While Space Opera was wonderfully weird and filled with some of my favourite characters of the year, it was also somehow less than the sum of its parts. I was hoping to love this book and I did love some of it, but, ultimately, I think Valente missed the mark on this one.

In this Douglas Adams-esque sci-fi comedy, we follow Decibel Jones, the washed-out frontman to the once-massive glam-rock band Decibel Jones and the Absolute Zeros. He is tasked with the burden of saving the human race by participating in the Metagalactic Grand Prix, a Eurovision-like intergalactic song competition to prove humanity’s sentience.

Valente’s character building is a masterclass in efficient storytelling. From the first chapter Decibel Jones appears in I felt an instant connection to him. Throughout the novel, Valente was able to perfectly root into the very essence of a character and convey that to the reader. I easily empathized with the broken hot mess that was Decibel Jones and desperately wanted to see him overcome his past traumas.

Valente does the same for our other major character in the book, Oort St. Ultraviolet. I especially loved exploring Oort and Decibel’s relationship throughout the book. You get a real sense of their history together and see how much they truly care for each other despite the gaping cracks in their relationship. Oort and Decibel are natural foils to each other with wildly different perspectives on life and seeing them interact really highlighted why I loved these two.

This book is genuinely clever and hilarious. Valente fell into that Terry Pratchett/Douglas Adams style of absurdist British humour that worked for me. Her exposition while technically info dumps were delivered in such a unique and fun way that I didn’t even mind when we spent a whole chapter going through worldbuilding minutia.

Valente built such a wonderfully unique world within this book. The absurdist premise of an intergalactic Eurovision was taken seriously (but not too seriously) enough to produce a truly unique book. However, it felt as if Valente dialled all my favourite things about this book waaaay past max and produced an over-filled mess. While I loved getting details about the intergalactic world Valente built in the first half of the novel, by halfway through the book these constant asides dragged the pace of the book and grated on my nerves. What was once quirky and interesting became unbearably irritating.

The worst thing about Valente’s insistence on giving the reader every. single. innocuous. detail. was that it took time away from exploring our characters. I would have loved to spend much more time with Decibel and Oort and unfortunately, we didn’t because we just had to know about the exact history of each and every alien participating in the Metagalactic Grand Prix.

I did really enjoy everything this book was trying to do. I laughed, I cried, I got much too emotionally invested in the history of a fictional band and I loved (almost) every minute of it. But, I don’t think Space Opera really lived up to its potential.