The Fantasy Review’s list of 8 Space Opera Books That Will Keep You Up All Night Reading.
Children of Time (Children of Time, #1) by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Check out our review of Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky.
From the blurb:
Who will inherit this new Earth?
The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age — a world terraformed and prepared for human life.
But all is not right in this new Eden. In the long years since the planet was abandoned, the work of its architects has borne disastrous fruit. The planet is not waiting for them, pristine and unoccupied. New masters have turned it from a refuge into mankind’s worst nightmare…
The Salvation Gambit by Emily Skrutskie
From the blurb:
Murdock has always believed in Hark, the woman who shaped her from a petty thief and lowlife hacker into a promising con artist. Hark is everything Murdock aspires to be, from her slick fashion sense to her unfailing ability to plan under pressure. Together with Bea, a fearless driver who never walks away from a bet, and Fitz, Murdock’s infuriatingly mercurial rival who can sweet-talk the galaxy into spinning around her finger, they form a foursome with a reputation for daring heists, massive payoffs, and never, ever getting caught.
Well, until now...
The Blighted Stars (The Devoured Worlds, #1) by Megan E. O’Keefe
From the blurb:
She’s a revolutionary. Humanity is running out of options. Habitable planets are being destroyed as quickly as they’re found and Naira Sharp thinks she knows the reason why. The all-powerful Mercator family has been controlling the exploration of the universe for decades, and exploiting any materials they find along the way under the guise of helping humanity’s expansion. But Naira knows the truth, and she plans to bring the whole family down from the inside...
Empire of Silence (Sun Eater, #1) by Christopher Ruocchio
From the blurb:
It was not his war.
The galaxy remembers him as a hero: the man who burned every last alien Cielcin from the sky. They remember him as a monster: the devil who destroyed a sun, casually annihilating four billion human lives—even the Emperor himself—against Imperial orders.
But Hadrian was not a hero. He was not a monster. He was not even a soldier…
The Captain (The Last Horizon, #1) by Will Wight
From the blurb:
On a little-known planet, Archmage Varic Vallenar casts a grand spell to empower himself with the magical abilities of his alternate selves. The ritual works too well, granting Varic not only the magic but also the memories from six lives.
Including their gruesome deaths…
Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse, #1) by James S.A. Corey
From the blurb:
Humanity has colonized the solar system—Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt and beyond—but the stars are still out of our reach.
Jim Holden is XO of an ice miner making runs from the rings of Saturn to the mining stations of the Belt. When he and his crew stumble upon a derelict ship, the Scopuli, they find themselves in possession of a secret they never wanted. A secret that someone is willing to kill for—and kill on a scale unfathomable to Jim and his crew. War is brewing in the system unless he can find out who left the ship and why...
These Burning Stars (The Kindom Trilogy, #1) by Bethany Jacobs
From the blurb:
On a dusty backwater planet, occasional thief Jun Ironway has gotten her hands on the score of a lifetime: a secret that could raze the Kindom, the ruling power of the galaxy.
A star system away, preternaturally stoic Chono and brilliant hothead Esek— the two most brutal clerics of the Kindom—are tasked with hunting Jun down…
The Stardust Grail by Yume Kitasei
From the blurb:
Save one world. Doom her own.
Maya Hoshimoto was once the best art thief in the galaxy. For ten years, she returned stolen artifacts to alien civilizations―until a disastrous job forced her into hiding. Now she just wants to enjoy a quiet life as a graduate student of anthropology, but she’s haunted by persistent and disturbing visions of the future...