure you read Brackett's "The Sword of Rhiannon" though.
February 7, 2010
Considering I grew up in the John Campbell era, it surprising I didn't like this.
Read
October 5, 20121/28/12: "The Red Brain" by Donald Wandrei (1927)
7/2/12: "Honeymoon in Space (Excerpt)" by George Griffith (1900)
7/2/12: "Honeymoon in Space (Excerpt)" by George Griffith (1900)
September 1, 2013
some of the worst science fiction I have ever read.
Read
December 20, 2016back when sci-fi was much more open as a genre
September 7, 2016
I stupidly thought "space opera" meant lots of spaceship battles. It does not mean that. But this book ain't bad.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews