Space Opera

Space Opera is a science fiction novel by the American writer Catherynne M. Valente, first published by Saga Press in 2018. It is built around a galactic version of the Eurovision Song Contest.

The Sentience Wars tore the galaxy apart a century before the story begins and came close to ending the whole idea of intelligent spacefaring life, and the tradition of the Metagalactic Grand Prix grew out of the aftermath as something for the survivors to do together. Humanity's place in galactic civilisation then depends on taking part in the contest and avoiding last place, because the alternative is to be judged non-sentient and eradicated. When the alien emissaries who arrive to arrange the entry supply a list of suggested musicians, every name on it belongs to somebody dead or otherwise unable to perform except one: Decibel Jones and the Absolute Zeroes, a burnt-out glam rock trio that is down to two surviving members. Whether a band like that can carry the future of the species is the question the novel sets out to answer.

Valente's fiction moves between myth, fairytale and science fiction, and this book takes the apparatus of a song contest and runs it at the scale of a galaxy, complete with the diplomacy, the grudges and the performances that a competition between species would involve.