I’ve been discussing this with Ellen Datlow in the comments to the previous post, but I thought I’d encourage comments here on this question:
What do you mean by ‘space opera’?
Come one, come all. I’d love to know. I have a pretty broad definition of it, but I’d love to hear what others think.
I think I agree with Ellen. To me space opera is the old “Buck Rogers Stuff” of Doc Smith, early Heinlein, etc. and more recently of course Star Wars, Doctor Who and Star Trek. Cardboard characters, simple plots, ludicrous science; essentially westerns in space. The way the meaning of the term has supposedly changed over the years makes no difference to my gut reaction I’m afraid. I find it difficult to call Foundation, Childhood’s End, 2001, Red/Green/Blue Mars, The Wreck of the River of Stars, The Forever War, and the work of Ken Macleod, Alastair Reynolds, Iain M. Banks, Stephen Baxter, Greg Egan and several others “space opera”.
Thus the term “new space opera” to me is a misnomer (the best alternative I can think of is simply Space Fiction). Hey, but I’ll still buy the book, ’cause I knows what you mean (and the cover looks very cool).
P.S. How to classify the new Battlestar Galactica though? Now there’s a quandary…
How about: A grand-scale science fiction adventure story with interplanetary spaceships and battles in space.
That describes the classics, of course: Doc Smith, Edmond Hamilton, etc. I can’t think of anything that I consider space opera that doesn’t have those elements. Space battles seem crucial, because grand-scale sf adventures without them (e.g. Niven, Baxter) don’t seem like space opera.
To me, space opera is science fiction where exaggerated characters experience larger-than-life adventures. Plotting and quality of writing is secondary to the fun.
It’s a tough one, though. For example, I’d describe Flash Gordon as space opera, but not Doctor Who. Star Wars is space opera, but ET most certainly isn’t. (I realise these are examples from film & tv – they just came out of the hat first.)
I find novels even harder to categorise, but if you read an SF novel with special effects written in loving, exhaustive detail, it’s almost certainly space opera.
David S: This is too simplistic, but Star Trek is old space opera, the new Battlestar Galactica is the new space opera. Still space opera, though. In terms of what is space opera: I don’t think anyone has every called Robinson’s Mars trilogy (they’re more ecological hard SF or something), nor Childhood’s End. I’ve not readd The Wreck of the River of Stars. The Forever War is military SF, a response to Starship Troopers. It’s a hazy area, in terms of definitions, but I’d not call it space opera. As to Macleod, some are, some aren’t. Reynolds, Banks, Baxter definitely are. Egan? Hmm. Some of it, maybe.
Jay: I’d say that’s pretty close. There *must* be a starhship, there must be staggering scale, it must be grandly romantic and boldly adventurous. That kind of thing.
Simon: I’d agree Star Wars is space opera, and of the oldest kind.
Here’s another thought. Ask the man on the street what they mean by SF, and they’ll either point to Star Wars/Star Trek (space opera) or The Matrix/BladeRunner (cyberpunk etc).
Starfaring civilizations at war with each other, that’s space opera. The divide between new and old is that the old stuff is just adventure and entertainment without pretense to be anything more, and the NEW space opera is stuff that tries to combine depth with all the adventure and entertainment, like Babylon 5, DS9 or the new Battlestar Galactica do and did, or to name examples from written SF, Sean Williams & Shane Dix with Geodesica or their Heirs of Earth trilogy, or some novels from Baxter’s Xeelee cycle.
I agree with Jay’s definition. But in addition to the adventure being on a grand scale, I think the spaceships likewise need to be grand. All the best examples of space opera I can think of – Banks, Reynolds, even Star Wars and Star Trek – involve *big* spaceships. I think that’s an important factor in the feeling of grandeur. (I guess you could have space opera with small spaceships, but you’d probably need a lot of ’em to create the same feel.)
Jonathon, I agree. Staggering scale is a must. Interstellar travel is a necessity. War may be taking place, may have taken place or is imminent. No aliens required. Politics is simple: federations, confederations & empires are all welcome.
I consider Banks’ Culture novels space opera of the highest order. Niven & Pournelle did produce good space opera (Mote In God’s Eye). Asimov’s ‘Foundation’ was classic space opera.
Here’s the trouble I have: Baxter’s ‘Exultant’ is by my definition, space opera. I have never considered it such, though. Curious & curiouser.
