Space Opera Fans discussion

I know this is a little O/T (but I couldn't find any other category to put it in). I belong to another Science Fiction Book Club in Yahoo! Groups and they forwarded this article on io9: http://io9.com/can-galactic-empires-e...

What do you think?

Sounds like a reader discussion to me :-)

Okay ... book in question ... Lockstep:



Assumption: FTL travel between the stars is impossible. All interstellar travel must be done at sub-light speed.

Issue of contention: To maintain a 'galactic empire,' would all the citizens of a planet allow themselves to be frozen the entire duration of time it takes for a single subspace vessel to get to a distant star and back again, and then wake up, so the people on the spaceship don't perceive that any time has passed.

A good issue... Anybody want to sound out below?

And... now my opinion.

Nope...
No way...
Uh-uh...

Even overcoming the fear of 'realtimers' preying upon the 'sleepers,' why would anybody do that for a small handful of people on a ship?

The reality of far-flung empires is that they reach a certain point where they become paralyzed by their supply lines and inability to respond to their citizen's needs in any meaningful way. Religion has always been a useful tool for homogenizing ideologies and allowing certain empires to maintain their grip a little longer than they otherwise could, but at some point something happens that a colony needs an answer NOW and, when they don't get it, the concept of 'empire' breaks down.

'Sleeping' won't solve this problem. By the time the subspace ship gets to the colony, the problem will have imploded.

Just my two cents....

Anna wrote: "And... now my opinion.

Nope...
No way...
Uh-uh...

Even overcoming the fear of 'realtimers' preying upon the 'sleepers,' why would anybody do that for a small handful of people on a ship?

The re..."

Anna,

I used to think the EXACT same way as you, just giving the rationality of the problem and growing up on the classic TV programs and movies. I mean, how else are people going to get from one side of even one galaxy to another and still make things work.

I have a side challenge for you. Alastair Reynold's book DIRECTLY addresses this issue in "House of Suns". It is one of the best Space Opera books I have ever read and it blew the doors off what I thought was possible in the genre. Read some reviews on it before you get it, but if you are disappointed with the book, send me a paypal bill for the cost of the book and I will reimburse you! :) Yeah, it's that good.

Incredible story. Indescribably far reaching. Superb characters. Action. And yeah, a bit of travel.

The ultimate answer to this question would be the book, "House of Suns".

John wrote: "Alastair Reynold's book DIRECTLY addresses this issue in "House of Suns". It is one of the best Space Opera books I have ever read..."

[*adds book to To Be Read shelf...*]
[*looks at length of TBR list...*]
[*grumbles about needing 6 additional lifetimes to read everything I want to read...*]

Thanks, John! It's been a while since I've read one of Mr. Reynold's books and I haven't read that one. At some point I need to dig through my book-box to pull out my cases of legacy sci-fi, skim them to refresh my memory, and review them all on Goodreads. I'd be interested to see how House of Suns overcomes the problem of 'societal drift' over space and distance :-)

Anna wrote: "John wrote: "Alastair Reynold's book DIRECTLY addresses this issue in "House of Suns". It is one of the best Space Opera books I have ever read..."

[*adds book to To Be Read shelf...*]
[*looks at ..."

Anna,

As I mentioned in another discussion, [bookcover:House of Suns|1126719] is the most breathtakingly original space opera I've read in decades. It totally blew me away. The ending is weak, but Reynolds seems to have problems coming up with endings worthy of his books. You should definitely get this one and put it on your TBR list, right below all of my books.{grin}

Stephen wrote: "You should definitely get this one and put it on your TBR list, right below all of my books.{grin}..."

About 3/4 of the way through Polly! right now, Steve :-) So far, I think I've burst out in random giggles about 7 times!

Anna wrote: "Stephen wrote: "You should definitely get this one and put it on your TBR list, right below all of my books.{grin}..."

About 3/4 of the way through Polly right now, Steve :-) So far, I think I've..."

Only 7? Now I'm depressed. Well, maybe you'll catch up in the last quarter.

