The Best Ragtag Crews in Space Opera

The Keiko series, by Mike Brooks
Captain Ichabod Drift and his crew of thieves, con artists, and mercenaries onboard the Keiko are some of the most entertaining rogues in modern-day space opera. Combining Ocean’s 11-levels of deception and audacity to get themselves in and out of scrapes, Drift and his team define the concepts of both “rag-tag” and “diverse”: ex-galactic agent Tamara Rourke, expert with a weapon; Maori muscle Apirana “Big A” Wahawaha, the physically imposing Dutchman Micah van Schaken; hacker Jenna McIlroy; and pilot Jia Chang and mechanic Kuai Chang (who are mainly loyal to each other). Brooks imbues the crew with a sensible level of pragmatism—these are people who just want their allocation of the loot as they pursue something resembling freedom, and are willing to bend and break laws in order to get it.

Empress of Forever, by Max Gladstone
The Hugo-nominated author of the Craft Sequence fantasy series makes a stunning shift to sci-fi with this splashy, wildly imaginative, utterly strange, and truly intergalactic standalone novel, the anti-hero’s journey of Vivian Lao, a brilliant, morally conflicted young tech billionaire who is targeted by her enemies and forced to fake her death. She flees to a server farm at the center of the worldwide digital cloud, intending to hack in and get revenge, she unwittingly trips an alarm, endangers a dear friend, and encounters a powerful glowing figure who transports her into an unknown realm that might be a distant galaxy, the far future of her own, or something else entirely. Viv finds herself in a time and place she doesn’t recognized, a universe ruled by the terrifying, emerald-skinned Empress, whose access to a far more advanced Cloud allows her monitor everything, and destroy any civilization that advances to a point that might attract the attention of the Bleed, a truly alien entity that devours reality itself. Viv wasn’t built for terror and passivity, though, and quickly assembles a, yes, ragtag group to help her (and satisfy their own agendas and vendettas against the Empress)—a monk, a heretic, an ex-warlords, and a being made up of sentient nanobots—and dedicates herself to breaking the Empress’ hold on the universe. Like Guardians of the Galaxy on mescaline, it’s space opera like you’ve never imagined it—but all the action and spectacle wouldn’t matter if you didn’t care so much for the characters.

Pock’s World, by Dave Duncan
Duncan’s novel isn’t a space opera, but it’s ragtag crew is still brilliantly composed. When a distant planet is put under quarantine because it may have been infested with aliens using the human population as incubators, a team is assembled to investigate. It consists of a near-fanatic priest, a journalist looking out for himself, a politician, a government cog, and a billionaire seeking adventure—and they all have their own secret motivations for joining up. In other words, Duncan has skillfully transplanted the trope from a space opera into a different kind of sci-fi, and it works brilliantly: hey hook up, fall out, and jockey for advantage even as they discover the horrifying truth of what they’re up against.

Stars Uncharted series, by S.K. Dunstall
The two-person team behind the Dunstall pen name offer up classic space opera with a modern vibe in Stars Uncharted. Captain Hammond Roystan is a cargo runner who stumbles onto the salvage claim of a lifetime: the Hassim, an exploration ship that contains invaluable data about unexplored worlds. Roystan knows if he can assemble a crew and get to the drifting ship before anyone else, he’ll have it made. One delight is that the pressure makes him cut some corners when it comes to putting that crew together, leaving open plenty of opportunity for a rougher element to join up. Hammond overlooks one obvious deception—his junior engineer is filled with bioware that puts the lie to her claim of a humble existence on the rim. Seems Nika Rik Terri is a modder on the run from angry clients, and knows more about weapons and strategy than a fledgling modder should. As the group sets out for the Hassim, they’re pursued by dangerous forces who’d love nothing more than to beat them to the score. Book two, Stars Beyond, arrives in 2020.

The Wrong Stars, by Tim Pratt
The diverse and engaging crew of the White Raven and its captain, Kalea “Callie” Machedo, make a living running freight and claiming salvage on the edges of the solar system. When they run across a centuries-old exploration ship, it seems like a stroke of luck—until they discover a single female crew member in cryosleep onboard. Callie makes the decision to wake the woman, Elena, from suspension, and she tells them a desperate tale of first contact with an alien race. It’s up to the White Raven crew to inform her that humanity made contact a long time ago—but Elena reveals she encountered a different alien race, and they left her with gifts that could determine the future of the human race, or it lack thereof. Pratt achieves a perfect balance of making hanging out with the crew half the fun and the deep mystery with huge stakes the other half—a trick few authors can pull off. The story continues in The Dreaming Stars and the forthcoming The Forbidden Stars.

Reliance, by Kaitlyn Andersen
Andersen’s debut novel introduces Finn No Last Name, a woman who survives on a Mud Pit teeming with criminals and worse by being the best thief within light years. When a bungled job traps her on a merchant ship, her only thought is escaping back to the world she knows, no matter how awful it is. But the ship, the Independence, helmed by Captain Shane Montgomery, is more than just a merchant ship: it’s a sanctuary for the “blended” half-breeds that the Reliance ruthlessly hunts. Finn soon finds herself caught up in a mission that could upset the balance of power in Reliance-held space—or kill them all. One of the most satisfying aspects of the ragtag crew trope is that sense of a found family, and an odd sort of family that Finn finds here.

The Long Way to Small, Angry Planet, by Becky Chambers
Becky Chambers’ irresistible debut novel revels in the motley nature of the crew onboard the Wayfarer. The ship itself is almost a part of the group, as it’s an elderly vessel with a self-aware computer, held together by numerous repairs and patches. But that’s part of its charm, and it matches the crew, which includes the well-intentioned captain, Ashby; the hilarious and talkative engineers Kizzy and Jenks; and the serious reptilian pilot Sissix. What Rosemary Harper sees in the Wayfarer is an escape: a way to get out into the universe (not to mention a few meals and a place to sleep). But what she gets, in addition to an ersatz family in the form of this crew of oddballs and misfits, is adventure with a capital A. There’s a reason these books are so celebrated, and it starts with the depth of emotion that Chambers imbues her crew with—and the slow realization by Rosemary that the Wayfarer may be the best thing that’s ever happened to her, even if it kills her.

The Tales of the Ketty Jay, by Chris Wooding
This series mixes magic with its fantastical, steampunk-flavored technology, which technically makes this science fantasy rather than science fiction (a not insignificant distinction for some readers), but those who would skip it for a few magic stones would be missing out on the closest thing to a new episode of Firefly between two covers. (Well, except for, er, those aforementioned Firefly tie-in novels… they really are quite good!) Series opener Retribution Falls introduces Darian Frey,captain of the Ketty Jay, a pirate airship crewed by misfits, many of them wanted for a crime or three: Crake, who studies daemons and is followed around by an golem; New crewmember Jez, who wants to keep the secret of why she’s gone pirate; Malvery, an alcoholic doctor. They carry off small bits of sky piracy to stay afloat, but when Frey stumbles across a bit of spicy intel, they attempt to pull off a more elaborate heist, but their attempt to make off  with a treasure goes sideways and they wind up the most wanted ship in the world, pursued by a whole host of enemies competing to see who can reach them before they reach safety (and find answers) in Retribution Falls. Though a sequel, The Black Lung Captain, followed, the series was slow to find an audience in the U.S. but performed strongly enough in its native Britain to merit two more sequels there, The Iron Jackal and Ace of Skulls, which were eventually imported by a different publisher. Read them all.

Gap into Conflict, by Stephen R. Donaldson
Donaldson’s classic 1990s space opera makes no bones about the fact that it was directly inspired (and somewhat modeled on) Richard Wagner’s opera Der Ring des Nibelungen (often referred to simply as The Ring Cycle). But don’t let the lofty themes and increasingly-complicated story (which doubles-back on itself several times) fool you: at its core, it’s the adventure of a ragtag space pirate crew led by Nick Succorso, captain of the Captain’s Fancy. One of the pleasures of this dark and frequently horrifying saga is the way the reader’s assumptions—based on incomplete information—are routinely challenged. The ultimate role of Nick’s crew, which seems so initially loyal and subjugated, is one of the best plot twists that Donaldson ever pulled off.

A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe, by Alex White
In a past life, Boots Elsworth was a treasure hunter—one of the best. Now past her prime, Boots has been reduced to selling information about fake salvage opportunities and hoping no one comes back for a refund. But then she unexpectedly stumbles onto some real information: the story of what happened to the legendary warship Harrow, one of the most powerful weapons ever created. And then there’s Nilah Brio, once a famous racer in the Pan Galactic Racing Federation, until she was framed for murder. On the run to prove her innocence, Nilah chases her one lead—the real killer, now hunting someone named Boots Elsworth. They eventually wind up on the same ship, the Capricious, the captain and crew of which have been manipulated by these crafty and desperate women. That crew, and especially the cynical and snarky quartermaster Orna, are ragtag without being silly, presented as individuals who have come together with common purpose and are now faced with an increasingly short list of options and reacting accordingly. It’s terrific stuff—and those titles: book two is A Bad Deal for the Whole Galaxy and the forthcoming finale promises a visit to The Worst of All Possible Worlds.

Barbary Station, by R.E. Stearns
There’s a fine line between a ragtag crew and a band of space pirates, but we’re slipping in R.E. Starns’ Shieldrunner Pirates books—starting with Barbary Station—on a technacality, since at the time the series begins, the pirates’ reputation far outstrips their actual ability for plundering the galaxy, what with their troubles with a space station’s rogue A.I. It was that once-fearsome rep that attracted many of their ragtag members, including disgruntled engineering students/lovers Adda and Iridian, who pulled off a con to impress Captain Sloane after they left school with deep debt and no job prospects. Sloane’s crew always seems to be up against the ropes, which gives the series the feel of a classic ragtag tale. The final volume of the trilogy, Gravity of a Distant Sun, arrives early next year.
Bonus Entry:

Saga, by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples
Not technically a novel, but still very much a “print” thing: This series of comics, collected into graphic novel form, was explicitly inspired by Star Wars but imagines a universe far weirder, and all its own. It’s the star-cross’d tale of a mixed-species alien couple fleeing an intergalactic war between their respective planets in order to protect their infant daughter—the first of her kind—from those who would rather see her death than made a symbol of the anti-war movement. It’s set against a backdrop of truly spectacular, often surreal imagery provided by artist Fiona Staples. This isn’t your typical ragtag crew, or your typical ship—in fact, it isn’t a ship at all, but a rocketship tree (and why you’re not already buying every volume of the series based on that alone is a mystery to me). Alana (who has wings) and Marko (who has horns), are our forbidden lovers from another motherplanet, and they have an equally forbidden baby, Hazel. Along the way, they attract a crowd of weirdos, including Izabel, who happens to be the ghost of a girl killed long ago by a landmine, a reclusive sci-fi author, a pair of queer investigative reporters, an exiled robot prince, and Marko’s parents—one of whom is a battle-scarred grandma.