The Verge
The funniest science fiction novel I’ve read since Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”.
starred review Shelf Awareness
* "A wild, weird and witty magnum opus."
Charlie Jane Anders
Space Opera sings its heart out in full technicolor. This book made me giggle, freak out, and reflect on life’s tawdry beautiful pageant.
starred review Booklist
* "Valente has pulled off another spectacular feat of world building (it’s worth reading just for the descriptions of previous performances) and a story which is uproariously funny, sweet, and hopeful."
New York Times bestselling author Chuck Wendig
SPACE OPERA is a book I really needed in this dour, dire age: Valente’s book contains a story and prose that is both electric and breathless, It has the heart of Douglas Adams and the soul of David Bowie. I loved it and it made me happy.
NPR Books
"It's all big ideas written in glitter. It's surprising tenderness on a galactic scale. It's about loneliness and nerdliness and acceptance and making fun of the old, frowsy powers that be. Valente offers up a universe in which the only thing of true value is rhythm. Not guns, not bombs, not money, not power, but sex and love and pop songs.
B&N SciFi & Fantasy Blog
"Channeling the giants of sci-fi satire and glam rock into a brilliantly over-the-top burlesque, it’s a novel only Catherynne Valente could write."
Seanan McGuire
"This glorious glitterball dream of a book is Valente at her best: beguiling, bewitching, and inexplicably demanding. Are you ready to rock?"
The Chicago Tribune
"A wildly comical and cheerfully absurd galactic adventure."
New York Times bestselling and Hugo-Award winning author John Scalzi
"As if Ziggy Stardust went on a blind date with The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, then they got smashed and sang karaoke all night long. Cat Valente is mad and brilliant and no one else would have even thought of this, much less pulled it off."