I don't think so. Space is just too big. Look at the problems we would have just on earth if travel across the atlantic took 3 weeks again. The scales involved in travel between stars is too huge to comprehend.

It could work as a story which dealt with that as the issue, but I can't imagine any civilisation building an empire between stars this way. You could populate stars, perhaps, but the original seeding culture would diverge pretty quick once they pilgrims reach their destination and have to face new conditions and new issues on their own.

Peter wrote: "...the original seeding culture would diverge pretty quick once they pilgrims reach their destination and have to face new conditions and new issues on their own. ..."

That's kind of what happened here in the 'colonies' once we left Great Britain and had to face a whole new set of circumstances away from the easy reach of the king. For hundreds of years the 'colonists' thought of themselves as British subjects until the day the king decided to make the colonies cough up for the French & Indian War, which was really just a minor extension of the never ending war between Britain and France, and the colonies rebelled. A shared identity will only serve you so long as it truly is shared, and then it breaks down at the first sign of stress.

Anna wrote: "That's kind of what happened here in the 'colonies' once we left Great Britain and had to face a whole new set of circumstances away from the easy reach of the king."

Great example!

Pete wrote: "Anna wrote: "That's kind of what happened here in the 'colonies' once we left Great Britain and had to face a whole new set of circumstances away from the easy reach of the king."

Great example!"

Even more important than the distance and the speed of travel is the speed of communication. Even if it takes a long time to travel between one place and another, talking in close to real-time can still hold societies together.

Anna, if I may be forgiven for mentioning my own writing simply for a matter of discussion, not advertising, my "Society" universe is set up where it may take weeks or even months to get from one system to another, and there's no faster way to communicate than by putting a message aboard a ship. As a result, there is no unified empire--and equally important, there is absolutely no law in interstellar space because there's no one and no way to enforce it. That means anyone who can afford to travel at will between the stars is pretty much above the law, and a Society of the ultrarich can do pretty much what it chooses. And therein lies the basis for a coupkle of books.

Stephen wrote: "...there is absolutely no law in interstellar space because there's no one and no way to enforce it. That means anyone who can afford to travel at will between the stars is pretty much above the law, and a Society of the ultrarich can do pretty much what it chooses...."

You mean kinda like the 1% do right now? :-P Ticked off at Halliburton? Oops... They switched their worldwide headquarters to Dubai... Great fodder for a sci-fi novel, scaled up to a galactic scale!

Anna wrote: "Stephen wrote: "...there is absolutely no law in interstellar space because there's no one and no way to enforce it. That means anyone who can afford to travel at will between the stars is pretty m..."

That was sort of my idea, though I handled it a little more temperately. The early 70s was a more temperate time, at leas as far as income inequality went.

Stephen wrote: "The early 70s was a more temperate time, at leas as far as income inequality went..."

I remember everybody being broke and unemployed in the early 70's and really angry about Vietnam. It's really sad that those are now the 'good old days.' :-P But alas ... it's true.

"Even more important than the distance and the speed of travel is the speed of communication. Even if it takes a long time to travel between one place and another, talking in close to real-time can still hold societies together."

I thought that was implied, but you're right.

Have you read any of the Lost Fleet series? Two sides are at war and they can hyperspace between stars, which might take days or weeks, but there is no FTL.

Courier ships wait by jump points and if they see a hostile ship arrive in their system from another jump point (which they see as soon as the light from the arrival reaches them) they can instantly jump to another system. The new arrivals may take several days to cross the system at sub-light speeds which means if they are persuing the courier ship which escaped they next system would have had several days to prepare.

I thought it was a great execution of super-high tech and practical limitations. Civilisations could still be built but travel and communications were still limited to a degree which made the world realistic and interesting.

Pete wrote: ""Even more important than the distance and the speed of travel is the speed of communication..."

I think shared communication could go a long way to bridge gaps that would cause shared ideologies to break down. But at some point, you need help to arrive in 'real time' (not weeks, months, or years later). I think shared communication/ideology could go a long way towards fostering networks of peaceful trading, but as far as nation-building, at some point you need to dial 9-1-1 and trust the cops or fire department is going to show up within 7 minutes.

