What is Space Opera? A Complete Guide to the Genre

Now I’m sure many of you have thought about this question, and the answer, as simply put, is the focus of the overall story and the scale it takes place at. Regular science fiction typically narrows its focus and scale from the sweeping reach of Space Opera. A good example of this would be close knit thrillers about rogue AI or similarly ‘advanced’ science, where the ‘technology’ itself is the feature of the story. The movie ‘Stealth’ in particular is a great example of this in action.

In contrast, space opera thrives on a larger scope and more drama. In these stories we see planetary, solar system, or even galaxy-spanning conflicts with empires clashing against one another and their heroes wrestling with the fate of their respective civilizations.

Essentially, if the story is more concerned with epic adventure, political intrigue, and sweeping character arcs than the nuts and bolts of science, biology, and physics, you’re probably reading or watching a space opera.

While many other ingredients are involved to properly give a Space Opera story its flavor, none are more important than Drama. By their nature, these stories lean on emotion, personal rivalries, and family drama as much as they do spaceships, lasers, and lost alien technology. Do you remember the first time you watched Luke face down Darth Vader in Star Wars? Or witnessed Paul Atreides struggle with his destiny in Dune? That is is what Space Opera is about. It turns a story of near impossible scale into something human, something relatable for us all to witness and enjoy.

Without it, any story in this genre would simply fall apart, let alone manage to hold our interest. With it however, well, we get something truly magical, don’t we?

Now this list is by no means exhaustive, but in my mind there have been a handful of authors who were responsible for laying down the foundation for everything we read today in the genre and they are:

• E.E. “Doc” Smith – Often called the “father of space opera” with his Lensman series.
• Isaac Asimov – Foundation introduced the idea of entire galactic histories and empires rising and falling.
• Frank Herbert – Dune blended political intrigue, ecology, and messianic destiny into a space opera masterpiece.
• Anne McCaffrey – Though often categorized as fantasy, her Dragonriders of Pern series straddled the line and expanded space opera’s reach.
• Lois McMaster Bujold – Shaped modern space opera with character-driven sagas full of diplomacy, war, and heart with the Vorkosigan Saga.
• James S.A. Corey – With The Expanse, they gave us a modern touchstone for the genre, balancing grit with epic scope.

Having grown far from its original roots, modern space opera, as a whole, has grown beyond the traditional “good guys vs. bad guys in space” that it started out as. In more modern works, we tend to see more shades of grey across both our ‘heroes’ and ‘villains’. More than that too, instead of monolithic and unified empires of stories past, we see the fractured alliances and politics that comprise it, with the conflicts of the story not always being external to the civilizations, such as their war against another empire, but also the power struggles within each empire as the people within attempt to carve out their own stories. Most often now, stories rarely have one chosen hero that everything turns on, but rather a diverse ensemble cast with multiple viewpoints as each of them progress on their journey.

However behind just that change, other subgenres have found their way into Space Opera stories, such as harder science fiction elements from authors such as Alastair Reynolds (Revelation Space) and Peter F. Hamilton (Night’s Dawn Trilogy) who use scientific plausibility as a way to attract a wider audience of readers while keeping the epic tone.

On the flip side, and more in my own area of specialty, there’s a growing overlap with progression fantasy and LitRPG inspired storytelling, such as with my Starbreaker series.

Absolutely and to use an easy example, my q has plenty of it!

While some readers might draw lines between fantasy and sci-fi, space opera has always blurred the edges. Star Wars famously gave us the Force, which is essentially a mystical energy magic in a sci-fi wrapper. Frank Herbert’s Dune plays with prophecy, visions, and quasi-magical powers born from biology and spice. Other stories, such as Firefly, explore things such as latent psionic potential, leaving the potential ways of expressing magic, quite literally infinite.