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Space operas (Fiction)

LC control no.gf2014026551
Thesaurus/term listlcgft
Genre/Form termSpace operas (Fiction)
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Variant(s)Space operas
Space travel fiction
See alsoAction and adventure fiction
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Science fiction
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Scope noteLarge-scale action and adventure fiction involving space travel.
Found inWheeler, K. Literary terms and definitions, via WWW, Dec. 3, 2013 (space opera: A subgenre of "soft" science fiction especially popular between 1930-1960, often used in a derogatory sense. These space operas are novels or short stories set in the distant future after humanity has spent centuries or millennia colonizing the entire galaxy--or sometimes multiple galaxies. The narratives typically feature some form of easy space travel via imaginary technologies such as "hyperspace drives" or "warp nacelles." This easy method of travel and colonization allows the formation of huge space fleets to fight each other using laser cannons and nuclear missiles. Behind these aramadas, vast interstellar empires compete with each other (or with rebel forces, or with alien species) for territorial control or political power. The stories often focus on characterization, drama, and (most especially) action rather than theme, symbolism or other literary devices)
Strange divisions and alien territories, 2012: ch. 2 ("Space opera" by Alastair Reynolds: Colliding galaxies. Interstellar empires. Vast armadas of space battleships. Heroes and villains. The fates of entire societies - entire solar systems, entire federations of worlds - in perilous balance. Colour and exoticism. Alien cultures, machine civilizations. Deep time and deep space. Sweep and panache. SF in exuberant widescreen, with the volume turned up to eleven. Rayguns and robots. The term "space opera" was coined as a derogatory term but now has ceased to have overtly negative connotations; space opera is now an accepted marketing category for a particular sub-genre of SF; Space opera is essentially a form of adventure story in which space travel plays a critical element: it's not enough that a given work be set on an alien world; travel between worlds must figure in the action, ideally mediated by spaceship rather than astral travel or some other non-technological means, and the scope of that action will typically be interstellar)
Booker, M. The science fiction handbook, 2009: p. 40 (The space opera: a renaissance in the subgenre of space opera, beginning in the 1980s, has produced some of the most complex and thought-provoking novels in the history of science fiction, though many recent works look back in a self-consciously nostalgic way to the swashbuckling action and larger-than-life heroes of the early space opera)
GSAFD, 2000 (Space flight (Fiction). Use: Science fiction; Voyages, Imaginary)
Bainbridge, W.S. The virtual future, ©2011: pp. 134-135 (what science fiction literary critics call space opera, an extravagant adventure set against a fanciful interplanetary background, in which little attention is paid to scientific realism, and where much of the technology functions as if by magic but usually wrapped in the rhetoric of machinery; space opera fiction)
Space and beyond : the frontier theme in science fiction, 2000: pp. 35-37 (space opera; tales involving space flight, set aboard spaceships, stories about spaceships; variety of adventure story; space opera is primarily spaceship fiction, stories featuring spacecraft to a large extent and with the action frequently set on board such spacefaring vessels; the adventure genre that prefigures it is the sea story; space opera is a subgenre of sf; space-travel fiction)
Erickson, M. Science, culture and society, 2016: p. 190 (three key features that a space opera must have: a spaceship, an exciting adventure story and a tendency towards a formulaic plot or mediocrity)