Get Lost in Space Opera

Stop doomscrolling and escape to the stars

Image by John Harris, the master of impressionistic sci-fi paintings and illustrations; he’s created cover art for writers like John Scalzi, Orson Scott Card, and Ben Bova

Recent headlines have left my brain feeling like mush: tariff flip-flopping, foreign wars, a steady diet of Elon and the Orange Man. If you’re like me, you desperately want to stay informed…but you also need a mental reprieve to regain perspective.

So with that in mind I’m turning up the dial on my sci-fi nerdiness and pushing the warp drives to their limit in pursuit of my favorite subgenre: space opera.

Here, I’ll give you:

• A quick primer on what space opera actually is and why you should care

• My take on why space opera’s brightest days are (hopefully) ahead

• Curated recommendations for casual fans and sci-fi obsessives alike

So let’s head to the Arts District and explore “the dreams our stuff is made of,” to borrow Thomas Disch’s memorable phrase.

The quest is clear: to better imagine our space-bound future. Engage!

The Origins of Space Opera

Let’s start with the name. Why, oh why, is it called space opera? I know Star Wars isn’t exactly Shakespeare, but surely it’s more than a soap opera with spaceships and laser swords, right?

The term “space opera” was originally a pejorative, coined in 1941 by science fiction writer Wilson Tucker to describe “hacky, grinding, stinking, outworn, spaceship yarn[s].” In the 1920s and 30s, pulp magazines published corny melodramas for the masses, stories that relied on over-the-top heroics and worn cliches¹.

So the name “space opera” did indeed stem from horse operas (old-school Westerns) and soap operas (radio serials famously sponsored by soap companies). Early examples were often little more than Westerns hastily transplanted into space, swapping six-shooters for ray guns and dusty saloons for alien outposts.

But the stories evolved and improved. By the 1950s and 1960s, space opera had matured beyond its pulpy roots. Isaac Asimov published Foundation in 1951, blending psychology and political theory against an intergalactic backdrop. It was adapted into an Apple TV series in 2021. Frank Herbert’s Dune (1965) pushed the formula even further, weaving together ecology, religion, and war in a galaxy-spanning epic. Dune was first brought to the screen in 1984 by David Lynch in a bold, if polarizing, adaptation (I liked it!), and later reimagined in 2021 by Denis Villeneuve with breathtaking visuals and Timothée Chalamet.

By the late 1960s and 1970s, Star Trek on television and Star Wars² in theaters had propelled space opera into the mainstream. Captain Kirk and Luke Skywalker became household names. The Space Race ignited widespread fascination with space, while advances in film production and special effects enabled grander, more visually stunning stories. The hulking Star Destroyer’s slow crawl across Star Wars’ opening frame left audiences awestruck, instilling a sense of wonder—a hallmark of great science fiction.

The opening scene from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope

By the late 1970s and 80s, the term “space opera” had been reclaimed as a term of endearment. A hundred flowers bloomed: space operatic sci-fi paperbacks flooded book shelves and Star Wars knock offs proliferated.

But what makes all of these stories “space operas” exactly? Is any story set in space a “space opera?” (Spoiler: no). The star destroyer above, hunting down the rebel ship, gives some indication: it’s ultimately about scale, worldbuilding, and adventure.

Critics offer up differing, but similar, definitions of the subgenre:

Space opera [is] colourful, dramatic, large-scale science fiction adventure, competently and sometimes beautifully written, usually focused on a sympathetic, heroic central character and plot action, and usually set in the relatively distant future, and in space or on other worlds, characteristically optimistic in tone. It often deals with war, piracy, military virtues and very large-scale action, large stakes. - David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer

Space opera remains the engine of the genre, one of its most prominent forms, the thing many people think of when they hear “science fiction.” - Grant Wythoff

Space opera, more than anything else, is adventure fiction, fiction about voyages and journeys. - Jonathan Strahan

Finally, TV Tropes, an amazing resource for story geeks, offers a great list of space opera criteria from writer Brian Aldiss:

1. The world must be in peril.

2. There must be a quest.

3. And a man or woman to meet the mighty hour.

4. That man or woman must confront aliens and exotic creatures.

5. Space must flow past the ports like wine from a pitcher.

6. Blood must rain down the palace steps.

7. And ships launch out into the louring dark.

8. There must be a woman or man fairer than the skies.

9. And a villain darker than a Black Hole.

10. And all must come right in the end.

And, for simplicity’s sake, here’s my own definition: Big, badass stories in space.

That’s basically it. Dune is a space opera; Moon, a small bottle story set mostly on a single moon base, isn’t. Battlestar Galactica is a space opera, and a damned good one. So is The Expanse. Gravity, starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney spinning through orbital debris, isn’t a space opera but a survival story; the same goes for The Martian.