Do you have a galactic area code for that 911? :)

Pete wrote: "Do you have a galactic area code for that 911? :)"

Yeah ... dial U.S.C.W.A.P. 3:-)

[*up $#!t creek without a paddle*]

I can't believe no one mentioned the wormholes in the Stargate Universe yet. lol Anyway, my vote would be no, but now I'm really interested in reading Reynolds House of Suns.

Go for it, Ron. Don't let HOS confuse you a first. It's complex and covers a lot of ground.

Stephen is right, it does cover alot. The main thing is to remember that there are multiple narrators in the story. This knowledge helps make the book MUCH easier to digest, read, and most importantly, enjoy!

Ron wrote: "I can't believe no one mentioned the wormholes in the Stargate Universe yet..."

Wormholes!!!

[*Stargate ... how I miss thee :-( *]

A wormhole would most definitely solve the 'how to get the fire department to the burning house' problem for small-scale problems, but you notice towards the end SG-1 had to build the Daedalus to get actual full-sized gunships out to the Pegasus galaxy to help out the Atlantis away team with their little Wraith problem. Then SG-1 encountered the O'ri with their mega-stargate, which Man of Steel replicated with their phantom zone gate. And DS9 forever had problems with -their- wormhole ... who controls the wormhole? And the Borg use of their subspace pathways? Or the slipstream in Andromeda?

Stargates. I like stargates :-) Stargates could solve a lot of the 'from here and back again' problems.

Imagine not having to navigate the NYC area traffic with the use of a personal stargate (says the disgruntled man that took almost 3 hours to get home from his job 30 miles away yesterday).

Another great area to explore in the here to there without FTL capabilities is teleportation. Maybe have an apparatus of some sort in geosynchronous orbit above the planet that your ships fly through and instantly fly out the other side at the preset coordinates.

Ron wrote: "Another great area to explore in the here to there without FTL capabilities is teleportation...."

It's been a long time since I read it, but The Saga of the Pliestocene Exile series involved time travel through some device, and when they got to Pliestocene Earth they discovered an alien race had invaded the planet from some short of living 'ship' which could teleport here so long as it had a 'shipmate.' And then one of the human characters developed a G-jump, which was essentially teleportation. Was interesting enough to stick with me, especially when the Farscape series later came out with Moya as a living ship. It's kind of a blend between fantasy and space opera (due to the aliens/ship bit).

Anna wrote: "Ron wrote: "Another great area to explore in the here to there without FTL capabilities is teleportation...."

It's been a long time since I read it, but The Saga of the Pliestocene Exile series in..."

I'm gonna check that out, Anna, thanks.

Anna wrote: "Ron wrote: "Another great area to explore in the here to there without FTL capabilities is teleportation...."

It's been a long time since I read it, but The Saga of the Pliestocene Exile series in..."

I just ordered the first book and House of Suns off Amazon

Ron wrote: "I just ordered the first book and House of Suns off Amazon..."

You'll have to report in how you liked it ... and maybe nominate it for the May BOTM club so we can read it along with you, maybe, if it wins the randomizer?

Anna wrote: "Ron wrote: "I just ordered the first book and House of Suns off Amazon..."

You'll have to report in how you liked it ... and maybe nominate it for the May BOTM club so we can read it along with yo..."

I'll let you know. I'm in the middle of book two of the Stargate Atlantis legacy series, so it might be a week or two before I get to it because SGA Legacy has six books.

Ron wrote: "Anna wrote: "Ron wrote: "Another great area to explore in the here to there without FTL capabilities is teleportation...."

It's been a long time since I read it, but The Saga of the Pliestocene Ex..."

I found House of Suns back in my dad's old den which we're cleaning out. Also found someCharles Stross. Any thoughts?

Kirsten wrote: "I found House of Suns back in my dad's old den which we're cleaning out. Also found some Charles Stross. Any thoughts?..."

