Re: “Top 10 Space Opera Books and Series”

On 2024-06-03, Michael F. Stemper <michael.stemper@gmail.com> wrote:

On 02/06/2024 10.55, Paul S Person wrote:

On Sat, 1 Jun 2024 14:58:38 -0500, "Michael F. Stemper"
<michael.stemper@gmail.com> wrote:

On 31/05/2024 16.28, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:

In article <v3dc4d$2cmed$1@dont-email.me>,
Lynn McGuire  <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:

“Top 10 Space Opera Books and Series”

>

I would swap The Foundation Series and The Vorkosigan series.

>
I would say that Foundation is *not* Space Opera.  In fact it makes some
fun of Space Opera.
>
_Triplanetary_ definitely is, but how can you be aware of Doc Smith and
leave a) the Lensman series proper & b) the Skylark series off of a
Space Opera list?

>
100% agreed. I'm not too convinced that _Hyperion_ (or the four-novel series
that it kicks off) or the Culture qualify as Space Opera, either. I briefly
perused the page and some of its links, but was unable to find what they
were using as a definition of "space opera".

 
I think I've mostly regarded "space opera" as a formation based on
"horse opera". FWIW. YMMV.

>
I have no doubt about that being the etymology of the term. But, it's hardly
a definition. And I was wondering specifically about the definition used by
the folks setting up the poll; the definition that viewed Hyperion and
Foundation as "space opera".
>
My guess is that the pollsters had no criteria, and this poll was really
"what science fiction do you like?" With serious sampling issues.

Wikipedia has a nice article on "space opera"; a very major focus of
it is how the definition has changed over the years, and how many
different definitions of it there are.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_opera
I pretty definitely agree with the older definitions more than how
it is apparently currently used.

I agree that I don't consider either _Hyperion_ or _Foundation_ to be
space opera. But I think both of them are closer than novels like
_Dune_ and _Ender's Game_ that were considered space opera the first time
this group tried a top 10 space opera list.

My personal entry for a top 10 space opera would include Cook's
_The Dragon Never Sleeps_ (a strong Favorite of mine).  I like the suggestion
of William's Praxis series, but it doesn't quite reach top 10 for me.
I also like Westerfeld's _The Risen Empire_ duology.

Chris