I will begin this a review with a plea to editors, publishers, and marketers: *please* include a list of authors when you publish an anthology. This one isn’t completely opaque, because they’re all listed on the cover, but you have to look at it enlarged and some of them are upside down, making it a bit of a pain. So to spare others this annoyance, the authors in order of appearance are:

* Tobias S. Buckell
* Yoon Ha Lee
* Arkady Martine
* Alistair Reynolds
* T. Kingfisher
* Charlie Jane Anders
* Aliette de Bodard
* Seth Dickinson
* Lavie Tidhar
* Becky Chambers
* Anya Johanna DeNiro
* Ann Leckie
* Sam J. Miller
* Karin Tidbeck

As for the anthology itself: this was great. I was familiar with some of the authors, and not others, as is usually the case. I got to visit some favorite universes and hopefully discover new ones. I read a few of the stories a few months ago as a palette cleanser between other books, and then when writing this review discovered (to my delight) that the T. Kingfisher book I read a few weeks ago was *not* in fact my first experience of her work; I’d read her story in this anthology, and loved it.

None of these stories were bad; there was nothing I had to force my way through. But to highlight my favorites:

* “A Temporary Embarrassment in Spacetime” by Charlie Jane Anders. I don’t even know what to make of this story; it was a hilarious absurdist story about a heist & various other assorted hijinks, pleasure taken too far, and a solar-system-sized testicle and the cult that worships it.

* “Morrigan in the Sunglare” by Seth Dickinson. A few pilots are on a ship falling into a star, with insufficient power to pull out of it and no hope of rescue. This story is a reflection on dehumanization during war; both that which the pilots did to their enemies, and the price doing so inflicted on they themselves.

* “A Good Heretic” by Becky Chambers. Those who have read *The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet* (if you haven’t, go read it, it’s fantastic) might remember the navigator aboard the Wayfarer was a member of a species that had a symbiotic relationship with a virus that allowed them to navigate space-time. Somewhat unusually for Chambers, she revisits that species here.

* “Planetstuck” by Sam J. Miller. An interstellar sex worker has been cut off from his home planet, and his brother, after an isolationist sect destroyed all the FTL gates on the planet. He copes with the homesickness, the loneliness, and the simultaneously tantalizing and distressing possibility that there might still be a way to reach home.

* “The Last Voyage of Skidbladnir” by Karin Tidbeck. The engineers of a starship (which is basically a few crew quarters strapped to the back of a skyscraper-sized transdimensional hermit crab) work to help their ship, which is outgrowing its shell, find a new one.

* “Metal Like Blood in the Dark” by T. Kingfisher. My favorite of the anthology. An old man on a remote planet creates two AIs, and declares them to be brother and sister. But when the old man has to go for medical treatment and leaves them alone, they must struggle along on their own. When they encounter a third AI, they have to work out concepts like “lies” and “untrustworthy” and make decisions they were never prepared for.

Impressive line-up of authors. From the introduction: “Robert Silverberg identified two fundamental themes in science fiction: the journey in time and the journey in space. Space opera, he suggested, was a sub-genre of the journey in space, one that takes romantic adventure, sets it in space, and tells it on a grand scale.“

Great introduction! Usually I skim those, because I tend to find them boring and want to get on with it. This was good though. And, hey, based on one of the definitions in it, Dune is not space opera. Not set in space (much), for starters… Hm. We do have a galactic-empire scenario though. I still haven’t read any Larry Niven and I also haven‘t read Ender’s Game. Or Consider Phlebas. I do need to re-read Downbelow Station. I‘ll be reading #16 of Foreigner soon… My mileage with Miles Vorkosigan varies. Not sure if I want to tackle Revelation Space. Leviathan Wakes, YES! I love it! Ancillary Justice! All Systems Red! So good! No, Some Desperate Glory didn‘t do it for me… Yes, it won the HUGO… 🤷
Ok, I am excited and ready for these short stories. Here we go:

Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance by Tobias S. Buckell, 🚀🚀🚀½
An odd bot story. Devious little plan. Nicely out-maneuvered the bad guy!
Should I re-read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance? Don‘t really remember it.

Extracurricular Activities by Yoon Ha Lee, 🚀🚀🚀🚀
Hugo Awards 2018 Novelette Nominee
I‘ve read this in 2018. My review is here. I quite liked it back then. So far I haven‘t picked up Ninefox Gambit.

