Space Opera Fans discussion

The Young Adult section of the Space Opera Fans community is where our younger readers can come and discuss whatever sparks their interest within the genre. Discussion of all things on an intergalactic scale are welcome here, including space opera tie-ins such as popular movies, television shows, video games, comics and manga.

The only rule is no foul language or topics inappropriate for somebody under age 18. Oh ... and no self-promotion!

If an author has a book they believe will appeal to the Young Adult demographic, drop me a PM. There will be a separate YA free ebooks thread in this folder so community members can snag something for their kids or grandkids e-readers or smartphone apps.

Oh ... and we have a YA Space Opera Listopia now!

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/7...

This book The Rocket Company is sort of YA and sort of not, but it creaks along like the first draft of a (very) well-researched outline for a Heinlein novel. Highly recommended for space opera fans!

Christopher wrote: "This book The Rocket Company is sort of YA and sort of not, but it creaks along like the first draft of a (very) well-researched outline for a Heinlein novel. Highly recommended for..."

Thanks Christopher! Hmmm... How to build a rocket? The most interesting review was the sole negative review by the guy who gave it a razz as pure escapist fiction ... sounds like it might also be a good research tool for those of us who WRITE science fiction or want to start our own company :-) Sometimes ... the critics make you only want to read something more!

What's your opinion of A Wrinkle in Time? I'm not sure on that one so I don't want to put it on the listopia.

A Wrinkle in Time is an oddball story, more an early form of dystopia than a romp through the galaxy. It's definitely speculative fiction, but I wouldn't say it's space opera. But, if other people weigh in that opinion is open to new information.

I couldn't decide since they encounter other planets, but it's more traveling through dimensions than space. Thanks.

Hmm. Most YA space opera I've read has 18 or 19 year old protagonists.

Who are, in fact, treated as adults for story purposes. It allows them much more scope for activity.

Perhaps Citizen of the Galaxy would fit into this category. I think Red Rising was marketed as YA but it's quite violent. It takes place around our solar system.

Looking at the Listopia, it makes me wonder if you are specifically looking for Space Opera YA or just YA. There are books on the list that take place only on Earth.

Mary wrote: "Hmm. Most YA space opera I've read has 18 or 19 year old protagonists.

Who are, in fact, treated as adults for story purposes. It allows them much more scope for activity."

Then it is NOT a 'young adult' story, which is why I'm so stringent about it when doing the BOTM club nominations. It has to be written for teens, star teens, and deal with teen issues the way a teenager (with their limited experience) would do. Otherwise it's just a 'coming of age' story written for adults.

YA fiction is the new 'hot' topic, so a lot of publishing companies are suddenly trying to market their books as 'also rans' when they are not YA fiction at all.

YA fiction -can- have violence, it's usually a matter of degree. Hunger Games is quite violent, but Katniss deals with the violence the way a teenager would react, and the gruesome details are only skimmed upon, focusing more on her reaction to the horror than the horror itself.

*

Heather wrote: Looking at the Listopia, it makes me wonder if you are specifically looking for Space Opera YA or just YA. There are books on the list that take place only on Earth..."

For the purposes of promoting YA consumption of science fiction, I have a relaxed definition of YA space opera to include any book that has a space or space-yearning element but otherwise meets the criteria. So an earth-bound YA tale that has the teens looking to build a spaceship, or they discover one of their friends is really an alien from another planet, or maybe they just smuggle a ride to the moon, will qualify under the relaxed definition.

I am doing this because there is precious LITTLE well-written young adult science fiction or space opera. People are calling The Hunger Games, Maze Runner and Divergent 'YA Science Fiction' when really it's dystopia ... there is precious little science and absolutely NO space. They're all good stories, but they're not going to encourage young people to look up at the stars and ask 'what if.'

So for purposes of the Space Opera Fans Community YA Space Opera listopia, it's the 'what if' + looking to space element which will make it acceptable.

I want more space-science stuff written to inspire my daughters, so I'll take whatever makes them want to read (anything but sparkly vampires!) and encourage authors to write more :-)

Heather wrote: "I want more space-science stuff written to inspire my daughters, so I'll take whatever makes them want to read"

This is curious. A couple of years ago I wrote "Thomas Twine's Terrific Time-Travelling Toilet" (usually known as T6) which was aimed at a slightly younger age group.

Tom Twine is the new kid at Church Road school- except he's really a shape-shifting, time-travelling alien. He takes a couple of modern children with him on a series of jaunts to repair history.

Between giving Brunel an idea for railway signals, editing Nelson's "England Expects" message, dining with Samuel Pepys and accidentally curing the Bubonic Plague they cause history as we know it. Without them Boadicea would not have fought the Romans and Mrs Beeton would never have published anything.

However they discover the dark side to time travel. There are two renegade time travellers out there, bent on enslaving the human race.

The final encounter, billions of years in our past, but using spaceships from our future, can only end with one victor, but when Tom says, "It could hardly be worse. I'm sorry. I think we have sacrificed ourselves to save the Earth. We've only got a minute or two left," he means it.

I completely failed to get a publisher interested. The lack of vampires, werewolves, zombies or magic, and the presence of a black hole may have been the reason.

Anyway the point is this: I can't sell it to a conventional publisher, and because it contains crossover to my SF universe I don't want to put it out as indie yet, but if your daughters would like to read the Ms and ideally give me a quick crit I'd be only too happy to let them see it.

Okay, I added a few books to the list with the additional input. Since you put The 5th Wave in, I figured aliens invading earth was valid and added some with this theme.

I tend to think of comic book stuff as sci-fi but I don't think it should be on our list given our wish to not stray too far from space opera.

Heather wrote: "Okay, I added a few books to the list with the additional input. Since you put The 5th Wave in, I figured aliens invading earth was valid and added some with this theme. ..."

Thanks Heather! It's really tough getting teens interested in sci-fi stuff, and even tougher, when you're an author who writes it, getting your sci-fi books in front of a teen audience, so I have relaxed rules for the kids. I want them reading sci-fi and looking to space as an aspirational place to be :-) There's not a ton of 'pure' space opera for kids, so it's more the spirit of looking-up that I look for.

Totally agree about Hunger Games, Maze Runner, etc as not being science fiction. They are certainly futuristic, but dystopian is a much more accurate term.