A Space Opera Actually Based on an Opera (and 9 More Inspired by Classics)

The Gap in Conflict, by Stephen R. Donaldson
Based on: Wagner’s Ring Cycle
Donaldson’s classic 1990s space opera makes no bones about the fact that it was directly inspired and somewhat modeled on Richard Wagner’s opera Der Ring des Nibelungen (often referred to simply as The Ring Cycle). The character names, plot elements, and other details come directly from the opera, a fact Donaldson made clear in the original author’s note that accompanied the books, in which he discussed his inspiration in detail. Donaldson’s story has a suitably operatic air, though he cleverly starts off with a small-scale, relatively short novel (The Real Story) that kicks things off with a small cast and a limited view of the larger universe, allowing him to set the tone and then slowly expand into a Wagneresque universe.

Honor Harrington Series, by David Weber
Based on: Horatio Hornblower, by C.S. Forester
Weber has clearly stated that C.S. Forester’s classic character Horatio Hornblower—the tone-deaf, reserved Royal Navy officer in Napoleonic Europe—was one of several inspirations for the character of Honor Harrington; Weber chose her name as a conscious homage, and at one point even has Honor read a Hornblower novel (in Honor Among Enemies), just to underline the point. Over the course of many books, Harrington has moved away from her source and evolved into a different kind of character entirely, but the vestiges of that initial inspiration remain.

Cross the Stars, by David Drake
Based on: The Odyssey
Set in Drake’s Hammer’s Slammers series, Cross the Stars spends the first two-thirds of its story following Don Slade as he works his way home to the planet of Tethys, and reads almost like a series of short stories linked only by Slade’s presence. This is clearly on purpose, as Drake modeled the story on Homer’s The Odyssey, and once you see it, the parallels are pretty easy to draw. Drenched in the signature violence and brutality of the Slammer’s universe (justified, as Drake based these details on his own military service in Vietnam and Cambodia), Cross the Stars is a good place to start with the series, and is sometimes (incorrectly) listed as the first installment for that reason. It’s a largely standalone story that requires little knowledge of the preceding books.

Thessaly, by Jo Walton
Based on: Plato’s Republic
Walton’s expansive sci-fi thought experiment begins with an outlandish, brilliant premise, and only gets weirder from there. What if the goddess Aphrodite, enamored with the concepts explored in Plato’s Republic, decided on an apparent whim (as is her wont as a goddesses) that she’d like to see how it would turn out if she tried to set up a real-world version? In order to do so, she gathers scholars, philosophers, and idealistic dreamers, all of whom, at one (greatly removed) time or another, prayed to Athena for just such a circumstance. Together, these disparate souls construct the framework for the perfect city (along with a few far-future robots that help with the literal construction efforts, leaving the philosophers to, you know, philosophize). Add to this 10,000 bewildered 10-year-old slave children, purchased to become the first generation of educated citizens, and the god Apollo, curious enough to change himself into a mortal to check this whole thing out and see what he can learn, and you’ve got yourself quite a show.

Hyperion, by Dan Simmons
Based on: The Canterbury Tales
Simmons apes the structure of Chaucer’s classic work in the first book, Hyperion, self-consciously modeling his story of seven pilgrims on their way to visit the Time Tombs on the eve of war. Waking up from cryogenic sleep on their way to the Tombs, the pilgrims decide to tell their stories to pass the time, much like Chaucer’s pilgrims in his Tales. Remarkably, Simmons doesn’t offer much in terms of resolution or even overall plot in this first book, yet it’s still a classic of the genre.

Iium and Olympos, by Dan Simmons
Based on: The Iliad and The Odyssey
Yes, another book by Dan Simmons (and another based on The Odyssey, at that). But this one is too outlandish to leave off the list. Simmons apparently thought he could get even more complex and sprawling with this duology. Set about 2,000 years in the future, when humankind has split into posthumans who have fled Earth and “old-style” humans who still live here, the solar system is also home to a variety of cyborgs. Mars hosts beings who are, for all intents and purposes, old-school gods, living (where else) at Olympus Mons. They are masters of quantum forces who easily manipulate time and space. Simmons structures the story on Homer’s epic poems while also directly referencing them—as well as a laundry list of other classic literature, including Shakespeare and Proust. The result is a story that exists in two quantum states: straightforward homage and postmodern metafiction, all wrapped up in a story that includes things like a resurrected scholar transported to the Trojan War to offer expert commentary in real-time. You don’t need to be versed in the classics Simmons is referencing to have your mind blown by this epic, but the story gets deeper and more powerful if you are.

The Foundation Series, by Isaac Asimov
Based on: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Perhaps the most obvious choice on this list, it’s also one of the most successful. Asimov uses Gibbon’s massive work analyzing and tracing the rise and fall of the one of the greatest empires in Earth’s history as both inspiration and inverted model. He basically imagines what might happen if a Galactic Empire similar to Rome in its broad strokes produced someone capable of accurately predicting its fall—and realizing there was a way to soften the edge of the “dark ages” that would follow and precede a newly-risen empire. Rather than simply use history or the source book as a structural or thematic model, Asimov cleverly extrapolates alternative, speculative possibilities—the purest essence of sci-fi writing.

The Stars My Destination, by Alfred Bester
Based on: The Count of Monte Cristo
Bester’s 1957 novel is self-consciously modeled on The Count of Monte Cristo, and tells the story of an unambitious, unremarkable man named Gully Foyle who is marooned on a ship drifting in space. After six months, a vessel owned by a powerful industrial family passes nearby, is clearly made aware of his distress, and leaves him behind anyway. Foyle is transformed into a condensed ball of determined, rage-filled revenge, and his newfound purpose drives him across a story firmly modeled on Dumas’ classic. From its iconic opening line (“He was one hundred and seventy days dying and not yet dead.”) to its surprisingly spiritual ending, The Stars My Destination remains a complex and satisfying example of a space opera with soul.

Forbidden Planet, by Philip MacDonald
Based on: Shakespeare’s The Tempest 
We’re cheating here, because technically this is just a novelization of a space opera film, but there’s no way we could avoid including the most famous science-fictional Shakespeare adaptation ever. The Bard’s isolated antihero Prospero becomes Morbius, a crazed scientist who has secluded himself away on a distant planet with his daughter Altaira (read: Miranda). Instead of Prospero’s magic, Morbius weilds advanced alien technology, and instead of Ariel, the spirit bound to serve Shakespeare’s character, the scientist is protected by the hulking, adorable Robby the Robot. No shipwrecked soldiers, but a crew of astronauts arrive to upset Morbius perfect snobe globe existence. Cheesy ’50s sci-fi trapping aside, Forbidden Planet is really quite brilliant as vintage sci-fi films go (the Technicolor also looks great on Blu-ray). We can’t personally vouch for the novelization, but the author (who originally published it under the pesudonum “W.J. Stuart”) has a few other genre credits to his name, so here’s hoping.

A Civil Campaign, by Lois McMaster-Bujold
Based on: A Civil Contract, by Georgette Heyer
Bujold makes her influences here very obvious—the title of the book is a play on Georgette Heyer’s A Civil Contract. The plots of each book vary significantly—Heyer’s version doesn’t take place in space, in the far future, nor does it star a disabled military genius who has won every battle but the one for his beloved’s heart—but they share distinct themes involving marriages of convenience and debts. Bujold didn’t stop there, as the story draws on other classic novels by female authors, including Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, and Gaudy Night.
What other sci-fi novels draw from the classics?