It is, in fact, nothing less than intergalactic Eurovision in the fine stylistic tradition of Douglas Adams—madcap, bizarre, comedic, and shot through with a certain wholesome kindness ... A clever, thorough mashup of David Bowie, Eurovision, Douglas Adams, and Valente’s ever-astounding prose drives Space Opera. All of its heart and heft comes from the honest, devoted adoration that rolls off the page at every turn; it’s hard to miss Valente’s total love for her subject and for the argument she’s seeking to make about the production of culture, the songs we sing when the lights go out and we’re left cold in the night. This book is eminently contemporary, enmeshed in arguments about politics, nationalism, resources, and xenophobia ... It’s a big, loud, spangly novel, but it’s also a personally intimate one. Valente has done a fine job giving us the glitz, the glam, and the heart all at once.
...one of the funniest books that I’ve ever read ... Where Douglas Adams projected the comedic incompetence of impersonal bureaucracies into outer space, Valente introduces whimsical weirdness like a multidimensional panda bear called a Quantum-Tufted Domesticated Wormhole, which is the only feasible means of interstellar travel ... But the real selling point is Valente’s elaborate prose, dense with description and metaphors. I’ve bounced off this style in some of her books, but here it works beautifully ... I enjoyed every minute I spent reading Space Opera — first for the story of Decibel Jones and the Absolute Zeros and their performance to save Earth, and then for the fantastic worlds that Valente put to paper.
Although Catherynne M. Valente’s delightful sense of humor is the most constant aspect of her prose, it is not the most memorable. Although her comedic talents are reminiscent of Douglas Adams at his best, Valente’s palette is far larger. Her prose is always quick and engrossing, but the content ranges from a glitzy, sometimes profane satirization of the music industry and its larger-than-life characters, to dead-serious flashbacks and a genuinely moving finale. That ability to fluidly tie real-world tragedy together with psychedelic hilarity is perhaps Space Opera’s most impressive attribute. Valente’s writing here is as strong as anything taught as 'good prose,' although the rock and whimsy will keep it from finding its way into the traditional literary canon anytime soon. And that’s a shame. It takes confidence, skill and talent to craft a tragic disco ball metaphor, and Valente has all three in spades. At the end of the day, Valente’s fiction of a high-stakes, sequined Intergalactic Idol ably addresses what it means to be human and what it means to love someone, while being ever-entertaining and, crucially, being the kind of book that makes you want to dance. It’s got soul, after all.
There are really no words to describe Space Opera, Catherynne Valente's new novel. Know why? Because she used them all in writing it. I can say that it is square-ish. Made of wood pulp. Composed mostly of sentences. I can say that it's a wicked-fast read (if you can handle the whiplash and the pure, 12-gauge crazy-pants nonsense of it all) and enjoyable at speeds unsafe for upright mammals ... In between 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.
Catherynne M. Valente touches on some serious intergalactic themes in her latest sci-fi gem, but it’s the humor in her over-the-top prose that keeps the reader engaged … and chuckling ... Valente’s jazzy run-on sentences can become a bit exhausting, but rapid-fire syntactic overindulgence befits the proceeds. “Space Opera” is all about going over the top and turning the volume up to 11, and Valente pushes her prose and plotting to the outer limits of silliness ... Although it touches upon serious issues, Space Opera succeeds mostly by being charming, fast and funny. That’s more than enough reward for readers at a time when so much of popular culture, science fiction especially, is dreary and dire. Valente has long been a talent to watch. Now that her work has been sufficiently surveilled, Space Opera proves that it’s time to upgrade her status to that of a reliable maverick, someone who can be depended on to deliver the off-kilter and unexpected goods, no matter what subject she tackles.
Admirers of Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy will feel at home in this wildly comical and cheerfully absurd galactic adventure ... Valente’s gift for rich language seems to serve her well in what at times reads like stream-of-consciousness comedy.
Valente’s humor, despite its galactic setting, is firmly grounded in Earthbound pop culture ... What it’s really about is Valente having fun with the sheer possibilities of absurdist invention, of SF as gonzo late-night stand-up improv, and of music’s power to either change the universe or perhaps change nothing at all. Fortunately for us, it’s about as much fun to read as it must have been for Valente to write.
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.
Valente’s effervescent prose is wildly creative and often funny, but frequent tangents can make for chaotic reading. Her many fans will be enthralled with this endearing, razzle-dazzle love song about destiny, finding one’s true voice, and rockin’ the house down.
The storyline is also strongly reminiscent of an episode from the bleakly comic Adult Swim cartoon Rick and Morty, which featured a similar contest and stakes—perhaps infused with a dash of Daniel Pinkwater’s Slaves of Spiegel, about an intergalactic cooking competition. Light on plot and originality but a charming amusement all the same.
