Posted: Jun 25, 2019 3:45 am
Space opera is a standard adventure story set in space.
Star wars (a new hope) is space opera. It's a bog standard fairy tale. Brave knight rescues fair princess locked in tall tower from evil giant. In space.
Space opera can be great, i'm not panning it, but it can lack the deeper questions that I like about harder sf.
Where harder sf ends and space opera starts is a huge grey zone and up to personal taste imo.
Example: The Uplift War, David Brin. It's an adventure story set in space and on exotic planets with spaceships and aliens and battles and stuff. It's also an exploration of agency and self and paternalism and what defines sentience. Most of the representatives of humanity are chimps and gorillas and dolphins and they aren't there for colour, they are the story, the conflict is just a backdrop.