http://speculiction.blogspot.com/2019/12/review-of-space-opera-ed-by-brian-aldis... ( )

An anthology of novel excerpts and short stories from well-known and lesser-known sci-fi authors. On the whole I wasn't impressed. The title, I feel is misleading. Space opera is supposed to be full of grand gestures, sweeping operatic dilemmas, grander emotions - this simply didn't incorporate the high drama, emotional or action-filled, that I expect from space opera. Like with some of the other sci-fi/fantasy anthologies from the period, I felt like there was something I just wasn't getting in most of the stories which really made them not work for me.

A few of the stories were very good such as Asimov's "The Last Question", Dick's "Colony", and Griffith's "Honeymoon in Space" (although I'm a bit iffy on that last one...). I may copy those out for myself before I sell this back.

The other stories left me cold, except for one which was a hideous example of 50's-style chauvinism deemed to be a 'beautiful' story. "The Mitr" was a senseless story of a girl, isolated and bored, who is raped twice - once (not sexually) by one of the alien life forms on the planet where she lives, and again by several humans who show up on her planet. The parts where she is torn between hiding from and joining these people (before the rape) have potential, but the story falls far short of dystopia or tragedy. It's a mere whimper, and a bland one, instead of what could have been a condemnation of the nature of man-kind. Distasteful at best, made atrocious by the heaps of praise bestowed on it by the editor. That story alone makes me eager to rid my house of the book's presence.

Nothing that really caught my eye enough to justify a reread. ( )

Introduction · Brian W. Aldiss · in
Is Everything an Illusion? · Brian W. Aldiss · si
Zirn Left Unguarded, the Jenghik Palace in Flames, Jon Westerley Dead · Robert Sheckley · ss Nova 2, ed. Harry Harrison, Walker 1972
A Honeymoon in Space · George Griffith · ex Pearson’s Magazine Jan 1900
Tonight the Sky Will Fall! [Tarl Brent] · Daniel F. Galouye · na Imagination May 1952
"Precipices of Light That Went Forever Up..." · Brian W. Aldiss · si
The Star of Life · Edmond Hamilton · ex Startling Stories Jan 1947
After Ixmal · Jeff Sutton · ss Amazing Oct 1962
Sea Change · Thomas N. Scortia · ss Astounding Jun 1956
Exile Is Our Lot · Brian W. Aldiss · si
The Sword of Rhiannon · Leigh Brackett · ex Thrilling Wonder Stories Jun 1949, as “Sea-Kings of Mars”
All Summer in a Day · Ray Bradbury · ss F&SF Mar 1954
The Mitr · Jack Vance · ss Vortex Science Fiction #1 1953
The Godlike Machines · Brian W. Aldiss · si
The Storm [Dellian Robots] · A. E. van Vogt · nv Astounding Oct 1943
The Paradox Men · Charles L. Harness · ex Bouregy & Curl 1953; the novel The Paradox Men is an expanded version of “Flight Into Yestersay”, Startling Stories May 1949.
Time Fuze · Randall Garrett · ss If Mar 1954
The Last Question · Isaac Asimov · ss Science Fiction Quarterly Nov 1956
The Red Brain · Donald Wandrei · ss Weird Tales Oct 1927
Breaking Point · James E. Gunn · na Space Science Fiction Mar 1953
Answer · Fredric Brown · vi Angels and Spaceships, Dutton 1954
Envoi · Brian W. Aldiss · aw