42-531: The Telnarian Histories are a series of five space opera novels by American writer John Norman ; the first three were published between 1991 and 1993. The setting of the novels is a galactic realm closely parallel to the later history of the Roman Empire and its wars with Germanic barbarians. The ruling family of the empire is human, but extraterrestrials exist, while individuals pursue destinies of freedom and slavery. The depiction of slavery in
84-410: 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 , and " soap opera ", a melodramatic domestic drama. Space operas emerged in
126-836: A balance between both or simultaneously hard and soft science fiction such as the Dune prequel series by Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert or the Star Wars series created by George Lucas . Early works which preceded the subgenre contained many elements of what would become space opera. They are today referred to as proto-space opera. Early proto-space opera was written by several 19th century French authors, for example, Les Posthumes (1802) by Nicolas-Edme Rétif , Star ou Psi de Cassiopée: Histoire Merveilleuse de l'un des Mondes de l'Espace (1854) by C. I. Defontenay and Lumen (1872) by Camille Flammarion . Not widely popular, proto-space operas were nevertheless occasionally written during
168-756: A dozen science fiction novels to his credit. His most famous novel may be The Year of the Quiet Sun (1970). It was runner-up for the Locus Award for Best Novel and a finalist for the Hugo and the Nebula Award . In 1976 it won a special retrospective John W. Campbell Memorial Award (established 1973 for 1972 novels). Other notable novels include The Lincoln Hunters (1958), in which time-travelers from an oppressive future society seek to record Abraham Lincoln 's "lost speech" of May 19, 1856. It contains
210-524: A fanzine, The Planetoid . From 1938 to 2001, he published the fanzine Le Zombie , which lasted for more than 60 issues and was later revived as a webzine . (The title arising from the fact that on multiple occasions fallacious reports of his death were made within fandom. ) He also published the Bloomington News Letter, which dealt with news within the professional science fiction writing field. Active in letter-writing as well, Tucker
252-401: A fierce humanoid race headquartered on Sirius . However, the idea for the novel arises out of a nationalistic genre of fiction popular from 1880 to 1914 called future-war fiction. Despite this seemingly early beginning, it was not until the late 1920s that the space opera proper began to appear regularly in pulp magazines such as Amazing Stories . In film, the genre probably began with
294-655: A frontier settlement in a classic Western. Six-shooters and horses may be replaced by ray guns and rockets. Harry Harrison 's novels Bill, the Galactic Hero and Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers , as well as the film adaptation of the former, the films Galaxy Quest and Mel Brooks ' Spaceballs , and Family Guy ' s Laugh It Up, Fuzzball trilogy parody the conventions of classic space opera. Wilson Tucker (writer) Arthur Wilson " Bob " Tucker (November 23, 1914 – October 6, 2006)
336-699: A great deal of attention to the sub-genre. After the convention-breaking "new wave", followed by the enormous success of the franchises, space opera became once again a critically acceptable sub-genre. From 1982 to 2002, the Hugo Award for Best Novel was often given to a space opera nominee. Space opera has been defined as "a television or radio drama or motion picture that is a science-fiction adventure story". Some critics distinguish between space opera and planetary romance . Both feature adventures in exotic settings, but space opera emphasizes space travel, while planetary romances focus on alien worlds. In this view,
378-437: A moral exploration of contemporary social issues. McAuley and Michael Levy identify Iain M. Banks , Stephen Baxter , M. John Harrison , Alastair Reynolds , McAuley himself, Ken MacLeod , Peter F. Hamilton , Ann Leckie , and Justina Robson as the most-notable practitioners of the new space opera. One of the most notable publishers Baen Books specialises in space opera and military science fiction, publishing many of
420-539: A more subtle influence in space opera. Gene Roddenberry described Star Trek: The Original Series as a space Western (or more poetically, as “ Wagon Train to the stars”). Firefly and its cinematic follow-up Serenity literalized the Western aspects of the genre popularized by Star Trek : it used frontier towns, horses, and the styling of classic John Ford Westerns. Worlds that have been terraformed may be depicted as presenting similar challenges as that of
462-601: A perennial stint as toastmaster of the long-running Midwestcon and LibertyCon, and as toastmaster at MidAmeriCon , the 1976 Worldcon. In 1940, he served on the committee of the Worldcon in Chicago. In 2001, he co-hosted the joint Ditto/FanHistoriCon held in his hometown of Bloomington, Illinois. Tucker won the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer in 1970 and the 1954 Retro-Hugo for the same category in 2004. His Science Fiction Newsletter (a.k.a. Bloomington News Letter ) won
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#1732794371313504-409: A space-drive with planetary romance in the style of Edgar Rice Burroughs . Smith's later Lensman series and the works of Edmond Hamilton , John W. Campbell , and Jack Williamson in the 1930s and 1940s were popular with readers and much imitated by other writers. By the early 1940s, the repetitiousness and extravagance of some of these stories led to objections from some fans and the return of
546-571: A vivid description of Lincoln and his time, seen through the eyes of a future American who feels that Lincoln and his time compare very favorably with the traveler's own. The Long Loud Silence (1952) is a post-apocalypse story in which the eastern third of the United States is quarantined as the result of an atomic and bacteriological attack. Damon Knight called it "a phenomenally good book; in its own terms, it comes as near perfection as makes no difference." Much of Tucker's short fiction
