See also: Space Operated (homonymy)

The space opera or opera of space is a sub-genus of the Science-fiction.

Characteristics

The accounts of space opera have as a common characteristic to proceed on an interplanetary scale (going until the scale of the universe), which causes of magnifier the stakes of the sets of themes approached by the account of science fiction: future of the mankind, meetings with extraterrestrial species, the policy issues (conflicts between entities on a galactic scale), ecology ( Dune )… The other effects of the space opera are that the characters can appear by comparison even more negligible, that new explorations are possible that it in browsable territories or is discovered companies until now in autarky.

A space opera is usually held in space or on one (or several) planet (S) distant (S). The realism of an account of the space operas varies considerably from one work to another; often, for the needs for the narration, the laws of physics are suspended: sounds are propagated in the space vacuum such as the noises of explosions or engines of vessels in the Star Wars for example, where other improbabilities in addition are noted, quasi majority of livable planets by the man, extraterrestrial usually speaking English, ignorance of the enormous temporal shifts due to relativity which would prevent all concomittance between such distant planetary systems…

A contrario, certain authors of space opera endeavor to make their accounts more credible in there integral of the scientifically proven elements, or by anticipating the use of technologies which are the object of debates or speculations in the scientific circles: spheres of Dyson, Téléportation, vessels rejoining two points of space more quickly than the light (without to exceed this speed, which could for example be made possible by the exploitation, today very theoretical, of the phenomenon of the holes of worm or even within the framework the theory of the space and the time of the German physicist Burkhard Heim which predicts the possibility of converting electromagnetic energy into gravitational energy). Sometimes even one meets in a space opera of emergent technologies which one can reasonably estimate that they have to develop and to standardize (example: the Nanotechnology S whose multiple applications are usually used by the characters of the novel the Paddle of the night).

History

Beginnings

The term space opera was first of all a pejorative expression, used for the first time by the writer Wilson Tucker in his fanzine Zombie in 1941. He thus intended to indicate, by analogy with the expressions horse opera (Western operated) and Soap operated (literally: soap opera), which it described as the hacky, grinding, stinking, outworn space-ship yarn , in other words stereotypes of the account of adventure or western transposed in space, such as one can find them for example in the series of the John Carter of Mars of the American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs. This definition was ratified by one of the first encyclopedia of SF, Fancyclopedia , in 1944 like in its republication of 1959. In its pejorative direction, it is still sometimes used nowadays.

A certain nostalgia for the space opera of the origins brings to a revaluation of the term. It is then used to indicate an account of adventures in space, with complex characters and camped well, a dramaturgy and a specific action. The leaders of this new space opera are E.E. Smith (with his series Skylark and Lensman ), Edmond Hamilton, Jack Williamson and later Leigh Brackett.

The first writers of space opera of course did not have any alive model in the space on which to base itself. Their first stories must enormously with the accounts of adventure and the '' pulps '' of the years 1920 to 1940, in particular the westerns and the exotic accounts located in Africa or the East. There are many common points between the maritime accounts and the space voyages, the explorers of Africa and the explorers interstellar, the pirates of the seas and the pirates of space.

The Sixties

The space opera of the Sixties is illustrated with some works which transpose in space the various problems from their time. Starship Troopers, of Robert H. Heinlein (1960), is a plea for a return to the patriotic values and with the anticommunism, Dune (1965) of Frank Herbert poses for the first time the problem in the way in which the man can live in symbiosis with his environment or on the contrary to exploit it in a blind way.

The Seventies: new the Space Operated

In the years 1970, a certain number of writers, in British majority, undertake to give one second life to the space opera , in particular after the publication into 1975 of The Centauri Device of John Harrison, and that of a leading article of Interzone calling with the mobilization. This revival of the space opera coincides with success with the cinema of the first episodes of Star Wars, which returns deliberately to the receipts of the space opera of the Fifties, and the emergence of the Cyberpunk whose it is subject to the influence. One can speak about a synthesis of the space opera , Cyberpunk and Hard science. It is about a space darker opera , which gives up the traditional diagram of the triumph of humanity . The authors utilize more recent technologies and propose characters more complex than the space traditional opera . If it preserves the interstellar scale, even intergalactic and the breath epic of the space traditional opera , new the space opera is more rigorous scientifically and at the same time more ambitious in its topics. Among the writers who illustrated themselves in new the space opera , one can quote: Iain Mr. Banks, Stephen R. Donaldson, Peter F. Hamilton, Alastair Reynolds, Stephen Baxter, Paul McAuley, John Clute, Charles Stross, Mr. John Harrison, Vernor Vinge, Walter Jon Williams, John C. Wright, Simon Green, Ken MacLeod and Robert Reed.

From the years 1990

More recently, during the years 1990 and 2000, appeared in the United States a series of new authors, often published by the editor Baen Books . It is about David Drake, David Feintuch, Lois McMaster Bujold, Eric Flint, S.M. Stirling, John Ringo and David Weber. These authors deal more readily with military subjects than their British fellow-members, often putting in scene interstellar conflicts. Baen arose jointly from works of authors of the former generation like James H. Schmitz, Larry Niven or Jerry Pournelle, in the hope to consolidate the market shares of the space militarist opera .

Parrallèlement the success of series of telefilms or feature-length films like Star Trek and Star Wars encouraged the editors to exploit the seam by publishing novels based on the characters and the universe of these films (see Liste of the novels of Star Trek and Bibliographie and chronology of the Star Wars).

The collection Del Rey which depends on the editor Random House, specialized for a long time in the space opera , multiplied its publications during the years 1990 and 2000, making appear its own versions of the space militarist opera . Accounts like the series of the Star Fists of David Sherman and daN Cragg became increasingly widespread.

Few women were illustrated in the space opera beginnings, and if C.J. Cherryh had the privilege to see an asteroid receiving its name (77185 Cherryh), it has a long time the appearance of an exception while contributing to rather virile kinds considered as new the space opera (the universe Foreigner ), the scientific science fiction ( Downbelow Station ) and the space military opera (the trilogy of Faded Sun ). However one currently notes a feminization of the kind with authors like Elizabeth Moon, Lois McMaster Bujold, Jennifer Wingert, Canadian Karin Lowachee, it British Karen Traviss (which takes part in the novels inspired of Star Wars ), American Elizabeth Bear, Kristine Smith, or Linnea Sinclair.

Parodies

Examples of parodies of space operas:

Some universes of space opera

Literature

Cinema and television

Cartoon

Video games

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External bonds

  • Space Operated: an article of Denis Guiot on NooSFere.

  • Challenge 3D CGTalk: Challenge CGTalk international of 3D on the topic Grand Space Operated
  • Challenge 2D CGTalk: Challenge CGTalk international 2D on the topic Grand Space Operated

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