A review by katieinca
Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente

3.0

This absolutely delivered on the absurdity of the premise "like Eurovision, but in space." It was, in general, good fun. And that's because of, not despite, the occasional 2 page long sentences and a very liberal stance on things like what words or phrases ought to be used as, say, adjectives. You can feel the deep admiration for Douglas Adams in every page. But you know how in Hitchhikers there'll be some tangent/backstory/aside about Vogon poetry or the reincarnation of a whale but still our main plot moves along? I felt like this got the ratios wrong, and we spent so much time on background asides that by the time we actually got to space-eurovision we were 80% of the way through the book. I still managed to develop a surprising amount of affection for Dess and Oort, so kudos to Ms. Valente for that.