Science fiction is often about looking to the future, and this is especially true about sci-fi space opera stories.
So it’s not surprising that a sci-fi space opera short story anthology called New Adventures In Space Opera (paperback, Kindle) would also be forward looking. As editor Jonathan Strahan explains in the following email interview, “I edited two books [of space opera stories] with my good friend Gardner Dozois toward the end of the 2000s. … I wanted to put together a book that looked at what came next.”
New Adventures In Space Opera is obviously an anthology of science fiction space opera stories. But is there more to it? Like, are they stories that challenge the conventions of space opera? Or is it just what it says it is and I should learn to be more trusting?
The first thing you hope when you’re putting together a book is that it’s fun, that it delivers what it says on the cover, and that the reader will both enjoy themselves and feel like the book has dealt with them fairly and honestly.
So, yes! New Adventures In Space Opera is, first and foremost, an anthology of great space opera stories that I think readers will love.
But there is a little more to it.
Science fiction loves to analyze and overanalyze its history, and it loves changes and movements. We had a Golden Age and a New Wave, we had cyberpunk, and in the early ’90s, we had the new space opera. It was all about darker, more politically oriented space opera — stuff that still had all of the thrilling elements of the form, but maybe something else, too.
But that was the 1990s, and we’re in the 2020s. I wanted to put together a book that looked at what came next. What space opera became after the new space opera. And this book does that.
Why did you want to assemble a collection that, as you just said, “looked at what came next“?
I edited two books with my good friend Gardner Dozois toward the end of the 2000s. The New Space Opera and The New Space Opera 2 collected a bunch of original stories that, we hoped, showed what new space opera was and what it could do. The books did well, but we didn’t have the chance to do any more before Gardner, sadly, passed away in 2018. I was in Chicago for the World Science Fiction Convention, talking to Tachyon publisher Jacob Weismann about projects, and I mentioned I’d always wanted to go back to space opera and try to work out what came next. Jacob loved the idea as much as I did, and the book was born.
So are the stories new to this anthology, or maybe relatively new but not written for this book?
The stories in New Adventures In Space Opera have all been published before, though I think readers won’t have seen many of them before.
Why go with reprints? I didn’t want to impose an answer on the question “What is next in space opera?” I wanted to discover it, to put together stories that were published between 2010 (after The New Space Opera 2 was published) and now that showed what the best writers in our field were doing with the form.
Putting together an original book of contemporary space opera would be wonderful, and I hope to do that, but this is a different thing — it’s about understanding what’s happening right now.
How then did you decide what stories to include?
I read. I read a lot. Until recently, I edited a year’s best annual, and I am the reviews editor for Locus. So, I looked back at the space opera stories I’d read and spent some time rereading them, looking for great stories that helped tell a story about space opera in the 2010s and beyond.
I also deliberately looked at stories that had won awards and garnered a lot of attention, because those stories are the ones readers were responding to, and were instrumental to the developing space opera form. It’s impossible to imagine space opera in the 2020s without Arkady Martine, Ann Leckie, Yoon Ha Lee, and the other writers who have work in the book.
contributors Tobias S. Buckell, Yoon Ha Lee
Space opera mixes well with other subgenres. What subgenres are included in New Adventures In Space Opera?
Space opera, more than anything else, is adventure fiction, fiction about voyages and journeys. The stories here range from space opera filled with sex and romance to dark stories of violence and death.
You’ve edited a number of short story anthologies, including Made To Order, which was stories about robots, and Someone In Time, a collection of time travel romance stories. What is it about assembling a collection of short stories around a specific theme that really enjoy?
I love short fiction. I love science fiction and fantasy and horror. A book with a strong theme allows writers to explore different facets of the same subject or idea, and those different facets, when gathered in a single book, highlight other, often unexpected, things about the stories around them.
You can see that in the stories in Made To Order particularly. I do think as well, that an editor has many considerations for what they do, but one is to put together a book that they would have enjoyed as a reader themselves. These are all books I just wanted to read, so I helped bring them into the world.
Are there any of your previous anthologies that you think had a big influence on how you assembled New Adventures In Space Opera?
I mentioned the two books I did with Gardner Dozois, The New Space Opera and The New Space Opera 2. Those two books, along with Edge Of Infinity and The Starry Rift, were enormously influential. Those books were where I looked at space opera and what it was becoming, and they also showed me the many ways you could assemble a book.
The video game biz loves a good space opera story: Mass Effect, Halo, etc. Do you think any of the stories in New Adventures In Space Opera could work well as a video game?
I’ve never really played video games, so I don’t have much point of comparison, but I suspect any of the stories with a big space setting — Tobias S. Buckell’s [“Zen And The Art Of Starship Maintenance”], Seth Dickinson’s [“Morrigan In The Sunglare”], Arkady Martine’s [“All The Colors You Thought Were Kings”] — would make great games and movies.
As to what type, I leave that to people who know what types of games there are, but I bet they’d be fun
So, is there anything else people need to know about New Adventures In Space Opera
They need to know this is a big book of space opera stories filled with action and adventure, and that it is totally fresh and new.
Finally, if someone enjoys New Adventures In Space Opera, which of your other anthologies would you suggest they read next?
I think The New Space Opera and The New Space Opera 2 are the closest cousins to this one. I think if you love this, you’ll love that.
However, if you love New Adventures In Space Opera and want something different Made To Order. I think it’s a cracking read filled with a lot of the same sensibility. I’m very proud of that one.
Or, there’s the book I’m working on right now…
