Space opera

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Classic pulp space opera cover, with the usual cliché elements.
Classic pulp space opera cover, with the usual cliché elements.

Space opera is a subgenre of speculative fiction or science fiction that emphasizes romantic adventure, and larger-than-life characters often set against vast exotic futuristic settings with remotely plausible technology such as time travel and interstellar travel, complex alien civilizations and fictional depictions of the human future.

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Grey Lensman, 1939
Grey Lensman, 1939

"Space opera" was originally a derogatory term, a variant of "horse opera" and "soap opera," coined in 1941 by Wilson Tucker to describe what he called "the hacky, grinding, stinking, outworn space-ship yarn" — i.e., substandard science fiction.[1] "Space opera" is still sometimes used with a pejorative sense.

Space opera in its most familiar form was a product of the pulp magazines for the 1920s–1940s. Science fiction in general borrowed a great deal from the established adventure and pulp fiction genres, notably frontier stories of the American West and stories with exotic settings such as Africa or the orient, and space opera was no exception. There were often parallels between sailing ships and spaceships, between African explorers and space explorers, between oceanic pirates and space pirates.

An early proto-science-fiction novel may have also been the first space opera. Garrett P. Serviss's Edison's Conquest of Mars, published in 1898, predates the term "space opera" but has all the cliché elements: spaceships, travel to other planets, flying cars, battles with evil aliens, military weapons of mass destruction, beautiful women being held prisoner, and even the first appearance of a disintegrator ray.

The prototype of the pulp space opera is E. E. Smith's The Skylark of Space (first published in Amazing Stories in 1928), in which a scientist discovers a space-drive, builds a ship, and flies off with a female companion to encounter alien civilizations and fight a larger-than-life villain. Smith's later Lensman series and the work of Edmond Hamilton and Jack Williamson in the 1930s and 1940s were popular with readers and much-imitated by other writers, and it was the imitators that inspired Tucker and other fans to use the label to indicate hackwork.

Eventually a fondness for the best examples of the genre led to a reevaluation of the term and a resurrection of the subgenre's traditions. Writers such as Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson had kept the large-scale space adventure form alive through the 1950s, followed by (to name only a few exemplars) M. John Harrison and C. J. Cherryh in the 1970s and Iain M. Banks, Lois McMaster Bujold, and Paul J. McAuley in the 1980s. By this time, "space opera" was for many readers no longer a term of insult but a simple description of a particular kind of science fiction adventure story.

In the 1970s, a number of mostly British writers began to reinvent space opera. Significant events in this process include the publication of M. John Harrison's The Centauri Device in 1975; a "call to arms" editorial by David Pringle and Colin Greenland in Interzone[2]; and the financial success of Star Wars, which closely follows many traditional space opera conventions. This new space opera, which evolved around the same time cyberpunk emerged and was influenced by it, is darker, moves away from the "triumph of mankind" template of space opera, involves newer technologies, and has stronger characterization than the space opera of old. While it does retain the interstellar scale and grandeur of traditional space opera, it can also be scientifically rigorous. Among the practitioners of the new space opera are Iain M. Banks, Stephen Baxter, Simon Green, Peter F. Hamilton, M. John Harrison, Paul J. McAuley, Ken MacLeod, Alastair Reynolds, Charles Stross, Vernor Vinge, Walter Jon Williams, and John C. Wright.

A more recent movement of American space opera writers, many writing for the Baen books imprint, developed during the 1990s and 2000s. This new wave of space opera authors include David Drake, Lois McMaster Bujold, Eric Flint, S.M. Stirling, John Ringo and David Weber. This branch of space opera follows more military themes than the British branch and usually features tales of war on an interstellar scale.

Other older, more established writers such as James H. Schmitz and Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, among others, had produced space opera and were often reprinted by Baen during this same period, as part of an effort by the publisher to reestablish the market for more military-themed space opera.

Random House's Del Rey division, which had never totally gone out of the space opera business, also increased their output of space opera books during the 1990s and 2000s, including their own versions of military space opera. Stories such as David Sherman and Dan Cragg's StarFist series became increasingly common.

The characteristics and connotations have changed and continue to mold in the various forms of media that Space Opera is present in.
While most science fiction in television and film, from Star Trek to Battlestar Galactica, have space opera elements they usually lack one or more of the elements that sets space opera apart from the other parts of the sci-fi genre. Most new space opera tends to be a mixture of hard science fiction and mythology with some exceptions mixing in soft science fiction as well.

Below are some of the usual characteristics one might- but not always- see in a space opera.

