Can We Get More Planets Blowing Up?

[Sean]

With the new Star Wars movie out, it occurs to me that the group hasn't done any epic space operas where whole planets get destroyed, powerful aliens play billiards with stars and all life in the galaxy is under threat. Something like Alastair Reynold's House of Suns or Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep. I mean, as much as I love Dick and Lem, we should live up to the name Sword and Laser once in a while.

[Rick]

Seconded. While SF is more than this, I like the big picture, grand vision space opera subgenre once in a while. That might be all the Neal Asher I've been reading, but it's fun to dive into sometimes. Perhaps Asher's Gridlinked sometime next year?

[Trike]

Do things blow up in the Mageworlds series? I have the first trilogy but haven't read it.

The Price of the Stars
Starpilot's Grave

[J.-F.]

Is this a bad place to plug my own book? I blow up a moon within two chapters. Kinda why I was attracted to this post.

I don't know if the day I decide to be more active on these forums should be the day I start with the plugs. :P

But yeah, definitely more big-picture scifi. Even if it's not planet-smashing, adventures of an interplanetary scale are always welcome. Our current tendency towards harder scifi seems to have made us a bit afraid of that.

[Trike]

Maybe recent books avoid blowing up planets because in sci-fi movies the ONLY thing we seem to get is planets blowing up. Or the threat of planets blowing up. Or something else really big blowing up. Which looks good on film but then crowds out smaller SF offerings like Ex Machina.

Star Wars - giant space station blown up
Star Wars 3 - giant space station 2 blown up
Star Wars 7 - gianter space station blown up (or a planet, whatever; I'm assuming, as I haven't seen it) after it blows up Alderaan 2 (I'm assuming)
Phantom Menace & The Avengers - giant control ship blows up, killing mindless drones
Avengers 2 - city levitated, then blown up
Alien - giant spaceship blows up
Aliens - giant building blows up
Stargate - giant pyramid spaceship blows up
Independence Day - giant spaceship blows up, killing mindless drones
Guardians of the Galaxy - giant spaceship destroyed, planet placed in peril
Battleship - giant spaceship blown up
Star Trek 2009 - planet blown up, giant spaceship blown up
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan - nebula blown up... but planet is formed. Whoa.
Star Trek III: In Search of Spock - but then it explodes
Star Trek Generations - sun is blown up, taking planets with it
Men in Black II - multiple planets blown up in a bossy fit, Earth targeted next
Titan A.E. - starts off with Earth being explodified
Knowing - I thought that they were angels, but to my surprise / they climbed aboard their starship and blew Earth to smithereens -- altered lyrics to Styx's "Come Sail Away"
Armageddon - a comet is blown up

[Phil]

Trike wrote: "Maybe recent books avoid blowing up planets because in sci-fi movies the ONLY thing we seem to get is planets blowing up. Or the threat of planets blowing up. Or something else really big blowing u..."

That list would make a good video montage.

[AndrewP]

I joined the Space Opera group on Goodreads for exactly this reason.

[Sean Lookielook]

"Now I am become J. J. Abrams, destroyer of worlds."

[Tamahome]

I distinctly remember the 2nd Peter F. Hamilton Night's Dawn book (The Neutronium Alchemist) ending with a good explosion. :)

[Phil]

There's also the old E.E. Doc Smith Lensmen series. By today's standards the writing is pretty crappy but it was one of the first "space operas" and inspired a lot that came after.

[John (Nevets)]

Trike,

Should The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy be on your list, for the movie, the books, or the radio play.

[Michael]

I'm wondering if we don't see more planet-smashing in books because it's been done a few times and that wards authors off, or if it's because in reality it's not actually so easy to do (and therefore not all that feasible to have a ship that can do it). I'm a big enough nerd to have done the gravitational binding energy calculation a few times (what you need to overcome to blow up a planet), and it's a lot of energy for an Earth-sized world.

Having said that, I will join J-F Dubeau in self-plugging and say that I do blow up a planet in my second book (if knocking its atmosphere off and cracking its mantle counts).

[Michael]

AndrewP wrote: "I joined the Space Opera group on Goodreads for exactly this reason."

Thank you for the tip, now I have as well.

[Trike]

John (Nevets) wrote: "Trike,

Should The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy be on your list, for the movie, the books, or the radio play."

Wireless.

OG nerd.

[John (Nevets)]

LOL. And damn proud of it. ;-)

Coincidentally, I remember when Ice-T's album came out and popularized that phrase. I think I still have the CD around somewhere. I always liked the way he told stories in his raps, "6 in the morning" is a classic that way.

[Iain]

Phil wrote: "There's also the old E.E. Doc Smith Lensmen series. By today's standards the writing is pretty crappy but it was one of the first "space operas" and inspired a lot that came after."

Make sure you start Galactic Patrol, old style serial which rips along at high space... All space battles and weapons are pale imitations compared to the original.... (Ploor goes boom)