I've read Rule 34 and some of The Merchants' War series by Charles Stross. Don't own them, though. Borrowed them from the library. And it's been a very long time since I read them so I can't recall the plot intricicies off the top of my head. Recall I enjoyed them and was frustrated my library only had a book in the middle of the Merchants' War series and not the ones on either end (this was before our library joined an inter-library loan network).

Haven't read House of Suns yet, but just checked it out and the concept sounds intriguing.

As for my thoughts on your father's den ... would it help if I told you we added an entire addition onto our house so I could add on a second living room just for a personal library? And that the weight of the bookshelves was so great that as we were building it, we had to drill an extra concrete support pad and steel pylon into the ground so the new addition wouldn't sink from the weight of all my books? :-) Ahh! Time! I need more time so I can read through my extensive TBR list!

LOL! My dad was a big war gamer and computer geek. We have two whole walls filled with shelves. Science fiction, mystery, but a whole mass of military non-fiction.

Ever seen a pic of Neil Gaiman's library? Now that's my idea of heaven!

Neil Gaiman's library: http://io9.com/5352953/take-a-peek-in...

Kirsten wrote: "LOL! My dad was a big war gamer and computer geek. We have two whole walls filled with shelves. Science fiction, mystery, but a whole mass of military non-fiction.

Ever seen a pic of Neil Gaiman's library? Now that's my idea of heaven!"

Speaking as someone with macular degeneration and who reads printed material only with painstaking difficulty these days, that's my idea of hell! Rolling that boulder all the way up that hill...

Kirsten wrote: "Ever seen a pic of Neil Gaiman's library? Now that's my idea of heaven!..."

Ooh! Wow! Neil Gaiman wins :-)

Mine was once bigger, but I've taken to donating all the romance novels and not-as-good paranormal romance novels to the salvation army unless they're by an author I'm friends with or was really fantastic. My sci-fi and epic fantasy books I keep, separated out neatly by genre and then by author (hubby won't touch fantasy, only 'hard' sci-fi).

***

Stephen wrote: "Speaking as someone with macular degeneration ... that's my idea of hell!..."

Oof! Good thing you can now download all your books to an e-reader and blow them up so the letters are *HUGE*. :-)

Anna wrote: "Good thing you can now download all your books to an e-reader..."

Now all I need is an ereader. One that takes epub, since I won't enslave myself to Amazon. My 10-year-old Mac can read Adobe Digital Editions, but it's not a great alternative. And font size is only part of the problem when the thing you're staring at in the center of your visual field ceases to exist. You sorta have to read using peripheral vision, which gets fatiguing after a while.

Fortunately, the Braille Society and the Library of Congress have combined to maintain a library of specially recorded audiobooks for visually impaired folds that I can simply download (FREE!!!). Not quite as big an sf selection as I'd like (they're better with mysteries), but certainly big enough to supply me with a long TBR.

Have fun with House of Suns!

Stephen wrote: "Now all I need is an ereader. One that takes epub, since I won't enslave myself to Amazon..."

The Nook Simple Touch is a good, dirt cheap little e-reader that you can buy dirt cheap and is easy on the eyes, but their platform stinks. Watch for one of their $50 sales to snag one, go online to register it and set up your account, but then DON'T use the B&N website to buy your books as the website itself is terribly clunky and absolutely loaded with DRM. Download the free Calibre ebook management software to your desktop, and then buy your ebooks through Smashwords or Kobo, download them to your desktop, and then use Calibre to load them onto your Nook. It takes a few minutes to learn to navigate the extra step to manually sideload an ebook, but once you do, you will be free to go into the ereader and increase the font size to whatever size is comfortable.

I, too, am tweaky about Amazon slavery. Too much power. I respect them, but feel like giving them all my business would be like giving in to the Borg :-P

Anna wrote: "Stephen wrote: "Now all I need is an ereader. One that takes epub, since I won't enslave myself to Amazon..."

The Nook Simple Touch is a good, dirt cheap little e-reader that you can buy dirt chea..."