All the Colors You Thought Were Kings by Arkady Martine, 🚀🚀🚀½
Fighting an empire from within? Clones, succession, revolution, nanites.
Her novel A Memory Called Empire is very good.

Belladonna Nights by Alastair Reynolds, 🚀🚀🚀
Humans in a very far future, circling the galaxy. Space, big ideas. Perception, mind and memory, what constitutes reality? Hm.
My favourites of his so far were The Prefect and Blue Remembered Earth.

Metal Like Blood in the Dark by T. Kingfisher, 🚀🚀🚀🚀½
2021 HUGO AWARD FOR BEST SHORT STORY
An old mean creates two sentient machines, Brother and Sister. They are guileless and joyful. Events drive them into space and Sister learns something. Nice!
Thornhedge just won the HUGO, check it out, it‘s very good…

A Temporary Embarrassment in Spacetime by Charlie Jane Anders, 💣
Over the top heist story. A couple of not-quite humans have to steal something. I’m sure it makes fun of a lot of typical SF tropes and it’s really clever, but it was just too silly for me and not my thing. I skimmed.

Immersion by Aliette de Bodard, 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
2012 NEBULA AWARD FOR BEST SHORT STORY
2013 LOCUS AWARD FOR BEST SHORT STORY
I have read one novel and a few short stories from her Xuya universe. I like the world, more or less, but struggle with the writing. It is not easily accessible. I am unsure if this is a Xuya story as well. It‘s set on space station that has won it‘s independence from the galactic empire, influenced by Vietnamese culture. There is Quy, working at her family‘s restaurant and a women caught in her galactic avatar. It‘s about cultural identity and self and it‘s very good.

Morrigan in the Sunglare by Seth Dickinson, 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀 with a 🍒 on top.
Wow, this one gave me goose bumps. War between Earth and her colonies. Fighter pilots. Killing, how to deal. Motivation. Loyalties. Brutal. Very, very good. So much happening in those few pages. Loved it.
There is also a MORRIGAN IN SHADOW, also published in Clarkesworld Magazine. It‘s novella length and I got that particular issue of Clarkesworld for it. I have to read what happens to the MC, Laporte, next. And if I like that novella just as much, I have to take a serious look at everything else by the author. So far I have read The Traitor Baru Cormorant. Recommended!

The Old Dispensation by Lavie Tidhar, 🐙🐙🐙
“A space opera adventure set in a universe controlled and run by Jewish religious authorities. An enforcer is sent to a distant planet where he discovers an android who changes his mind about what is right and wrong.“
Parallel, linear timelines. The fate of the entire universe and the chosen people, a ruler, an investigator, Jewish tradition, angels… tentacles? Pretty odd. I don’t think I got the meaning of that ending.
The only full length novel I read by the author was Unholy Land. Not a total success, but interesting.

A Good Heretic by Becky Chambers, 🐙🐙🐙🐙🐙
“…a short story by Becky Chambers that is part of the Wayfarers universe, taking place before the events of the main series. […] The story focuses on Mas, a Sianat …“
(text from the Wayfarers Wiki, be careful what you look at, there will be spoilers)
This was lovely. Becky Chambers is comfort food. Her writing makes me happy. Despite that I still have some unread backlog. So many books, so little time.
Apparently Mas appears in The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. I don‘t remember her, but it‘s been a few years since I read the first book in the Wayfarers series.

A Voyage to Queensthroat by Anya Johanna DeNiro, 🚀🚀🚀½
A trans woman in a broken apart Empire that has become unfriendly to her. Can she save herself and someone else? The pacing is a little uneven. I wonder if the bad guy has orange hair? I don‘t think I have ever read anything by DeNiro before.

The Justified by Ann Leckie, 🚀🚀🚀
A planet with a totalitarian ruler. Het is one of her enforcers. She was dissatisfied and left, but now she has been recalled. I liked Het and the end of the story, but otherwise did not care much for this.
Regardless, the Imperial Radch series is one of my favourites.

Planetstuck by Sam J. Miller, 🚀🚀🚀🚀½
A fairly crazy portal-hopping story. The homeworld of the MC has gone off the grid and is unreachable. Or maybe not? And what price would he have to pay? Good one.
This is from the author of Blackfish City. I liked that one. Different & imaginative.

The Last Voyage of Skidbladnir by Karin Tidbeck, 🦐🦐🦐🦐🦐
“Life on the transdimensional ship Skidbladnir is a strange one. The new janitor, Saga, finds herself in the company of an officious steward-bird, a surly and mysterious engineer, and the shadowy Captain.“
At first I thought that this is a very weird story, making no sense. Television, videotapes, telephones and electric lights on a space ship. But it can happen, if you fly through space in an office building merged onto an alien hermit crab thing. I fell in love with Skidbladnir and the story made me happy. What a crazy idea.

There is an „About the Contributors“ at the end. I was very pleased to read that Becky Chambers is working on a new standalone novel.

Bottomline, excellent anthology. Only one story I truly didn‘t like, some great authors, a lot of variety in writing styles, a lot of food for thought, fun and good feelings.

I received an advanced copy of this book from the publisher or author through NetGalley. All opinions are my own and I was not required to give a positive review.

With names like Becky Chambers, Alastair Reynolds, Yoon Ha Lee and Ann Leckie this was one anthology that I would not pass by. I'm glad I didn't as it had some great stories in it. I've ordered my thoughts per story and rating.

5 stars

Extracurricular Activities by Yoon Ha Lee
This story I immediately loved. Jedao is such a great character to follow. He is an undercover agent, an assassin of sorts. Which is all very cool and all but when your mom sends you things, you better listen. I loved the crew he ends up with. I loved the interactions that were between them. I loved his mom even if she was never on the page. I would love to read more with this character!

The Last Voyage of Skidbladnir by Karin Tidbeck
Everything about this idea drew me in from the start. The idea of crab ships, of them growing out of their 'shell', using them as a means of transportation I found so great to follow. Would love to read more about these crabships.

4.5 stars

The Good Heretic by Becky Chambers
It has some interesting concepts. I am once again struck with how easy Chambers manages to write new species and their cultures in a way that makes it feel like I have a good grasp on it. It is never confusing without taking away any depth in the species.

4 stars

Belladona Nights by Alastair Reynolds
A really interesting concept of family lines and reunions. Of living long. But I felt like I missed a piece here and there. I would certainly love to read more about these lines and reunions quite a few years in the past.

Metal Like Blood in the Dark by T. Kingfisher
This honestly read like a fairytale which honesty does not come as a surprise as it is by Kingfisher.

A Temporary Embarrasment in Spacetime by Charlie Jane Anders
With a title like that one could imagine this was going to be a bit ridiculous. It was funny, it was ridiculous, but at times it went a bit too far and it stopped being funny. But for the most part it was a good read.

3,5 stars

Zen & The Art of Starship Maintenance by Tobias S. Buckell
This story is an interesting idea of a person who traded his human body for an AI body. No free will but he lives forever and gets to travel everywhere. There is some question about if he still has humanity and morality in this one.

Immersion by Aliette de Bodard
This one is partially written in second person point of view. But also in third person point of view. I don't think the switching in such a short story did it any favors. It was well written otherwise but it was only a snippet of a story.

The Old Dispensation by Lavie Tidhar
Interesting story that was very religious feeling. Not in a way that religion was excused but in this case the religion was more of a dictatureship. The religion seems to be based mostly on judaism.

Planetstuck by Sam J. Miller
Interesting idea. It was easy to read but there wasn't enough there to care about the characters.

3 stars

All the Colors You Thought Were Kings by Arkady Martine
This story is written in a second person point of view, so in you. I am not a fan of that so it took me quite a while to get into it. It does kind of work. Unfortunately I didn't care enough about the characters.

A Voyage to Queensthroat by Anya Johanna DeNiro
Honestly a longer story would do much more justice to this story. It has an interesting set of characters with female trans mc's.

The Justified by Ann Leckie
Again, an interesting idea. But I found the violence a bit too much for me with how how little depth we truly got. It felt meaningless to me.

2 stars

Morrigan in the Sunglare by Seth Dickenson
I found this one very confusing and I didn't actually care about anything that happened.

Sooooo much fun! This is an absolute treat for science fiction fans, a collection from some of the best authors in the business today. Tobias S. Buckell’s Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance is a brilliant thought experiment on bodies and othering-in space, with robots, from a (kind of?) non-human perspective. Extracurricular Activities by Yoon Ha Lee is about spy-assassins and factions. In the profoundly sad Belladonna Nights by my personal fav, Alastair Reynolds, the world has ended, but not everyone realises it. T. Kingfisher’s Metal Like Blood in the Dark is a little like a space age Pinocchio story, and is also bittersweet—post-Edenic—on the loss of innocence. Lavie Tidhar’s The Old Dispensation is Jewish lore (and biblically-accurate angels, eek) on another planet. The deeply moving A Good Heretic by Becky Chambers is about not being the same as others, and learning to find yourself and your purpose in that. So is Anya Johanna DeNiro’s A Voyage to Queensthroat, while also evoking the US’s current cultural wars. Ann Leckie’s The Justified is gory and bloody and fun—not words I ever thought I’d use together in a sentence, and is about unjust rule and class stratification.

Arkady Martine’s All The Colours You Thought Were Kings, Charlie Jane Anders’s very wacky A Temporary Embarrassment in Spacetime, Aliette de Bodard’s Immersion, Seth Dickinson’s Morrigan in the Sunglare, Sam J. Miller’s Planetstuck, and Karin Tidbeck’s weird and wonderful, now classic The Last Voyage of Skidbladnir are the other stories rounding out this superb collection.

But that’s not all. In his excellent introduction, worth reading in itself, editor Jonathan Strahan takes readers through the definition and history of space opera, its evolution from its earliest days, through pulp and then sci-fi’s Golden Age, the rise of “hard” sci-fi with its scientific rigour, to today’s new socially conscious, diverse, politically aware stories. It’s excellent on things like the move away from fixation on, and new awareness of the consequences of, empire and colonization; increasing inclusivity, in representation both of characters and authors; and awareness of and commentary on today’s social problems. It’s an excellent overview. SF (and space opera with it) has some way to go, still, but it’s come a long way.

So, New Adventures in Space Opera is a fantastic, fun, and eye-opening read; very, very highly recommended. Many thanks to Tachyon Pubs and NetGalley for an early copy.

As a fan of Science Fiction but without extended knowledge (and experience) of the genre, this collection of short stories was a really fun book for a few reasons. First; the introduction provided a concise and really interesting history of Space Opera as a sub-genre from its beginning to where it is now (with a bunch of names and titles to catch up on!). Second; the list of authors featured in this collection is amazing, we have Becky Chambers, Anne Leckie, T. Kingfisher and a bunch more. For me this list provided new stories from authors I love, samples of storytelling from authors I wanted to try but just haven’t gotten to yet and names I wasn’t familiar with but now will definitely pay attention to. And of course it being a collection, the book featured a great diversity of ideas, styles and adventures. Not all of them were for me (I really couldn’t get into some of them), which is the great thing about Science Fiction - it’s a genre with such a wide range of possible ideas that even the sub-genre of a Space Opera can go so many ways and each reader can find their favourite flavour.

My favourite stories were:
A Good Heretic by Becky Chambers (my love for Becky’s storytelling is endless)
The Last Voyage of Skidbladnir by Karin Tidbeck (a gorgeous and heartfelt ending to the collection)
Belladonna Nights by Alastair Reynolds (what a beautiful concept and storytelling)
A Temporary Embarrassment in Spacetime by Charlie Jane Anders (it made me laugh!)
Metal Like Blood in the Dark by T. Kingfisher (a style that really stood out)
A Voyage to Queensthroat by Anya Johanna DeNiro (trans themes in space!)

Thank you to Tachyon Publications and NetGalley for the eARC!

Years and years ago, I said that my love for space opera was dimming. Space opera has always been one step away from science fantasy, of course, but I was getting bored with how same same all the nanotech-fuelled, AI-high stories seemed to feel. In the last couple of years, something has changed. I don’t know if it is me or the field or both, but I have been loving space opera again! When I opened my eARC of New Adventures in Space Opera, provided by Tachyon Publications in exchange for this review, I was pleasantly surprised by how many of the names I recognized among the contributors.

The book lifts off with Jonathan Strahan’s introduction, which provides escape velocity. He puts into words a lot of what I was feeling, described above, crystallizing how it feels like we are definitely in a new vogue of this subgenre. The military science fiction of the nineties and early 2000s is metamorphosing into a decolonial, or at least postcolonial, attempt at deconstructing the imperialist sides of space opera. I think that is what most fascinates me about the subgenre. Beyond that, however, I think the way authors are exploring how advanced tech and a sprawling, galactic humanity might reshape our understanding of personhood and autonomy has changed for the better. The Big Ideas are becoming more complex, more nuanced, than in decades previous. That isn’t to trash science fiction or space opera from before—but like any genre, science fiction must be responsive to its times. These new adventures feel different in the right way for the world in which we currently live.

The anthology opens with a banger, “Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance,” by Tobias S. Buckell. It ends with an astrophysical twist which is clever but doesn’t exactly feel all that original, so your mileage may vary. What actually intrigued me more about the story is its handling of the idea of free will. The main character is a maintenance intelligence that is basically a copy of an uploaded human; when they uploaded themself, they signed a contract that removed their free will. At the same time, they seem to have plenty of autonomy, which is an intriguing paradox.

These meditations on personhood continue in “Belladonna Nights,” by Alastair Reynolds; “Metal Like Blood in the Dark,” by T. Kingfisher; and “A Good Heretic,” by Becky Chambers. These stories all variously have either nonhuman or transhuman protagonists and, as such, truly stretch one’s imagination when it comes to understanding how such protagonists navigate and learn concepts—like deceit—we humans take for granted.

Some of the stories are more prosaic. “Extracurricular Activities,” by Yoon Ha Lee, follows a young Shuos Jedao (one of the main characters from Lee’s Machineries of Empire series) on a special op. “A Temporary Embarrassment in Spacetime” by Charlie Jane Anders feels very season 3 Star Trek, if you know what I mean, and I can’t say I loved it, but I understand what she’s going for. “Planetstuck,” by Sam J. Miller, is a little melancholy and haunting.

I bounced off a few of the stories hard. Lavie Tidhar continues to be an author who I think is just not for me, nor did I really follow “Morrigan in the Sunglare,” by Seth Dickinson. I liked Arkady Martine’s “All the Colors You Thought Were Kings”—it was interesting reading this as a contrast to her Teixcalaan duology that I just recently finished. That being said, I think the theme I got from the story—that we are doomed to be assimilated into oppressive, imperalist institutions if we think we can change them from within—isn’t sufficiently explored, even for a short story. Similarly, “The Last Voyage of Skidbladnir,” while rich in pathos and imagination, didn’t intrigue me or excite me that much.

All of this is to say: this is a varied collection. It’s unlikely you will enjoy them all, but you will probably enjoy some (hopefully most) of these stories—maybe the ones I didn’t like as much are the ones you’ll love! That there is probably something for every science-fiction reader in this anthology is a testament not only to Strahan and Tachyon’s curatorial skills but also to the cornucopia of space opera available these days, especially in shorter forms. And as much as I am less enamoured by slower stories like “The Last Voyage of Skidbladnir,” I really want to emphasize that I don’t think those stories are any less worthy of celebration or inclusion—space opera should not just be bang-bang-big-shoot-em-up-in-space! There is room for and value in stories that focus more on inner lives, on relationships, on giant space crabs!

Anthologies are always hit-or-miss for me, yet I had a feeling New Adventures in Space Opera would be more hit than miss. Maybe I just read it at the right time. Whatever the case, I was right. This book is just fuelling the fire stoked by my recent reads in the subgenre and leaving me hungry for more, more, more.

Thank you Netgalley and Tachyon for this arc.

I enjoyed a previous anthology edited by Jonathan Strahan and when I saw that several included authors are among ones I like, it was a no-brainer to request this. Plus sometimes I’m just not up for reading 500+ page SF tomes. As with any anthology, some are gonna be winners while others just don’t thrill me but all-in-all, this is a good mix.

Overall, I found all the stories readable at the very least and incredibly moving at best. Like another whose review I read at GR, I found it mentally exhausting at times to leap into and so quickly out of these very different stories but I enjoyed most of them. B overall.

There are lot of science fiction subgenres – from post-apocalypses to time travel to generation ships to first contact. But probably one of the longest lasting and most malleable is the space opera. In the introduction to this collection New Adventures in Space Opera Jonathan Strachan gives a primer on the development and features of this subgenre from its first appearance in the 1890s (!). Strachan considers a number of definitions of space opera but lands on this one: “romantic adventure set in space and told on a grand scale”.
To give more boundaries, Strachan chooses these rules for the stories that he has chosen for this collection. First, that they should take place on a ship or in space and only occasionally touch down on a planet. Second that the universe should be populated and there should be encounters. And thirdly, that the stakes should be high.
Strachan gives a quick history of space opera and the greats from the 1950s through to the 2000s. But his focus here is on modern space opera, a period he starts at 2011. His view is that these authors changed the nature of space opera in that the characters were becoming more diverse and they began to question the structure of the world around them. In Strachan’s view, this period began with James SA Corey’s Leviathan Wakes (first book of the 9 volume Expanse series) and moved through a range of exciting modern space opera authors like Anne Leckie, Yoon Ha Lee, Arkady Martine and Tade Thompson.
This collection feature stories by many of these names and a few other recent stars of modern science fiction including Becky Chamber, Lacie Tidhar, Charlie Jane Anders and somewhat older timer (who was doing modern space opera well before 2011) Alistair Reynolds. Some of the stories are set within the universes that these authors are famous for – for example Yoon Ha Lee’s “Extracurricular Activities” is set in the universe of his fantastic Machineries of Empire trilogy and Becky Chambers’ “A Good Heretic” which is set in her award winning Wayfarers universe. Others deliver brand new ideas and manage to pack some fascinating characters and huge mind-bending ideas into some small spaces.
New Adventures in Space Opera is a great collection for lovers of this form of science fiction, featuring many of the greats of the modern canon. For others it will provide a good entrée into one of the most vibrant corners of current science fiction and a list of authors that readers cannot go wrong with.

"Ann Leckie / Becky Chambers / Alastair Reynolds / T. Kingfisher / Charlie Jane Anders / Anya Johanna DeNiro / Yoon Ha Lee / Lavie Tidhar / Tobias S. Buckell / Arkady Martine / Aliette de Bodard / Seth Dickinson / Karin Tidbeck

Award-winning Australian science-fiction editor Jonathan Strahan (The Best Science Fiction of the Year series) presents the quintessential guide to the exciting New Space Opera. This skillfully curated, must-read volume gathers fifteen dramatic, newly classic interstellar adventures from some of the most highly acclaimed and popular speculative-fiction authors.

In "Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance," a cloud-based contractor finds a human war criminal clinging to the hull of the ship. The clones of "All the Colors You Thought Were Kings," about to attend their coming-of-age ceremony, are also plotting treason. During "A Temporary Embarrassment in Spacetime," two outlaws go on the run after stealing a device from a space cult.

Take a faster-than-light trip to the future. Discover where memes rise and fall in moments. Here are the new and adventurous takes on interplanetary battles, sentient starships, and galactic intrigue. This must-read volume gathers fifteen dramatic, newly classic stories from some of the most highly acclaimed speculative authors."

I mean, you have to buy it for the T. Kingfisher story alone.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an e-ARC!

This anthology is full of rich, creative stories from some heavy-hitting sci-fi/fantasy authors and it was really cool to see so many compiled in one release!

Like many anthologies/collections, stories can be hit or miss. Unfortunately, there were more misses and ‘middle of the road’ stories for me. I was also a little disappointed that while the collection is titled “New Adventures,” all of these stories have been published elsewhere previously. That being said, there were some stories that were stellar and stood out over others.

I would definitely recommend this to folks who love space-centric science fiction and space opera stories!

Favorites include:
“Belladonna Nights” by Alastair Reynolds
“All the Colors You Thought Were Kings” by Arkady Martine
“A Good Heretic” by Becky Chambers
“The Last Voyage of Skidbladnir” by Karin Tidbeck

This book was rated as 3.75 stars on Storygraph.

As anthologies go, I very much enjoyed this one, and it had a good range of star ratings for me, as most were 3 stars or above. I think it had a good mix of stories, writing styles, and a diverse group of authors. Many stories were queernormative or featured queer stories. Many stories were written by BIPOC authors. Even though this anthology has some heavy hitting names, I had only read Becky Chambers' books beforehand, and this anthology both encouraged me to read more books by the authors I have heard of, and seek out the other works of the authors I had not previously heard of.