I never thought about ‘Mote in God’s Eye’ as space opera, first contact or exploration SF, yes, but never space opera.
For myself, a space opera is a science fiction story involving space travel (preferably at least interstellar) in which the stakes are high and the audience is expected to be rooting for someone in particular to come out ahead in the end. It may or may not be well-written; it may or may not tackle larger issues. Space adventure without anything important (above and beyond the character’s own lives) isn’t space opera, to my mind. Stories set entirely on planetary surfaces also don’t count — those may be planetary romances, a related category, if they’re otherwise similar to space opera. I think it is possible for a story to be both space opera and Military SF, though the two styles don’t entirely mesh, so a story would have a hard time being very good at both things at once. Quality of science does not matter in space opera; in fact, I’ve always said that quality of science is rarely important in a SF story worth reading.
Andy – Add in the whole staggeting scale, immensity of scope thing, and we’re pretty much on the same page. Stuff on planetary surfaces isn’t space opera. There must be space and spaceships, or no deal. I think Brian Aldiss, tongue in cheek, said ”
“Ideally, the Earth must be in peril, there must be a quest and a man to match the mighty hour. That man must confront aliens and exotic creatures. Space must flow past the ports line wine from a pitcher. Blood must run down the palace steps, and ships launch out into the louring dark. There must be a woman fairer than the skies and a villain darker than a Black Hole. And all must come right in the end.â€
It’s incredibly (and deliberately) purple, but he’s headed in the right direction.
Any story where a space-pirate wielding a space-axe could chop through a ray-shielded space-airlock, kidnap a beautiful space-princess and escape in a space-superdreadnought over a mile long, destroying at least one or perhaps two planets during the resulting space-battle, without this seeming in any particular out of place with the scale, scope, drive or moral code portrayed in the rest of the story, then the story is a Space Opera.
If you can add scene where the hero wrestles a dinosaur in the radio-active radium mine which is being flooded during a slave-revolt without breaking the established mood of the piece, then the story is a Space Opera.
Likewise, if the word “inconceivably” or “unimaginably” or “staggeringly” could be added as an adjective to describe the scale of the engineering, the temperature of beam-weapons, the speed of the vessels, the hardness of the space-armor, or the size of explosions and the resulting volume of destruction, or the beauty of the faultless heroine or the sex appeal of the evil space-emperor’s willful daughter, without seeming particularly out of place in the sentence, the story is a Space Opera.
Any lighthearted and straightforward space-adventure story which relies for its primary appeal on that sense of awe and wonder which comes of the contemplation of astronomical magnitudes both in the setting and the props, as well as the larger-than-life heroes and villains, you have a Space Opera.
Oh, and anything I write is Space Opera.
Apologies. I posted this accidentally in the conversation with Ms Datlow thread. Here again:
Jonathan,
Space opera has gotten a bad name because of the fantastical, even nonsensical (if fun) elements that have become associated with it. Elements like fighters turning on a dime and fleets of spaceships arrayed cheek-to-jowl in dense convoys. Then there are the over-the-top villains and scoundrel-with-a-heart-of-gold good guys that run around, as Asimov once wrote about ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Battlestar Galactica,’ firing bazookas at each other with their shirts hanging open.
As you pointed out, military SF has made an attempt to inject come realism into the proceedings, but much of this genre lacks much appeal beyond connoisseurs of organization tables (like myself, for example).
In order for space opera to thrive outside of the world of franchise novels, writers should try to keep the science and the character development at a high level. Military science and technology should not be divorced from the “S†in SF. Also, motivations should be based on the complex interworking of societies, economics, and philosophies and not boiled down to Good vs. Evil.
I don’t want abuse your good graces, but I have just published a new SF novel that I would say falls into the space opera category. You can have a look at it here:
http://www.lulu.com/content/441712
Thanks for the forum,
–Michael
For succintness, I like Jay’s definition:
A grand-scale science fiction adventure story with interplanetary spaceships and battles in space.
Some may see this as a slight, but see Space Opera (SO) very much like a cousin to Epic Fantasy (EF), in terms of grandness of scale, scope of characters, and sense-of-wonder. Both often involve a clashing of cultures. Where EF has the magic, SO has the technology-so-advanced-virtually-indiguishable-from-magic.
