In Space Opera, we met Decibel Jones, former frontman for British glam band Decibel Jones and the Absolute Zeroes, and followed him as he was conscripted into a mission to prove humanity’s sentience – and thus save them from extermination – by placing anything but last in the Metagalactic Grand Prix. Think Eurovision, but in space!
Spoiler alert, Decibel Jones succeeded, with the help of a time-traveling red panda and the resulting appearance of a younger version of his long-dead drummer, Mira Wonderful Star. As tenth-place finishers in the Metagalactic Grand Prix they’re now contractually obligated to go on tour, giving interviews and performances and generally keeping excitement levels high for the whole shebang. But that’s so boring and so Decibel challenges their spaceship to take them somewhere and show them “something cool” and boy howdy does their spaceship oblige. A planet that shouldn’t exist, orbiting two stars that are colliding with one another, and populated by a species that eats radiation for breakfast and is, undeniably, sentient. And as a newly discovered sentient species, they must now compete in another round of the Metagalactic Grand Prix, prove that they are people not food, and avoid the extermination of their species. Which would all be just grand, if only an adorably fluffy murderous unicorn bear with a superiority complex wasn’t determined to take the whole thing down, and the galaxy’s fragile peace along with it.
Space Oddity is not just a fun romp through space with meditations on what makes something a someone, but a frenetic rampage through the English language and world history, with so many diversions and asides you sometimes wonder when the plot is going to stop meandering and start doing something. But that isn’t a complaint! Valente uses her considerable talent with language to take you on this wild ride, and keep you so entertained and interested that you forget that the plot went out for cigarettes and still hasn’t returned. You just want to keep learning about the Grand Prix, and the Sentience Wars, and time paradoxes and spaceships and badgers named Doug and a war crime shaped like a marble that makes everyone believe they’re the chosen one that the prophecy foretold. This is a book (expertly narrated by Heath Miller) that literally had me laughing out loud multiple times throughout. If you enjoy the absurdity of the Hitchhikers Guide series and ready to turn it up to eleven, check out Space Opera and Space Oddity. You won’t regret it!