As for each story, here is how I rated them:

1. Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance by Tobias S. Buckell - 4.5 stars
2. Extracurricular Activities by Yoon Ha Lee - 3.5 stars
3. All the Colors You Thought Were Kings by Arkady Martine - 2 stars
4. Belladonna Nighty by Alastair Reynolds - 5 stars
5. Metal Like Blood in the Dark by T. Kingfisher - 5 stars
6. A Temporary Embarassment in Space Time by Charlie Jane Anders - 2.5
7. Immersion by Aliette de Bodard - 2.75 stars
8. Morrigan in the Sunglare by Seth Dickinson - 2.5 stars
9. The Old Dispensation by Lavie Tidhar - dnf (explanation below)
10. A Good Heretic by Becky Chambers - 5 stars
11. A Voyage to Queensthroat by Anya Johanna DeNiro - 5 stars
12. The Justified by Ann Leckie - 3 stars
13. Planetstuck by Sam J. Miller - 3.5 stars
14. The Last Voyage of Skidbladnir by Karin Tidbeck - 3 stars

Having four out of fourteen short stories in an anthology be five star reads just shows the caliber of these authors, and how good of an anthology the book is.

As for the story by Lavie Tidhar, I decided to not finish this story mainly due to the author being Israeli. I was unable to find any tangible evidence online about Tidhar's views on Zionism, and since his short story centered around Jewish culture and themes, I decided to not read the story. I acknowledge that being Jewish and/or from Israel does not make you automatically Zionist, however, I do not feel as if I know enough on the topic or about this specific author to understand if I am reading anti-Palestinian rhetoric veiled as religious themes.

To get the star rating of 3.75, I added all numbers from the stories I finished, and divided by 13, rounding up to 3.75 stars.

I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review

New Adventures in Space Opera is an anthology featuring short stories from some of the biggest names in modern sci-fi, including Ann Leckie, Yoon Ha Lee, and T. Kingfisher. Jonathan Strahan, the anthology’s curator, goes into the history of space opera and common tropes and how the subgenre has moved into what it is today. I had a rough idea of space opera built on sci-fi shows from the 80s and pop culture references, so I really enjoyed seeing the evolution of the subgenre laid out.

My favorite story was ‘Immersion’ by Aliette de Bodard, told in both second and third person. Largely dealing with tourism and giving up who you are to blend in, ‘Immersion’ is ultimately about what we lose when we choose assimilation. Quy is a young Rong woman living on the Longevity Spaceport when she meets Agnes, another young Rong woman who is going to get married soon. Agnes has been wearing an immerser, a device that cloaks her in an avatar to make her look more white, for a long time and has retreated so far into herself that she barely speaks and has lost her connection to not only her culture but to everything around her.

Another story I liked was ‘All the Colors You Thought Were Kings’ by Arkady Martine. Told in second person, Elias is an Akhal geneset, either clones or a very limited set of genes that produce people very similar to each other, and would do anything for Tamar, who shares a geneset with the Empress. By right, Tamar can challenge the Empress for the throne if she believes the Empress is not fulfilling her duties. Loyal Elias and Petros, who was also raised with Tamar, will assist her, but it won't be easy.

‘A Good Heretic’ by Becky Chambers is a third person-POV space cozy with a bite to it. Mas is from a species that chooses to be infected so they can become a Paired with Whisperer and looks forward to her future. However, when Mas is infected, something goes wrong and the virus grants her the intelligence promised but not the peace. Mas spends years in hiding, convinced she must be a heretic, for something she cannot even control.

To my surprise, my two favorite short stories in this collection were in the second person, which is a POV I rarely gravitate to. De Bodard and Martine both show great mastery of prose and in injecting themes into a small space while making the story feel incredibly personal. Chambers and T. Kingfisher both have a fairy tale quality to their short stories that expands what space opera can be beyond space battles but also links back to the most famous space opera of all and fairy tale in space, Star Wars.

I would recommend this to fans of space opera, readers looking to dip their toes into the subgenre, and those who are fans of modern sci-fi and fantasy

Since the death of Gardner Dozois, there are few people who can write about or collect stories of Space Opera as authoritatively as Jonathan Strahan. The stories in this collection are all solid stories but at times they feel more like message fiction than the galaxy hopping romps of old space opera. The Reynolds piece is as close to old school space opera as it gets in this solid but perhaps poorly named collection.

You know space opera when you see it, but defining the boundaries is devilishly hard. This anthology tries a bit of both, with some stories in the center of the subgenere and some exploring the edges.

The list of authors is self-recommending, and they don't disappoint. The only story I'd read before was <i>Immersion</i> (Aliette de Godard), which was in her own collection [book:Of Wars, and Memories, and Starlight|45429770]. It is well worth spreading to a larger audience and I was happy to re-read it.

Tachyon Publications was kind enough to provide me with an advanced reading copy via Netgalley for an honest review.