Where battles and magic in EF are continent-shattering, the power of aliens/AIs/spaceships is planet shattering.
I like it when buck rogers is called space opera but Iain Banks culture series isn’t…what a load of crap.
Using this wierd logic: sure culture books are in space and sure they have a drama driven story…”but i like the culture series therefor it is not space opera.” Lame.
Space Opera are stories set in space….it doesn’t matter if the themes are spiffy or if its plasuable or if You really like Greg Egan and don’t want “diospora” clasified in a certian way.
space opera are stories set in space.
jesus next thing you know people will be saying “Lost” isn’t a soap opera.
I really can’t go along with the notion that “space opera are stories set in space”. This is loosely equivalent to saying “Noir fiction is stories set in Chicago”. Space opera is about intent, not setting. It’s about the writer making a conscious decision to turn up the knobs to 11 and not being afraid to go over the top. You can’t really have a minimalist space opera, or a grittily authentic, rigorously extrapolated space opera. It needs to be out there, it needs to be big, with multiple settings, multiple adversaries and lots of scope for epic moments. When the Consul plays his piano at the beginning of HYPERION, with dinosaurs bellowing around his spaceship, that’s space opera.
Al: I think the scale, the turning the knobs up to 11 thing is the key. I’ll stick with the idea that it must happen in space and that there must be a starship, but that alone does not space opera make. It makes space adventure, or whatever, which *may* be space opera, or hard SF or military SF or a bunch of other things. However, when you turn the knobs to 11, push the scale up beyond ‘staggering’ to ‘really immensely big’ and get all operatic and such, then it’s space opera. Hmm.
Space Opera used to be the science fictional equivalent of Sword & Sorcery, but these days it’s the science fictional equivalent of Epic Fantasy. Jay’s definition is a good one too.
Another thing that I feel characterizes Space Opera is that they are not stories of space exploration. In a Space Opera the accessible universe is already fairly well known and whatever conflicts that arise between parties that have a history together. This is one of the qualities that makes it similar to Epic Fantasy.
If someone woke me up in the middle of the night and shouted: “Quick, name a Space Opera writer!”, I would in all likelihood answer Iain Banks.
I agree with Al. Space opera is a TYPE of tale set in space–to me it connotes superficiality adventure.
If space opera is action-adventure, with the nobs turned to 11, then it really is a rare thing these days. Some of the examples of “new space opera” cited above are actually successful because the creators have turned down the amps a few notches, in favor of a darker, sometimes grimmer, even more realistic tone. Maybe this is Wagnerian space opera?
The light, breezy, cheesey, nobs to 11 fare is now something lighter: space operetta, perhaps?
Opera has many houses. Why not space opera?
But, the defining characteristic seems to be an emphasis on character and adventure set in space rather than dwelling on the deep scientific underpinnings. The question is how much science you can jetteson to keep up the tempo and still consider it a form of science fiction? Because I would say that space opera needs to be rooted in some way in the science-fiction tradition, ottherwise it simply becomes space fantasy.
Shoot, Michael P. just beat me to “space operetta”!
But (to open another can of wormholes) how about Stapledon? He’s certainly got the scale, but not some of the cheesier elements.
I think Olaf has the bigness thing down pat, but the drama is very cold and distant. There does need to be that ‘operatic’ side to things for it to be space opera.
To me if there’s no adventure in it it’s not space opera. Stapledon, as mentioned, does have scale but no oomph to it. It certainly left me cold when I read it.
Opera does indeed have many houses? Do you mean Fidelio, Turandot, The Ring, Einstein on the Beach, or Nixon in China? And when you’ve decided what you mean by opera, what do you mean by ‘space’?
I think Wagner, surely? Even though, Einstein on the Beach could be fascinating…
The House of Wagner does have the clash of civilizations thing down: old vs new orders, hubris, overreaching ambition, betrayal, apocalyptic themes, good gunship music, etc.
Einstein on the Beach IS fascinating. I’ve seen it performed twice.
