SPACE OPERA PLUS
SPACE OPERA SERIES

Some critics distinguish between space opera and planetary romance. Space opera has been defined as 'a television or radio drama or motion picture that is a science-fiction adventure story'. Д«ack cover of the premier issue of Galaxy Magazine Throughout 1982вЂ“2002, the Hugo Award for Best Novel was often given to a space opera nominee. After the convention-breaking 'new wave', followed by the enormous success of the franchises, space opera became once again a critically acceptable sub-genre.

SPACE OPERA SERIES

Star Wars films (1977вЂ“) by George Lucas, and the Star Trek TV series (1966вЂ“) by Gene Roddenberry, brought a great deal of attention to the sub-genre. Perry Rhodan (1961вЂ“) is the most successful space opera book series ever written. Space operas emerged in the 1930s and continue to be produced in literature, film, comics, television, and video games.ДЄn early film which was based on space-opera comic strips was Flash Gordon (1936), created by Alex Raymond. The term has no relation to music, as in a traditional opera, but is instead a play on the terms ' soap opera', a melodramatic television series, and ' horse opera', which was coined during the 1930s to indicate a clichГ©d and formulaic Western movie. 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. Space opera is a subgenre of science fiction that emphasizes science fictional space warfare, with use of melodramatic, risk-taking space adventures and chivalric romance.

Stargate by Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin.

Macross franchise created by ShЕЌji Kawamori.

Blake's 7 by Terry Nation with Chris Boucher as script editor.

Lexx by Lex Gigeroff and Jeffrey Hirschfield.

Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda and Star Trek.

Star Wars franchise created by George Lucas.

Space Battleship Yamato by Leiji Matsumoto & Yoshinobu Nishizaki.

Star Trek novels by William Shatner, Alan Dean Foster et al.Star Wars novels by John Jackson Miller, Timothy Zahn, Jude Watson et al.Remembrance of Earth's Past by Liu Cixin.Zones of Thought series by Vernor Vinge.Familias Regnant universe and Vatta's War by Elizabeth Moon.Commonwealth Saga, Void Trilogy, The Chronicle of the Fallers and The Night's Dawn Trilogy by Peter F.The Saga of Seven Suns and The Saga of Shadows by Kevin J.Revelation Space universe by Alastair Reynolds.Saga of the Skolian Empire by Catherine Asaro.The Sten Chronicles by Allan Cole and Chris Bunch.Galactic Center Saga by Gregory Benford.Ender's Game series and Homecoming Saga by Orson Scott Card.Hyperion Cantos and Ilium/Olympus by Dan Simmons.Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold.Legend of the Galactic Heroes by Yoshiki Tanaka.Alliance-Union universe and Foreigner universe by C.Frank Herbert's Dune and prequel series by Brian Herbert and Kevin J.Skylark series and Lensman series by E.Yoon Ha Lee, whose The Raven Stratagem comes out in June, chose space opera because 'I wanted to blow up spaceships.' Lee's inventive books feature a super-science dominated by complex mathematical formulas, something inspired by 'Marcia Ascher's work on ethnomathematics,' he says, and the idea that 'the laws of reality could be mutable from point to point, like a sort of modifiable vector field.Cover of sci-fi magazine Imagination, June 1956 Space opera examples (Full disclosure: Scalzi and I share the same editor at Tor Books, Patrick Nielsen Hayden.) With a book set 1,500 years from now, Scalzi says, 'I can make up anything I want.'

SPACE OPERA PLUS

And for writers like Scalzi, the form provides entire star systems to play with, plus the ability to create whole new cultures totally unconnected to today's Earth. Many, like Chambers, grew up on Star Trek, Carl Sagan, and Ursula Le Guin. (It rhymes with schmook schmales.) It's not so obvious why so many authors find themselves drawn to writing them. Publishers love space operas for an obvious reason.