Title: THE NEW SPACE OPERA
Publisher: Voyager
Editors: Jonathan Strahan and Gardner Dozois
Edition released: 2007
ISBN: 0-7322-8294-2
549 pages
Reviewed by: Adam Donnison

I've already spoken of my love of anthologies, and another love I have is the grand vista of the space opera. So you can tell I was pretty pleased when I saw THE NEW SPACE OPERA. This anthology collects together new and current writers that write in that classic SF sub-genre of the space opera. Space opera is that sweeping, all-encompassing saga that takes your breath away, and this book has 18 of the best space operas I've read for quite some time.

There are some great authors in THE NEW SPACE OPERA, including Dan Simmons, Gregory Benford, Robert Silverberg, Stephen Baxter and Greg Egan, and there are more than a dozen others to round out the roll call.

How do you make a space opera different? Each of these stories is a revelation in that regard. Each gives you a different definition of "space opera".

I really liked THE NEW SPACE OPERA and I've found a few more authors to add to my list of favourites, along with cementing some that were already there.

Well worth the look.