Every now and then, I’ll run across a book where you can absolutely tell that the author had a great time writing. This is definitely true of Catherynne M. Valente’s ecstatically delightful Space Opera. There’s more than one place in the novel where I think Valente just knocked her own socks off. This book is one of the funnest novels I’ve read in a long time.
The premise of the book is simple. After the Sentience Wars, the surviving sentient species created a contest that would decide whether newly discovered species were collectively wise enough to join the family—or still so mired in species-centric violence that there were a danger to self and others and need to be destroyed. (The novel is inspired by the Eurovision Song Contest.) The Humans of Earth have just been discovered by those other species. They have no choice but to compete. If they don’t accept the invitation, that’s it for Homo sapiens sapiens. Even worse (so everyone things), the visiting species have already decided who will compete: has-been glamrock singer Decibel Jones and the sole remaining member of the Absolute Zeroes. (Their first choice was Yoko Ono, but they couldn’t get her.) Decibel Jones and the Absolute Zeroes haven’t had a hit and years. They’ve lost their confidence. In spite of this, the two men are whisked light-years away to perform at the Megagalatic Grand Prix.
Space Opera‘s plot arc is simple. We follow Jones and his former bandmate, Omar Calişkan, ask they struggle to come up with a song in time for the contest and save the human species. What I loved most about the book, however were all the asides where the narrator talks about the mayhem of previous Grand Prix, the Sentience Wars, what sentience is, and the power of music to create empathy for species who wouldn’t otherwise be able to understand each other. The language is hyperbolic, drenched in glitter, and strongly reminiscent of the loopiness of Douglas Adams. Seriously, Space Opera is dementedly funny.
Reading Space Opera is a lot like watching the Eurovision contest, down to the aftermath. When I finished the book, I had had a good time while also having a strong feeling of “what the hell did I just read?” While the book is not strongly ekphrastic—after all, how can you describe what it’s like to experience a song that arrives as an infection from a sentience virus?—but it ends on a profound note (heh) of the fundamental ability of song to capture the desire to survive, the ability to fully feel, and hope for the future.
I really loved this book.
Sounds fun! I really enjoyed a lot of Valente’s older novels, and then got out of her stuff a but. Looks like this new one is going to bring me back!