This collections is incredibly varied, by which is mean both that it covers a lot of aspects of the Space Opera niche but also in the quality of stories. Sadly, this one was not for me, within the first half of the book there was only one short story that even remotely drew me in. I ended up DNF’ing at 50%. I was finding it hard to motivate myself to pick this one up, especially considering that all of the stories have previously been published elsewhere which I had not looked into before requesting this title, so that is on me!

I’ve read some brilliant short story collections and anthologies this year but sadly this one did not live up to the high standard. I appreciate this anthology for what it is and would definitely still recommend it for anyone who is already a big fan of the space opera niche as I’m sure the variety could make for an interesting read for hardcore fans of the genre.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the e-arc. All opinions are my own.

I'm not a fan of short stories. I always end up wanting more. However, this was so fun. I did still have the issue of wanting more, but I'm lucky in that I was able to try authors I've been interested in without having to fully commit to a longer story. A lot of fun, a lot of interesting discussion, and definitely worth it.

I am always struck by the power of short story anthologies to have at least one story that I absolutely adore and at least one story that is just not for me. While all of the stories were expertly crafted, some stood out more than others as the type of story I gravitate towards.

Strahan, the editor of the anthology, chose a really strong story to start off; Zen and the Art of Starshi Maintenance by Tobias S. Buckell is a lovely dive into the life of a "crab-like maintenance form" on the hull of a habitat ring on a space craft.

One of the best parts about Space Opera as a genre is the ability that authors have to explore perspectives that the average reader or author may not consider as an option. Short stories in particular also allow authors to really get deep into a world without having to fully flesh out a universe beyond the speck of what we see in the story. This is a huge benefit to this type of storytelling, and makes these well-edited anthologies enjoyable to readers like myself. Sci-fi and space opera as genres leave so much room for authors to jump into worlds teeming with never heard before nouns, letting the reader catch up to the information as they go through context.

Sometimes, short stories are too short for that catch up to happen. I experienced that a few times in reading this anthology, but nothing that impeded my enjoyment.

By far, my favorite of the collection was Extracurricular Activities, by Yoon Ha Lee, which expertly used flashback to enhance the story and allow the readers to understand more about the universe in which the story takes place without ever making us feel pandered to.

A runner-up for favorite is A Good Heretic by Becky Chambers, a story about identity and community. I have a few of Chambers' books on hold at the library, and this was a great introduction to her writing for me! I'm looking forward to exploring other work by her after this short story.

Thanks to Tachyon Publications and Netgalley for access to an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

This is a book of short stories by some of my favourite sci-fi authors, including Becky Chambers, Ann Leckie, and Lavie Tidar. There are stories that are deeply serious, funny, touching, adventurous. I'm not going to do a story by story review, because I don't think that would be helpful. My 'problem' was that many of the stories are brilliant, but the effort it takes me to enter a whole new world,work out what's going in and then have it end so quickly is somewhat exhausting. Yes, I understand that I chose to read a book of short stories, and now I'm complaining that the stories are short! Also, I often read in certain circumstances - when having lunch, or in the bath and I don't want to leap from story to story - many of these need thinking over and considering, not just leaping to the next one. For me these rather wonderful stories were most enjoyable when I read them one at a time, with one or more other books between them. They are, on the whole, worth savouring.

I am by no means a die hard fan of space opera. There is no sub-genre of science fiction on which I will stand and die. I like all kinds of science fiction equally.

There were three short stories which stood out to me in this collection and much like any anthology or science-fiction collection, not all of the stories will appeal to you. The three which I enjoyed the most were:

Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance - Tobias S Buckell
Metal like the BLood in the Dark - T Kingfisdher
A Voyage to Queensthroat - Anya Johanna Deniro

These three stories were thought provoking as well as being entertaining with a good mix of well balanced writing.

Because of this, I give the collection three stars and I hope other people pick this collection up and think about the ideas held within.
The editor shows the potential space opera has in the field of science fiction and demonstrates just how good the sub-genre can be.

I really enjoyed this collection. I always find that Jonathan Strahan does a fantastic job as an editor, and this collection is no different.

Not only is this a collection of A+ sci-fi authors, but the stories are also great. While not every story is 5 stars, everything was at least a 4 star or above. If you love sci-fi, short stories, or any of the authors in this collection I highly recommend this collection. Not only will you find great stories from your favorite authors, but you may also find a new favorite author inside!