I think The Expanse is a pretty obvious recommendation.
I also really like the Remembrance of Earth's Past books by Cixin Liu, but I'm not sure I'd call that a Space Opera. It's a series, yes, but it is very unlike other long-form space operas.
this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2023
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I've heard the Expanse books are great, I watched the Amazon series already. Are the books even better?
I watched the show first (I've never gotten past season 4, personally) and I liked the books WAY more. The show added a lot of unnecessary drama that distracted from the overall plot IMO.
I'm seconding the other guy that the books are even better! Plus they go past the point of the show so you'll be able to get more out of the world.
The show is my favorite show of all time and I still think the books are better. If you liked the show, at all, you'll really like the books. Amos Burton is probably my favorite character in any fictional universe.
Alastair Reynolds's Revelation Space series is fantastic and sounds like what you're looking for.
I really enjoyed Peter Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga (Pandora's Star/Judas Unchained) + The Void Trilogy which is in the same universe as the Commonwealth Saga books and features some of the same characters.
Neal Asher's polity books. Culture books, kind of, in setting if nothing else.
I would recommend the Red Rising series by Pierce Brown. Every book takes place on a different planet with an amazing amount of character building and detail in the plot.
Did you finish book 5? That one was a slog for me, and I enjoyed most of the rest (even if book 3 showed much of the strain of finishing the first trilogy, I never felt the pacing slip as much).
The Imperial Radch trilogy by Ann Leckie was very good. It's got a few interesting themes along with the space battles and evil empires and weird aliens, like gender and personhood. I hear there's a new book in the same universe, but unconnected to the trilogy characters, that just came out I think?
The Honor Harrington series is great for epic space opera.
The Bobiverse is really good too, though less... grandiose? It felt more personal to me.
The Well of Souls serie(s) are great.
For less opera and more funny the Phule books by Robert Aspirin are good.
Awesome list, thanks! Looks like the first book of Honor Harrington is free on Kindle so I can check it out right away. Should I read that series in publication order?
Yeah, it chronological in publish order as far as i know