588-468: Is epic in scale and personal with characters. It is about people taking on something bigger than themselves and their struggles to prevail. Though a setting beyond Earth is central, being on a spaceship or visiting another planet isn't the only qualifier. There must also be drama and sufficiently large scope to elevate a tale from being simply space-based to being real space opera. Space opera can be contrasted in outline with " hard science fiction ", in which
630-655: Is herself enslaved among the gods. This article about a 1990s science fiction novel is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . See guidelines for writing about novels . Further suggestions might be found on the article's talk page . Space opera Space opera is a subgenre of science fiction 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
672-855: The Battlestar Galactica franchise and Robert A. Heinlein 's 1959 novel Starship Troopers . The key distinction of military science fiction from space opera as part of the space warfare in science fiction is that the principal characters in a space opera are not military personnel, but civilians or paramilitary . That which brings them together under a common denominator is that military science fiction like space opera often concerns an interstellar war . Military science fiction however does not necessarily always include an outer space or multi-planetary setting like space opera and space Western. Space Western also may emphasize space exploration as “the final frontier”. These Western themes may be explicit, such as cowboys in outer space, or they can be
714-569: The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), and retired as a projectionist in 1972. In 1941, Tucker's first professional short story, "Interstellar Way Station", was published by Frederik Pohl in the May issue of Super Science Stories . Between 1941 and 1979, primarily in the early 1940s and early 1950s, he produced about two dozen more. He also turned his attention to writing novels, with 11 mystery novels and
756-789: The Science Fiction Writers of America , and the First Fandom Hall of Fame Award. Tuckercon , the 2007 NASFiC ( North American Science Fiction Convention ) in Collinsville, Illinois , was dedicated to Tucker. Although he sold more than 20 novels, Tucker made his principal living as a movie projectionist and theater electrician , starting as a prop man at the Majestic Theater in Bloomington, Illinois . He served as President of Local 193 of
798-469: The "triumph of mankind" template of older space opera, involves newer technologies, and has stronger characterization than the space opera of old. While it does retain the interstellar scale and scope of traditional space opera, it can also be scientifically rigorous. The new space opera was a reaction against the old. 'New space opera' proponents claim that the genre centers on character development, fine writing, high literary standards, verisimilitude, and
840-406: The 1918 Danish film, Himmelskibet . Unlike earlier stories of space adventure, which either related the invasion of Earth by extraterrestrials, or concentrated on the invention of a space vehicle by a genius inventor, pure space opera simply took space travel for granted (usually by setting the story in the far future), skipped the preliminaries, and launched straight into tales of derring-do among
882-487: 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 . Perry Rhodan (1961–) is the most successful space opera book series ever written. The Star Trek TV series (1966–) by Gene Roddenberry and the Star Wars films (1977–) by George Lucas brought
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#1732794371313924-572: The American science-fiction community is ever likely to boast of". He helped pioneer criticism of the genre, coining along the way terms like " space opera " in common use today. He was fan guest of honor, professional guest of honor, toastmaster, or master of ceremonies at so many science fiction conventions over nearly seven decades that no one has managed to compile a comprehensive list. Notable are his appearances as guest of honor at Torcon I (the 1948 Worldcon ) and NyCon3 (the 1967 Worldcon),
966-528: 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 ). At the time, serial radio dramas in
1008-544: The Retro- Hugo Award for Best Fanzine for 1951. His fanzine Le Zombie also won the 1943 Retro Hugo for Best Fanzine at Worldcon 76 in San Jose, CA. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame inducted Tucker in 2003, its eighth class of two deceased and two living writers. Other honors included the 1986 Skylark (annual Edward E. Smith Memorial Award for Imaginative Fiction ), the 1996 Author Emeritus of
1050-502: The United States had become popularly known as soap operas because many were sponsored by soap manufacturers. 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". 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
1092-465: The aforementioned authors, who have won Hugo Awards. Several subsets of space opera overlap with military science fiction, concentrating on large-scale space battles with futuristic weapons in an interstellar war . Many series can be considered to belong and fall in two genres or even overlap all like Ender's Game series by Orson Scott Card or the Honorverse by David Weber . At one extreme,
1134-573: The back cover of the first issue of Galaxy Science Fiction . 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". 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". Yet soon after his redefinition, it began to be challenged, for example, by
1176-599: The books resembles that found in the Gor series, with female slaves dominated by male masters. The individual books in the series are: Many fans of Norman's Gor novel series didn't like the Telnarian books as much. One novel concept explored in the second and third books of the series is that of Dira, the goddess of love and beauty in the pantheon of the Telnarian Empire, is also the goddess of slave girls and
