What Defines the Space Opera Genre?

[Cladson]

Space Opera??

I just recently bought a book called LIGHT it's a space opera, well atleast that's what all the praisers on the back of the book call it.
Is space opera some sort of genre because the book is really weird?

 

[ray b]

slang for a sub class of science fiction

 

[selfAdjoint]

I just recently bought a book called LIGHT it's a space opera, well atleast that's what all the praisers on the back of the book call it.
Is space opera some sort of genre because the book is really weird?

A genre where galactic kingdoms fight wars with space ships zipping from star system to star system and bafflegab overcomes relativity. If this sounds a lot like Star Wars, well, you got that right.

 

[loseyourname]

Wasn't the term originally coined for Flash Gordon?

 

[zoobyshoe]

Sounds like a soap opera set in space. Star Trek, Deep Space Nine.

 

[selfAdjoint]

Sounds like a soap opera set in space. Star Trek, Deep Space Nine.

I believe the true origin was from "horse opera", slang for a western movie. Space operas were similarly shoot-em-ups, with death rays instead of six shooters, of course.

In the pulps they predated Flash Gordon. Gordon's rival Buck Rogers actually debuted in a pulp story before being converted to a comic strip. In the 1920s-1930s pulps the great name for space opera was E. E. ("Doc") Smith. He had a Ph.D. in either Chemistry or Chemical Engineering, I believe. He wrote two great space opera series, the Skylark of Space books and the even better Lensmen series. They may still be in print.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I believe the true origin was from "horse opera", slang for a western movie. Space operas were similarly shoot-em-ups, with death rays instead of six shooters, of course.

I'd never heard the term "horse opera" before. I googled it and it seems to refer not just to westerns, but to a specific kind of western:

http://www.press.uillinois.edu/s02/stanfield.html