Space Opera Fans discussion

I’ve been thinking about colony stories recently, particularly colonies settled by generation ships or some kind of hibernation, so they are mostly out of communication with Earth. The first 200 years is going to be filled with challenges, especially if this isn’t a planet that was terraformed ahead of time for them. Some of these stories are true space opera, some are solidly planetary romance (which does not mean a love interest, just SF based on some other planet), a lot fall somewhere in the middle.

What’s one of your favorites on this topic? The two I probably reread the most are
Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon
Mirabile by Janet Kagan

Another book that fits this theme is Dragonsdawn by Anne McCaffrey. This tells the early story of Pern, when the first threadfall happened and how the colonists coped with it.

Although not what I would consider an intentional colony, Freedom's Landing is a possibility. The dominant race, which has been conquering planets all over the galaxy, dumps a bunch of what they consider troublemakers of various sentient species onto a new planet where they must figure out how to survive. It spends quite a bit of time describing the nitty-gritty of providing for the survival of a fairly large number of people (several hundred) with very few resources other than what they can find or develop on an unfamiliar planet.

On the lighter side of things, there's the "Star Trek: New Earth" series by various authors.

It's about the business of founding the colony in the first place.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Tr...

Speaking of unintentional colonies, I recall enjoying Heinlein’s Tunnel in the Sky, where a bunch of kids go on what is basically an interstellar scouting trip and are stranded on an alien planet. They have to survive and, beyond that, thrive.

Heinlein was more optimistic than William Golding was with Lord of the Flies, and I kind of wonder if Heinlein was responding to Golding since Tunnel came out in 1955, a year after Flies. (11-03-55 versus 9-17-54.)

Loved Tunnel in the Sky!