As I've been preparing to seek an agent to represent my cozy space opera, I've been reading recent books in the genre both to understand the current marketplace and to find "comp titles" that I can use for my query. Here are some of the books I've read recently:
Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee (published 2016)
Rebellion. Heresy. Interplanetary War. A brilliant undead general released from storage/captivity and assigned to help our protagonist triumph in an otherwise hopeless battle. Lots of intricate world-building and factional strife. Military SF with calendrical magic.
Parallels with my book: honestly? spaceships.
Barbary Station by R. E. Stearns (published 2017)
Lesbian space pirates. That's probably enough to entice most potential readers of this book to open its covers. When you discover that the lesbian couple in question are seeking to join the space pirates because of their overwhelming student debt...well, slam dunk for reader identification for most Gen Zs. Add in corporate bad guys and a struggle to prove yourself to the pirates while simultaneously trying to save innocents in a battle against a malevolent AI -- all the adventure boxes have been ticked. The book does have its flaws, though. From a writerly perspective, I found that the writing has weak POV. Weak POV weakens a reader's engagement with the characters, which I believe is what's behind statements like "I started losing interest" and "For some reason I just never connected" in the top Goodreads reviews.
Parallels with my work: relationship between the two main characters is critical to the story, as is a powerful AI.
Cascade Failure by L.M. Sagas (published 2024)
Banter. Smart ass perspectives. Clever observations. All things that should really have enhanced this adventure story about a Guild deserter who hitches a ride on a spaceship and ends up working with its crew to save the universe from a planet-killing conspiracy. The book has a lot of action, plot twists, a found family, and fun characters, but the author is a bit too much in love with the clever things her characters say, think, or do -- sometimes to the point where it interferes with the story. The voices of the various character are also not always distinct, which can be confusing.
Parallels to my book: space opera, intelligent spaceship as a major character, banter.
Calamity by Constance Fey (published 2023)
Constance Fay does a better job with the banter: it amuses the reader and enlivens the book without ever slowing down the action or getting in the way of the story. Calamity is a romance about a down-on-her-luck spaceship captain forced to take a dubious commission from an influential Family, along with accepting that Family's handsome son as her security chief. Deception and adventure follow, along with lots of steamy scenes, most of which have nothing to do with the secret villain volcano lair that they uncover.
Parallels to my book: space opera, romantic themes, banter.
The Terraformers by AnnaLee Newitz (published 2023)
AnnaLee Newitz does not write space opera. Or at least her previous two novels (Future of Another Timeline and Autonomous) each take place on a future Earth and are "time travel" and "AI" books respectively. This one is not space opera either: it takes place in a far future on a single distant planet being terraformed by an all-powerful corporation for human use. It draws a bit from the Kim Stanley Robinson school of SFF, in that the book is not really a narrative about one set of characters that has a beginning middle and an end. Instead it is the story of a civilization (or interlocking civilizations) developing on a planet over the long centuries that it takes for the planet to be altered into the form desired by its "owners". I have trouble with this kind of book. It's a great forum for exploring ideas, but no matter how skilled the author I tend to lose engagement when one set of characters vanish and the next appear.
Parallels to my book: unusual romantic relationship (intelligent cat and an intelligent train).
Under Fortunate Stars by Ren Hutchings (published 2022)
Very interesting premise: a spaceship unexpectedly and disastrously trapped in a space rift discovers that they are not alone. Trapped alongside them is the Jonah, the ship whose heroic crew legendarily rescued humans and Felen from a permawar 152 years ago. How can this possibly be? The novel explores issues of history and heroism as it unravels the future (and maybe the past) of the unexpectedly mundane and frustrating real people who need to work together to address the current crisis. Flaws? Maybe I'm spoiled by Connie Willis's Blackout / All Clear, but Under Fortunate Stars never addresses the possibility/fear that actions taken in the present could alter actions recorded in history or talk about what that could mean.
Parallels to my book: not very many. spaceships?
Finder by Suzanne Palmer (published 2019)
Intergalactic fixer turned repo man Fergus Ferguson is looking for a stolen spaceship so that he can return it to its rightful owners. Instead, from page 1 he's thrown into a civil war as competing factions within this remote (and somewhat bizaare) human habitat struggle for power within their fractured society, all while being watched over by enigmatic aliens who might just intervene.
Parallels to my book: space opera. spaceships. enigmatic aliens. Characters with alliterative names. Characters who mean well and try to do the right thing through a facade of toughness.
Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh (published 2023)
A thoroughly brainwashed teenager on an isolated space station does her impressively accomplished best to forward the aims of the awful leader of her awful society -- until her beloved brother cracks and flees. Or did he?
This book skillfully immerses you in the mind of a fanatic teen, doing the difficult work of drawing a sympathetic portrait of an unsympathetic character. It does so to help you truly understand the depth of the trauma that formed her, and to show you her character arc of learning and growth. 2024 Hugo Award winner for best novel.
Sadly, when I mentioned this as a "good book that I've read recently" to the agent most interested in my novel, her response was "brave choice". Sigh. I like writing hopeful books about basically good people, but that's not the only way to help create a better future.
Parallels to my book: MC who likes to follow the rules, but who learns and grows. Repressive society. Redemptive arc.
A Prayer for the Crown Shy by Becky Chambers (published 2022)
The most recent novella by the top current author for "found family", "hopecore", and "cozy SFF" books. Follows the wanderings of an itinerant "tea monk" and their robot companion as the two of them search for answers to the question "what do people need?" . Set in a distant future that is long past the fossil fuel era.
Parallels to my book: positive message, fundamentally good characters, optimistic.