Space opera is a subgenre of science fiction[1] that emphasizes space warfare, with use of melodramatic, risk-taking space adventures, relationships, and chivalric romance. Set mainly or entirely in outer space, it features technological and social advancements (or lack thereof) in faster-than-light travel, futuristic weapons, and sophisticated technology, on a backdrop of galactic empires and interstellar wars with fictional aliens, often in fictional galaxies. The term does not refer to opera music, but instead originally referred to the melodrama, scope, and formulaic stories of operas, much as used in "horse opera", a 1930s phrase for a clichéd and formulaic Western film,[2] and "soap opera", a melodramatic domestic drama. Space operas emerged in the 1930s and continue to be produced in literature, film, comics, television, video games and board games.
An early film which was based on space-opera comic strips was Flash Gordon (1936), created by Alex Raymond.[3] Perry Rhodan (1961–) is the most successful space opera book series ever written.[4] [5] The Star Trek TV series (1966–) by Gene Roddenberry and the Star Wars films (1977–) by George Lucas brought a great deal of attention to the sub-genre.[6] After the convention-breaking "new wave", followed by the enormous success of the franchises, space opera became once again a critically acceptable sub-genre. Throughout 1982–2002, the Hugo Award for Best Novel was often given to a space opera nominee.[7]
Space opera has been defined as "a television or radio drama or motion picture that is a science-fiction adventure story".[8] Some critics distinguish between space opera and planetary romance.[9] 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.
The term "space opera" was coined in 1941 by fan writer and author Wilson Tucker as a pejorative term in an article in Le Zombie (a science fiction fanzine).[10] At the time, serial radio dramas in the United States had become popularly known as soap operas because many were sponsored by soap manufacturers.[11] The term "horse opera" had also come into use to describe formulaic Western films. Tucker defined space opera as the science fiction equivalent: A "hacky, grinding, stinking, outworn, spaceship yarn".[12] [10] Fans and critics have noted that the plots of space operas have sometimes been taken from horse operas and simply translated into an outer space environment, as famously parodied on the back cover of the first issue of Galaxy Science Fiction.[13] During the late 1920s and early 1930s, when the stories were printed in science-fiction magazines, they were often referred to as "super-science epics".[2]
Beginning in the 1960s, and widely accepted by the 1970s, the space opera was redefined, following Brian Aldiss' definition in Space Opera (1974) as – paraphrased by Hartwell and Cramer – "the good old stuff".[7] Yet soon after his redefinition, it began to be challenged, for example, by the editorial practice and marketing of Judy-Lynn del Rey and in the reviews of her husband and colleague Lester del Rey.[7] In particular, they disputed the claims that space operas were obsolete, and Del Rey Books labeled reissues of earlier work of Leigh Brackett as space opera.[7] By the early 1980s, space operas were again redefined, and the label was attached to major popular culture works such as Star Wars.[7] Only in the early 1990s did the term space opera begin to be recognized as a legitimate genre of science fiction.[7]
Hartwell and Cramer define space opera as:
Author A.K. DuBoff defines space opera as: