Space opera- A theory what I wrote

[J-WO]

Here's a link to a guest blog I've done. Its all about a theory I've got about writing space Opera/ Space Opera as writing. It may not be correct or even useful, but I think it can only be a good thing for we SP writers to analyse the strengths of the sub-genre.


Are you ready to enter Stapledon-Woolf space? Damien G. Walter

(Hope I've put this in the right forum- nothing else seemed quite right)

 

[J-WO]

For some reason it links to the bottom of the blog. Apologies.

 

[J Riff]

J-Wo, Space-Opera is the absolute bomb, and Stapledon-Woolf Space is as inherently groovy a place as there could be. I want to live there.

 

[HareBrain]

I also like the way Virginia and Olaf seem to gazing at each other longingly in the picture. Nice touch.

He betrayed her. She still carries a bit of a torch for him, though she wishes she didn't. He's dispeptic with guilt.

Great article btw.

 

[chopper]

excellent theorising, J-WO. A starship is being named thus as we speak....

 

[GreenKidx]

Great theory, very well laid out. I agree that a SWS does indeed instigate a tingling that can't quite be identified. However, I'm not quite sure I agree that it is only present in Space Opera. Obviously, the grandiose Stapledon aspect might take a different theme/form. But it is still grand.

IE: "Aston stared at his reflection intently in the polished mirror. There at the front of his beard at the base of one hair. White. The colorless hair tortured him, as all the dead of a thousand worlds whispered across The Veil "That is the first of many. Now Death begins."

 

[Ursa major]

I like that, GreenKidx, but I suspect it's more likely to be ... er ... Shavian than SWS.

 

[GreenKidx]

Actually. On a third read through you're quite right Ursa. Hahaha. But I hope the idea was at at least clear.

 

[Toby Frost]

I need to think this over, but it certainly sounds right. I wonder if epic scope + well-observed detail tends to = good...

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

No other subgenre has the requisite colossal dimensions as Space Opera to tolerate such extremes. The stars in Epic fantasy can only ever be cosmetic, something for the characters to gaze at in wonder but never comprehend, never approach.

Ah, Jim, you challenge fantasy readers and writers to come up with such a sentence. Off the top of my head, I can think of a couple of instances that might qualify, but alas, each one consists of two sentences. If only the writer had been prescient enough to put in a colon or a semicolon!

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Interesting! So SW is actually a fractal thing. Someone who wins the writing challenge should choose that as a theme.

 

[J-WO]

Wow. My theory gets a starship named after it! Kennedy and Lennon only ever got an airport!

IE: "Aston stared at his reflection intently in the polished mirror. There at the front of his beard at the base of one hair. White. The colorless hair tortured him, as all the dead of a thousand worlds whispered across The Veil "That is the first of many. Now Death begins."

Perhaps fantasy has Tolkien-Beckett space instead, where the wonder and glory of life meets the absurdity of death. Or something like that...


Anyway, thanks for lending me guestblog your eyeballs, everyone!

 

[Toby Frost]

For a while it had Tolkien-Tolkien, which contrasts the parochial amiability of rural squireship with grim reapers riding giant pterodactyls around a volcano. If that's not contrast I don't know what is.

 

[GreenKidx]

My efforts are not so easily aborted...hahaha... ill have to think this over for a bit. There might only be ONE lone fantasy line that qualifies. But ill find it!

 

[GreenKidx]

I think ill have another look at Eddings's Malloreon. During the course of the novels he turns woman into a star system... its got to be there! Hahaha