There is a difference between space adventure and space opera (for example, like Al Reynolds said, space opera does not even have to happen in space). Stanley Weinbaum’s sophisticated planetary romps are definite space adventure, but to graduate to the “opera” status, you gotta shift the focus from characters and single ideas to “concepts” and “principalities and powers”. So yes, it is a scale shift, and not always for the better. My personal preference would be toward scaled-down but more wondrous stories… simply because it is much harder to do it on a larger scale (it tends to dull your “sense-of-wonder”). It’s hard to write poetically about civilisations perishing in a blink. On the other hand, it is perfectly possible write a monumentally intellectual and engrossing thriller happening on a single spaceship, or even a submarine. (like Frank Herbert did)… One more point:
Space opera is all about epic plot and magnified “sense-of-wonder”, and if you look close you can find it even in the Bible.
(after all that’s what the Higher Powers do – wage epic battles, which humans are just too fragile to write about) As for Space Opera in science fiction, may it live long and prosper, as it requires first and foremost a child-like heart.
Space opera to me has often meant a negative thing.
You see, up to several years ago, I had pretty much stuck to SCIENCE fiction. The kind of writers that actually know about science and try to put it in their stories. I like that extra detail and do not like when it’s missing.
So I had Battlefield Earth by L. Ron Hubbard. I tried reading it but I kept finding myself getting bored and even disgusted. I did some research and found some references to space opera, but only in a loose way. I can’t say that one book or another is SPACE OPERA, but I can tell you what I feel.
Essentially, the story becomes too divorced from the SCIENCE and EXPLORATION elements and focuses more on characters and drama and ‘saving the heroine or hero or race or earth or ‘ from its/their undeserved and dreadful fate.
No story can have space opera plastered onto it for sale purposes, imho. The point at which it becomes too divorced from science and exploration is different for different people, dependent on their tolerances and knowledge. And some people probably wouldn’t even be phased by it since they’re already heavily invested in drama and character themes.
I think some people genuinely are turned off by science or exploration for their own sakes, and it’s just needless background noise for these readers. In my case, it’s greatly desired because, for some odd reason, it adds an element of legitimacy to it. I know it’s fiction and not real so it shouldn’t matter, but I can’t take science fiction seriously if it doesn’t focus on the science aspect in a respectable way. If you throw out the science it’s just fiction or fantasy or what have you.
This issue is a contemptuous one for me. After reading battlefield earth and a couple other novels like it I have a feel for it now, so when I see it, my radar fires and my brain registers its presence, and I close the book before investing fruitlessly in it.
I like characters and plots and some amount of war and present day concerns in novels, but for me science fiction is not about the present day. It’s about the future. And what happens in the future is not known at this time. We can’t take 20th or 21st century values and beliefs and policies and practices and transport them into the 24th century like we can transport scientific concepts. For example, I’m sure that the value of PI will more likely survive the next 3 centuries than the principle of marriage being between a man and a woman. Science is more likely to survive into the future than our values and conventions and so on. That’s my point. And it’s this near limitless potential for change that’s so welcoming because the present day world is a real mess.
I know Space Opera has always been associated with the cheesier aspects of the genre, with big ideas and vast spaces colliding with BEM’s and paper thin characters, and there is certainly truth in that, but for me Space Opera was more about the writers who heard the music of the spheres and recreated that when they wrote: Williamson, Brackett, Kuttner, Moore, Anderson, Dickson, Van Vogt …
And it isn’t as if no one has written hard sf Space Opera — look at Niven and Pournelle’s THE MOTE IN GOD’S EYE, Campbell’s early work, even Asimov.
Yes, SPACE OPERA can mean the excess of Doc Smith or Hawk Carse and Horse Opera with ray guns, swords and death rays, scantily clad heroines menaced by something awful — but it can also mean the poetic stories of Brackett and Moore, the sense of fun and adventure of Williamson’s Legion, Anderson’s Flandry, Dickson’s Dorsai, and in recent years writers like Reynolds, Banks, Hamilton, and McAuley who bring both brains and literacy to the game.
But I think the closest I can come to a definition is a story where the sense of wonder, the joy of adventure, and the mix of the exotic and the mundane create a world or even universe of their own — even if it is often a pale echo of the British Raj, Dumas Musketeers, Horatio Hornblower in space, James Bond, or even Cowboys and Indians. Much of the best science fiction engages your brain and your imagination, but Space Opera engages your heart.
With all due apologies to the attempt to mainstream the genre, there are times I would rather be in the company of STARTLING STORIES, THRILLING WONDER, and PLANET than F&SF or ANALOG, and I often find mysef siding with the romanticists and keeping in mind that reading for fun is neither a sin nor a sign of weakness so long as you can distinguish between the two.