Haven't you heard, Anna, Resistance is futile lol. I go with amazon out of the sheer convenience of it. I can download the app and the books right to my computer and they have everything I want to read, so why not. plus, that's where I publish my ebooks, also out of convenience. As it turns out, I may be rather lazy haha.

Ron wrote: "Resistance is futile lol. I go with amazon out of the sheer convenience..."

Oh! I agree about the convenience. I'm just too aware of how into all your stuff Amazon is when you buy from them. I buy paperbacks from them, but my electronics? I get a lot of ARC copies of books from author friends to read ... legal ... mobi files direct from the author. I used to use the kindle app to open them, but then one day I ran into trouble with books I'd bought from Amazon and when I called customer service, not only did the woman rattle off all the books I'd bought from THEM, but the books on my desktop app, stuff that was loaded on my husband's desktop app which sat on the same in-house wireless server, AND books I had side-loaded onto my Nook via Calibre which happened to be plugged into my desktop at the time.

Uh-uh. Nope. No way. I don't care WHO you are. When you start snooping inside my house at stuff plugged into my computer or network, your software is too friggin' invasive and I don't want it. Too Orwellian for me!

Anna wrote: "The Nook Simple Touch is a good, dirt cheap little e-reader that you can buy dirt chea..."

My wife recently got a Simple Touch and is very happy with it...and she doesn't use the B&N site, either. Sideways download is just fine with her. She was able to afford it by charging it to her company, but at some point I may end up springing for one out of my pocket. Right now, I've still got a huge TBR of audiobooks from the Braille Library to deal with.

And thank you, Anna, for the good advice you've been giving me in recent days about Polly! and other things. You're a good friend.

Ron wrote: "Anna wrote: "The Nook Simple Touch is a good, dirt cheap little e-reader that you can ..."

Ron, I suspect you're young enough that the history of unions wasn't taught much in schools. Workers in the 30s and 40s could make decent money as scab labor in union-busting actions. With good money available, why worry about what happened when the unions dissolved and the bosses won?

If you intend to write sf professionally, I urge you to think about potential futures. Right now, Amazon is already vastly bigger than any single competitor. Just last month, March '14, two distribution markets--Sony and Diesel--disappeared. Right now, Amazon is still treating writers reasonably fairly, particularly those who sign exclusive agreements with them. But what happens when most other competitors vanish, and Amazon's the only one left standing? Can you guarantee they won't tell authors, 'Do what I say or your books won't get published'? When they say,'Accept my 10% royalty amount or peddle your ebooks on the street'?

Today Amazon is a decent company, but I don't want to hasten the day when they're the only company. I've heard some writers say their income was increased when they went with KDP Select. According to my 1099 forms for last year, the amount of royalties I received from Amazon was almost exactly equal to the royalties I got from Smashwords and its affiliated distributors combined. No single other distributor was as big, but when you combine them all they do add up. And they make a very important counterbalance to a company that might end up taking over the whole publishing business. Even assuming Jeff Bezos is an honest and caring man, he's not immortal. What happens when he dies and someone else takes over the entire ebook business--some corporate type who doesn't care about writers' welfare?

And you do know that Amazon owns Goodreads, don't you?

Stephen wrote: "Even assuming Jeff Bezos is an honest and caring man, he's not immortal. What happens when he dies and someone else takes over..."

All I can picture is the movie Prometheus when the corporate CEO came out of cryo-sleep to meet his maker in his bid to become immortal. Now that sounds like it would make an awesome space opera book! Amazon in outer space! :-) How would Amazon solve the problem of delivering their goods and dominating the galaxy without FTL drives?

Stephen wrote: "Ron wrote: "Anna wrote: "The Nook Simple Touch is a good, dirt cheap little e-reader that you can ..."

Ron, I suspect you're young enough that the history of unions wasn't taught much in schools. ..."

Stephen, I don't know what you consider young, but I am in my mid forties. Right now, the ebook business is just a little extra money on the side. I put my first book out 10 months ago and I've only made about 10k on it and the sequels. I pay a decent amount of money for my covers and smashwords wouldn't accept the same ones amazon does, and I didn't want to spend more with the graphic artist just to put it out again. I'm actually in some writing classes now and my writing seems to be getting better as I grow into my style, but I suspect I won't be ready to branch out until I'm ready to make writing a career.

