"The Culture" is the largest collective group of intelligent beings in the universe, and Earth’s humans are merely one of its myriad members. The concept of a "post-scarcity" society, so remote as to seem truly alien, lends a real ethical weight to an otherwise straightforward space opera. It’s a testament to Peter Kenny's performance that all the increasingly bizarre names sound entirely normal. Also, he creates characterizations so distinctly that stretches in which no speaker is identified are easily understood. He really cuts loose in his portrayal of the cannibalistic Eater holy man, who speaks, it seems, through a dripping patina of mucous and sweat. Protagonist Bora Horza and antagonist Perosteck Balveda sound positively restrained in comparison, as does a foulmouthed mercenary who meets a sticky end. A.Z.W. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine
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 […]
It’s a wonderful time to be a science fiction fan. The television adaptation of James S.A. Corey’s Expanse space opera series is poised to drag SyFy back from the brink. Ann Leckie’s excellent Ancillary Justice has been optioned, as has basically everything with John Scalzi’s name on the cover, from Lock In, to Redshirts , to The Ghost Brigades. But there’s one series […]
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 […]
While a lot of favorites are either already on the screen or in production, there’s still a vast wealth of titles out there waiting for an adaptation, whether as limited series or on an ongoing basis. Here are five more titles that are ready for their closeups. What books or series do you want to […]
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 […]