Space opera

Space opera is a branch of science fiction and science fantasy focused on grand-scale adventures in outer space, typically in a setting where faster-than-light travel is routine. Its plots frequently unfold amid space battles, alien societies, and sprawling galactic empires, and the subgenre is often seen as a futuristic nod to earlier heroic tales from mythology and chivalric romance.

The name has nothing to do with opera music. Instead, it borrows from the melodramatic, sweeping, and formulaic nature of operas—much like "soap opera" (domestic melodrama) and "horse opera" (a 1930s term for clichéd Western films). The term was coined in 1941 by fan writer Wilson Tucker in a fanzine article, where he used it pejoratively to describe a "hacky, grinding, stinking, outworn, spaceship yarn." At the time, serial radio dramas sponsored by soap manufacturers were called soap operas, and formulaic Westerns were horse operas; Tucker simply applied the pattern to science fiction. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, such stories were often called "super-science epics."

Prototypes of space opera appeared in the early twentieth century. An early serial film based on space opera comic strips was *Flash Gordon* (1936), created by Alex Raymond. The German franchise *Perry Rhodan* (1961–), written by multiple authors, became one of the most successful space opera book series. Major media franchises like *Star Trek* (1966–, created by Gene Roddenberry), *Star Wars* (1977–, created by George Lucas), and the long-running British series *Doctor Who* (1963–) brought widespread attention to the subgenre. A wave of "new space opera" beginning in the 1970s, alongside the massive success of these franchises, helped space opera gain critical acceptance. Between 1982 and 2002, the Hugo Award for Best Novel frequently went to a space opera nominee.

Some critics separate space opera from planetary romance. Both involve exotic settings, but space opera emphasizes space travel, while planetary romances focus on alien worlds. Under this view, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Martian, Venusian, and lunar stories—along with Leigh Brackett’s Burroughs-influenced Eric John Stark tales—would be planetary romances. Space opera has been defined as "a television or radio drama or motion picture that is a science-fiction adventure story." Fans and critics have noted that its plots sometimes simply transplant horse opera narratives into outer space, a point famously parodied on the back cover of the first issue of *Galaxy Science Fiction*.

The definition of space opera shifted over time. In the 1960s and 1970s, following Brian Aldiss’ 1974 anthology *Space Opera*, it was redefined as "the good old stuff." This view was soon challenged by the editorial work of Judy-Lynn del Rey and the reviews of her husband Lester del Rey, who argued that space operas were not obsolete. Del Rey Books even relabeled earlier Leigh Brackett works as space opera. By the early 1980s, the term was attached to major popular culture works like *Star Wars*. Only in the early 1990s did it become widely recognized as a legitimate science fiction genre.

Hartwell and Cramer describe space opera as "colorful, dramatic, large-scale science fiction adventure, competently and sometimes beautifully written, usually focused on a sympathetic, heroic central character and plot action, and usually set in the relatively distant future, and in space or on other worlds, characteristically optimistic in tone. It often deals with war, piracy, military virtues, and very large-scale action, large stakes." Author A. K. DuBoff adds that true space opera is epic in scale yet personal with characters, involving people taking on something bigger than themselves, with drama and scope that elevate it beyond mere space-based tales.

Space opera can be contrasted with "hard science fiction," which emphasizes technological progress and obeys real-world physics, cosmology, mathematics, and biology—as in Alastair Reynolds’ works or the film *The Last Starfighter*. However, some space opera aligns with hard science fiction, like *The Risen Empire* by Scott Westerfeld, while others balance both hard and soft science fiction, such as the *Dune* prequel series by Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert or the *Star Wars* series.

Early works containing many space opera elements are called proto-space opera. These include several 19th-century French novels: *Les Posthumes* (1802) by Nicolas-Edme Rétif, *Star ou Psi de Cassiopée* (1854) by C. I. Defontenay, and *Lumen* (1872) by Camille Flammarion.