And, I did not know that Amazon owns goodreads, that's useful info, thanks.

I think you could do a Galactic Empire even going with today's understanding of quantum physics. I am working on a project that involves some similar issues. I plan on using "particle entanglement" as the basis for a sort of faster than light Morse Code. Particle Entanglement has always just blown my mind. Even Einstein called it "spooky action at a distance." Because the entangled particles communicate at faster than light speeds. The particles change their state in reaction to their partner particle being observed ( Quantum Entanglement Explained). The link goes to Wikipeida, it was the best explanation I could find in a short time.

So essentially what happens is that if you "observe" a particle at your end of the Empire, the other partner entangled particle at the other end of the Empire then spins the opposite way. Now with spin and opposite spin you have dot and dash. ".. ... -. .----. - / - .... .. ... / - --- --- / -.-. --- --- .-.. ..--.."

I know this may be jumping a little outside of FTL, but the current physics is close enough that I think you are playing with true science and not a lot of fiction. So you could use it in your non FTL empire.

Now you end up with a real neat situation. You have instant communication, but not instant travel, no FTL drives on a space ships. Time to break out the spread sheets to keep track of where you are in space/time on which planet (and spaceships) in your Galactic Empire. So theoretically, could the answers of some messages arrive in your space/time before you actually send off the question?

Maybe a little to much nerdy physics for Space Opera, but there is just enough real science there to make a believable setting where an author could create all sorts of mischief.

Now back to studying the Higgs Field . . .

Ward

Ward wrote: "I plan on using "particle entanglement..."

I use quantum entanglement to explain my characters psychic ability to 'know' what loved ones are doing at a distance. Probably pure B.S., but it sounded better than going into a lengthy explanation of chakras :-)

[*makes mental note to bug Ward with DFQ's at some later point about psuedo-science-B.S. for some upcoming plot point :-) *]

I love my Amazon Kindle. Just wish it was a little lighter (less heavy). It makes me feel so much less eco-wasteful when reading magazines.

You can also read any book you want with no judgement from others. (For instance, I can read left leaning books without fear of being attacked by the RWNJs that live in my county.)

Also, if you go on vacation, it's a lot easier to stack things up on it.

Additionally, it's great for my NPR listening. Well, my smartphone is too.

I have no problem with Amazon. I'm more the other way. I refuse to subject myself to Apple slavery instead.

Ron wrote: "Stephen, I don't know what you consider young..."

Well, you're younger than I am! {grin} I guess that counts for something.

Kirsten wrote: "You can also read any book you want with no judgement from others..."

Hah! I hang out with a lot of paranormal romance writers and contemporary erotica (many of them best-selling authors). I'm glad I have my Nook to do R2R's of their books because those puppies leave SCORCH marks on your lap when you're reading them. Hot! Hot! Hot! Definitely not something you want the parent sitting next to you knowing you're reading when you're waiting for your kids at gymnastics practice :-P

Anna wrote: "...those puppies leave SCORCH marks on your lap when you're reading them"

I spent a couple of years writing and editing an underground sex humor newspaper, saw thousands of nude photos, and I think I've become almost immune to porn. Back in the 80s, when I was better looking (or at least skinnier) than I am now, a beautiful actress that I know you've seen invited me to her apartment. Once there, she spent a lot of time showing me albums of naked pictures of herself. They were interesting, but I didn't react. Not until weeks later, thinking back on it, did I realize she was trying to seduce me. But, since she was a nice lady, I didn't want to chase her away by doing anything coarse.

This is one of those things you kick yourself about for the rest of your life. Better to do something you'll regret later than not do it and regret what you may have missed!

Uh, anyhow, what were we talking about...?

So true, Anna! There's evidence that romance sales went way up as soon as e-book readers came up! Proportionally more than other genres. Coincidence?