Buck Rogers comic book
Buck Rogers comic book
  • Setting
    • Outer Space or distant planet
  • Characters
    • Aliens are similar to humans in terms of culture, outlook, and often even physically; barriers to communication between human and alien are easily overcome.
    • Depth of character development and description can vary but some people refuse to apply the term ‘space opera’ to a work with well-developed characterization
  • Plot
    • Set apart from other science fiction sub-genres by ultimate good vs. evil stories
    • Large scale, planet/galaxy/universe depends on survival of hero’s civilization
    • Romance components
    • Formulaic
    • Space battles
  • Technology
    • Ray-guns or a gun-like weapon
    • Robots
    • Spaceships
  • Scientific plausibility
    • Spaceships sometimes violate laws of physics with faster-than-light travel or even time travel. Also they can have unrealistic maneuverability and rarely need to decelerate
    • Diverge from known physical reality invoking paranormal forces or vast powers capable of destroying planets, stars or galaxies
    • Possibility of supernatural abilities by certain characters, although not normally to the extent of those in some works of fantasy.

Some critics distinguish between space opera and planetary romance.[3] Where space opera grows out of both the Western and sea adventure traditions, the planetary romance grows out of the lost world or lost civilization tradition. Both feature adventures in exotic settings, but space opera emphasizes space travel, while planetary romances focus on alien worlds. In this view, the Martian-, Venusian-, and lunar-setting stories of Edgar Rice Burroughs would be planetary romances (and among the earliest), as would be Leigh Brackett's Burroughs-influenced Eric John Stark stories. Other writers who have produced planetary romances include Jack Vance (the Tschai tetralogy and Durdane trilogy), Philip José Farmer (The Green Odyssey), Robert Silverberg (the Majipoor series), and Frank Herbert (the first three Dune novels).

Space opera can also be contrasted with "hard science fiction", in which the emphasis is on the effects of technological progress and inventions, and where the settings are carefully worked out to obey the laws of physics, cosmology, mathematics, and biology. There is, however (according to some), no sharp division between hard science fiction and true space opera. Many of Robert A. Heinlein's young adult novels, such as Starship Troopers, are seen by his fans to qualify as both.

One subset of space opera overlaps with military science fiction, concentrating on large-scale space battles with futuristic weapons (example: Honor Harrington series by David Weber). In such stories, the military tone and weapon system technology may be taken very seriously. At one extreme, the genre is used to speculate about future wars involving space travel, or the effects of such a war on humans; at the other it consists of the use of military fiction plots with some superficial science fiction trappings.

Fredric Brown's "What Mad Universe" has as its protagonist a sober-headed science fiction magaznine editor who suddenly finds himself transported to an alternate history timeline where all the Space opera cliches (a larger-than-life space hero fighting evil aliens who are totally bent on humanity's destruction, etc.) are concrete, daily life realities.

Harry Harrison's Bill, the Galactic Hero and Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers, and Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy parody the conventions of classic space opera. The 1987 film Spaceballs, directed and co-written by Mel Brooks, is a Star Wars parody with many space opera characteristics. The American animated television series Futurama, created by Matt Groening, plays with the space opera genre from time to time, for example in the over-the-top military officer Zapp Brannigan. Steven Colbert, the host of the Colbert Report, is the author of a so-called "un-published and shopping it around to publishers" epic novel called Alpha Squad 7: Lady Nocturne: A Tek Jansen Adventure. He occasionally reads excerpts from the novel, and later aired several animated shorts based on them.

In the comic strip world, the adventures of Spaceman Spiff, the alter ego of Calvin, eponymous hero of Calvin and Hobbes, parodied many space opera conventions.

In all media below. Where a * is noted there are multiple types of media for a franchise.

Novels & Series
Anthologies & Collections
Short Fiction
  • "The Swordsman of Varnis" by Clive Jackson (1950), USA; a story important to the redefinition of the term Space Opera in the 1950s
  • "The Prince of Space" (1931) by Jack Williamson, USA
  • "The Mountains of Mourning" by Lois McMaster Bujold, USA

During the Battle of Endor Luke confronts Vader in an attempt to bring him back from the dark side.
During the Battle of Endor Luke confronts Vader in an attempt to bring him back from the dark side.

Role Playing Games:

  • Fading Suns
  • Space Opera, setting created by E. Simbalist, M. Ratner & P. McGregor
  • Star*Drive**, a far-future space opera setting, using the now out-of-print Alternity RPG rule system. Originally published by TSR.
  • Traveller, setting created by Marc W. Miller

Board games:

Computer games:

  1. ^ [1]| SF Citations for OED, "Space opera"
  2. ^ [2] See Paul J. McAuley, "Junkyard Universes," Locus, August 2003
  3. ^ [3]| SF Citations for OED, "Planetary romance"

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