Brian Aldiss once said in an anthology called Space Opera (1974): “Science fiction is for real. Space Opera is for fun. Generally.” And for the most part, I agree. That “Generally” is for cases like Frank Herbert’s Dune (1965) that are both real and space opera. What SF novel did a better job of discussing the environment, petroleum politics, religion and war? And do it with a space adventure?
But Dune is an outlier. A far more typical example from the days before Herbert’s classic is the largely forgettable “Sojarr of Titan” (Startling Stories, March 1941) by Manly Wade Wellman. Now I love everything MWW wrote so I know I am biased. That being said, this is a pretty typical Pulp space opera, with a sword-swinging hero, a beautiful gal and an empire to win (in space, of course). Wellman knew he wasn’t inventing anything new. It’s just for fun.
The story has Sojarr lost in space on a moon of Saturn, where Robinson Crusoe-like he grows up to be stronger and more cunning than regular folk. Like Tarzan, he re-enters human space to become a hero who uses his unusual skills to defeat the invading Truags. (For Den Valdron’s appraisal, go here.) My point is simply this: the basic idea is used by Robert A. Heinlein in one of his most famous books, A Stranger in a Strange Land (1961), where Valentine Michael Smith grows up on Mars Robinson Crusoe-like to be different than regular folk. You get me? The idea is not space opera, the treatment is.
So what is that treatment, that attitude? I think is begins with adventure, or wonder if you prefer. Star Wars and Star Trek are the two book ends of the silver screen SF, The Iliad and Odyssey of the future. Both are called space opera by some critics but differ. Star Wars is almost a Fantasy adventure closer to Tolkien at times, while Star Trek is the military adventure. Both types existed long before either Hollywood creation. It is well known that George Lucas had Flash Gordon serials in mind when he came up with the concept. Those serials were inspired by a comic strip that was inspired by fiction by early writers like Edmond Hamilton and Jack Williamson. Star Trek was sold as “Wagon Train to the Stars” but has more to do with early writers like Murray Leinster and Sewell Peaslee Wright, who inspired writers like James Blish. It has been said that SF fiction is usually twenty to forty years ahead of SF television. This is true for space opera as for any type of Science Fiction.
Are Star Wars and Star Trek just for fun? Generally. I think the Star Wars franchise embodies this generalization better than Star Trek, though both are fun to the right audience. Remember the tribbles? Fun. Love it or hate it, Star Wars has done a great job of presenting a universe of diverse aliens, cultures, beliefs. This spacy universe was probably begun by writers like C. L. Moore and Northwest Smith’s Spaceways, built upon by writers like Leigh Brackett, Ray Bradbury and many others, and finally visualized by George Lucas. Lucas stole ideas from classic writers (Tatooine is Dune and Barsoom, for example) but no one had ever brought that level of space opera to the screen before.
Star Trek, being a long-running franchise as well, has done many things, but I think it gets credit for pushing the envelope on social issues more than Star Wars does. (I mean, droids are slaves. And why didn’t Chewie get a medal?) Even the original Star Trek had episodes about racism, the first interracial kiss on TV, and many other topics that might be branded as “woke” today. As a long-time fan of Science Fiction, woke doesn’t bother me. If you can imagine “Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion”, it isn’t much of a stretch to “Let’s treat everyone as a person”. Ursula K. Le Guin or Doris Lessing can write about it in a brilliant SF novel that pushes the boundaries of fiction but a simple space opera can do the same.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Space Westerns here. A form of space opera based on Western fiction, it was made popular on TV by Joss Whedon’s Firefly (2002). (He actually did a dry-run with the script for Alien: Resurrection (1997) This is a style of space opera that is unapologetic for its Pulp roots. If Dune isn’t ready to admit its space opera, that’s alright. There is so much going on in Dune that you just might miss it. But not the Space Western. Again, influenced by actual Westerns as well as space opera that at times read more like Westerns than Asimov. The early Astounding had several of these but the most famous was Hawk Carse. It was never meant to be anything but entertaining. Trade the horse for a spaceship, the six-shooter for a blaster, the asteroid for the Owlhoot hideout.
Aldiss again, describing space opera’s parts:
Ideally, the Earth must be in peril, there must be a quest and a man to match the mighty hour. The man must confront aliens and exotic creatures. Space must flow past the ports like wine from a pitcher. Blood must run down the palace steps, and ships launch out into the louring dark. There must be a woman fairer than the skies and a villain darker than a Black Hole. And all must come right in the end.
I was thinking about this outline and applying it to the most popular space opera of late: The Expanse (2015-2022). My first reaction was: no. But with a closer look: 1) the Earth must be in peril, yes, from an interplanetary war, 2) must be a quest and a man to match the mighty hour, that would be James Holden who is trying to stop the war, 3) man must confront aliens and exotic creatures, well, weird blue space shit from another galaxy, that will do, 4) Space must flow past the ports like wine from a pitcher, the Rosinante is the best ship in space, 5) Blood must run down the palace steps, people get killed in many places, 6) and ships launch out into the louring dark, there are a lot of ships, both civil and military, 7) There must be a woman fairer than the skies, Holden does fall for Naomi, fair is a matter of opinion, 8) and a villain darker than a Black Hole, Sadavir Errinwright then Marcos Inaros, 9) And all must come right in the end. And it does. The formula still works, but dressed for a modern audience.
Brian Aldiss in his introduction is a little dismissive of space opera. He says in a time when Science Fiction was a dirty word, space opera was even dirtier. This may be because serious SF writers did not want their social epics confused with action-adventure pow-pow. It’s all SF so it gets tarred with the same brush. But a novel like Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle (1962) or Samuel R. Delany’s Dhalgren (1975) is not going to work for a space opera fan. We have seen this divide exemplified in recent disagreements at the Hugos. Is SF an artsy form of literary fiction or about BFGs and chicks with space boobs? Well, the answer is yes.
Even from the early days, readers disagreed on this one. Harry Bates muddied the waters when he brought out the first issue of Astounding Stories of Super-Science in January 1930. To Bates, Science Fiction was just another Pulp category. Space Opera proper was born. Along with the Bug-Eyed monster, the clinging space babe and a dozen other cliches that writers today would only use in a parody. But something else was born that day too. Unabashed excitement on other worlds. Space opera. Its roots go back to George Griffiths and “A Honeymoon in Space” to Edgar Rice Burroughs, but here, for the first time, space opera fully formed and to quote Aldiss one last time, to appear “… a gentle creature with red lips and a dash of stardust in her hair.”
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