Consider Phlebas (Culture Series #1)

The key to a good space opera is that second word: opera. It hints at the sort of epic span these stories cross, and the scope and intensity of the emotions they stir. At its heart, a true space opera is about people and the decisions they make, and have to live with. If you […]

In the modern world, race influences everything—whether we’re aware of (or want to admit it) it or not. While we might dream of a “post-racial” world, where skin color and cultural traits simply don’t matter, reality is a bit more, well, real. All you have to do is pay attention to the current political climate to […]

We don’t need to tell you that Firefly has transformed from failed TV series to cultural phenomenon in the years since its 2003 cancellation after an inauspicious 12-episode run on Fox. Joss Whedon’s Western-styled space opera might be missed, but in the years since, its fans have found ways to cope with its absence, turning to other […]

Few science-fictional settings are as intriguing as the one created across the nine novels (and one novella) that comprise Iain M. Banks’s Culture series. It’s a benign take on the concept of a galactic empire (at least on the surface), a post-scarcity future in which humanity’s every desire, from bizarre entertainments, to body modifications, to […]