1218-625: The early 1990s did the term space opera begin to be recognized as a legitimate genre of science fiction. Hartwell and Cramer define 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 defines space opera as: True space opera
1260-437: The editorial practice and marketing of Judy-Lynn del Rey and in the reviews of her husband and colleague Lester del Rey . 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. By the early 1980s, space operas were again redefined, and the label was attached to major popular culture works such as Star Wars . Only in
1302-520: The emphasis is on the effects of technological progress and inventions, and where the settings are carefully worked out to obey the laws of physics, cosmology, mathematics, and biology. Examples are seen in the works of Alastair Reynolds or the movie The Last Starfighter . At other times, space opera can concur with hard science fiction and differ from soft science fiction by instead focusing on scientific accuracy such as The Risen Empire by Scott Westerfeld . Other space opera works may be defined as
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1344-537: The field, as well as the coiner of such terms as " space opera ". Born in Deer Creek, Illinois , for most of his life Tucker made his home in Bloomington, Illinois . He was married twice. In 1937, he wed Mary Joesting; they had a son and a daughter before the marriage dissolved in 1942. His second marriage, to Fern Delores Brooks in 1953, lasted 52 years, until her death in 2006; they had three sons. Tucker became involved in science fiction fandom in 1932, publishing
1386-525: The first five decades of science fiction fandom, with important events and trends in fandom noted. Each edition also carried a lexicon of fan terminology in use throughout fandom at the time. The eighth and final edition remains in print from the Kansas City Science Fiction and Fantasy Society. Tucker's fanzine writing has been described as "unfailingly incisive", and Tucker as "the most intelligent and articulate and sophisticated fan
1428-542: The genre is used to speculate about future wars involving space travel, or the effects of such a war on humans; at the other, it consists of the use of military fiction plots with some superficial science-fiction trappings in fictional planets with fictional civilizations and fictional extraterrestrials . The term "military space opera" is occasionally used to denote this subgenre, as used for example by critic Sylvia Kelso when describing Lois McMaster Bujold 's Vorkosigan Saga . Other examples of military space opera include
1470-516: The late Victorian and Edwardian science-fiction era. Examples may be found in the works of Percy Greg , Garrett P. Serviss , George Griffith , and Robert Cromie . Science fiction scholar E. F. Bleiler cites Robert William Cole 's The Struggle for Empire: A Story of the Year 2236 as the first space opera in his 1990 reference work Science-Fiction: The Early Years . The novel depicts an interstellar conflict between solar men of Earth and
1512-529: The publication of M. John Harrison 's The Centauri Device in 1975 and a "call to arms" editorial by David Pringle and Colin Greenland in the Summer 1984 issue of Interzone ; and the financial success of Star Wars , which follows some traditional space opera conventions. This "new space opera", which evolved around the same time cyberpunk emerged and was influenced by it, is darker, moves away from
1554-420: The space opera was well established as a major subgenre of science fiction. However, the author cited most often as the true father of the genre is E. E. "Doc" Smith . His first published work, The Skylark of Space ( Amazing Stories , August–October 1928), written in collaboration with Lee Hawkins Garby , is often called the first great space opera. It merges the traditional tale of a scientist inventing
1596-520: The stars. Early stories of this type include J. Schlossel 's "Invaders from Outside" ( Weird Tales , January 1925), The Second Swarm ( Amazing Stories Quarterly , spring 1928) and The Star Stealers ( Weird Tales , February 1929), Ray Cummings ' Tarrano the Conqueror (1925), and Edmond Hamilton's Across Space (1926) and Crashing Suns ( Weird Tales , August–September 1928). Similar stories by other writers followed through 1929 and 1930. By 1931,
1638-432: The term in its original and pejorative sense. Eventually, though, a fondness for the best examples of the genre led to a re-evaluation of the term and a resurrection of the subgenre's traditions. Writers such as Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson had kept the large-scale space adventure form alive through the 1950s, followed by writers like M. John Harrison and C. J. Cherryh in the 1970s. By this time, "space opera"
1680-455: Was a popular fan during more than six decades, coining many words and phrases familiar in science fiction fandom and to literary criticism of the field. In addition to "Bob Tucker", he was also known to write under the pseudonym "Hoy Ping Pong" (generally reserved for humorous pieces.) During a 41-year period, 1955 to 1996, Tucker created and edited eight separate editions of The Neo-Fan's Guide To Science Fiction Fandom , an historical overview of
1722-406: Was an American author who became well known as a writer of mystery, action adventure, and science fiction under the name Wilson Tucker . Tucker was also a prominent member of science fiction fandom , who wrote extensively for fanzines under the name Bob Tucker , a family nickname bestowed in childhood (his own mispronunciation of the nickname "Bub"). He became a prominent analyst and critic of
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1764-464: Was for many readers no longer a term of insult but a simple description of a particular kind of science fiction adventure story. According to author Paul J. McAuley , a number of mostly British writers began to reinvent space opera in the 1970s (although most non-British critics tend to dispute the British claim to dominance in the new space opera arena). Significant events in this process include
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