So what’s the state of space opera today? And why should we care about these distant and fantastical stories when Earthly problems loom so large?

Space Opera in 2025

Space opera is indeed alive and sort of well, but timid studios, bloated franchises, and publishers catering to a niche-but-reliable audience of “hard sci-fi” diehards have blunted its crowd-pleasing sprawl.

Star Wars is a perfect example: an oversaturated IP that Disney is mishandling with countless spinoffs, confusing retcons, and an endless churn of nostalgia bait that’s snuffed out the Force’s once magical spark. The same is true for Star Trek—Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks nail the brainy core of original Trek, but the last two decades have piled up more duds (Enterprise, Discovery, Seasons 1 and 2 of Picard, the abomination that was Section 31) than wins.

Right now it feels like the sci-fi genre has gone insular, internal, featuring dystopian mini-worlds cut off from the rest of society: Silo’s underground bunker, Paradise’s corporate bubble, Fallout’s vaults, Severance’s labyrinth of Kafkaesque offices. These are excellent shows (especially Severance, the smartest example of a high concept story I can think of), but I’m yearning for the optimism, the adventure, and yes, the sense of wonder, that only space opera can deliver.

I think there’s an unfed appetite for more hopeful stories that move beyond our anxieties about societal collapse and capitalistic dread. I don’t feel much relief from news headlines in the unrelenting stream of dystopian fictions (see above), true-crime documentaries (American Murder, Evil Lives Here, the Jinx) and eat-the-rich psychodramas (White Lotus, Succession, The Fall of the House of Usher).

Can someone please make a Ted Lasso or a Shrinking—but in space and with a ragtag crew of interstellar explorers? I guess that’s a roundabout way of asking for more seasons of Firefly, a show cancelled far too soon that understood the Western roots of space opera.

With the continued rise of private spaceflight and the very real possibility of Mars missions within a decade—don’t scoff, serious progress is happening here—I hope and predict that the pendulum will swing back toward bold new IPs, visionary showrunners, and ambitious storytellers who will join the quest for bigger, better, bolder space opera.

I’ll end here with an admittedly melodramatic (but sincere) appeal: think of the children! Do you really think endless dystopian nightmares and recycled nostalgia will inspire young people to do all the things we hope for them? Ethical AI development, studying and pursuing jobs in STEM, pushing the boundaries of space exploration.

Artist rendition of a Dyson sphere, a hypothetical alien megastructure designed to harness the energy of stars. I love a Big Dumb Object story.

Space opera is more than escapism: it's aspirational, ambitious, and stuffed with the kind of big ideas that drive innovation. We need to move beyond claustrophobic space stations and push the boundaries of world building—or, better yet, galaxy building.

I’ve already touched on movies and TV shows, where I’d love to see more space opera on-screen; here are some novel and video game recommendations, where space opera is thriving.

C’mon Netflix, adapt these!

Novelists

• Alastair Reynolds: Dark, intricate sci-fi that stretches across galaxies and unfathomable spans of time; check out Pushing Ice for a first-contact mystery or House of Suns for a book that pushes what’s possible in terms of sheer scale.

• John Scalzi: fast paced, highly readable popcorn blockbusters; check out Old Man’s War.

• Iain M. Banks: the master of post-scarcity, anarchist space opera; Consider Phlebas is a wild ride, but The Player of Games is a more accessible entry into The Culture series.

• Adrian Tchaikovsky: Mind-bending, evolutionary sci-fi with big ideas; start with Children of Time.

• Becky Chambers: Cozy, character-driven space opera; check out The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet.

Video Games

• FTL: Faster Than Light: A top-down, roguelike starship simulator.

• Starfield: Bethesda’s take on space exploration—massive open-world, compelling narrative, and deep RPG mechanics.

• Rebel Galaxy Outlaw: A space western with dogfights, bar brawls, and old-school Star Wars vibes.

• Outer Wilds: A planet spanning time loop mystery.

Here’s Quest 16:

Get Lost in Space Opera

• Share your favorite space opera story in the comments—book, movie, game, whatever transported you and made you feel awestruck.

• Read science-fiction literary magazines, like Analog and Asimov’s; this is where the next generation of sci-fi writers cut their teeth, and they consistently put out compelling space opera stories.

• Fund a space opera project right now: check out science fiction writers on Kickstarter, and back one that excites you.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you out there…where no man has gone before.

1. You can read some of these vintage magazines here. They are, ahem, a tad dated, but still fascinating as historical curiosities.

2. Both Star Trek and Star Wars masterfully mash up genres in outer space settings in ways that earlier pulp stories did not. Star Trek: Submarine movies, workplace dramas, first-contact stories. Star Wars: Samurai films, Westerns, mythic hero’s journey epics.