Like Opera?

I've come to realize I'm a fan of space opera.

Why does that feel like a confession? It shouldn't. The stuff I'm talking about is inventive and intelligent, engaging with serious issues at the same time as it's adventuresome fun. Maybe it's just the name. Opera. Soap Opera. Space Opera. Not, for me, the same thing.

I've mentioned before that I've enjoyed novels like Peter F. Hamilton's The Dreaming Void (The Void Trilogy), and John Scalzi's Old Man's War, and Bright of the Sky (Book 1 of The Entire and the Rose) by Kay Kenyon, and I may have mentioned digging Hyperion by Dan Simmons. Realizing that I have good things to say about Iain M Banks' The Algebraist and Alastair Reynolds' Chasm City (Revelation Space)…

Well, I'm seeing a trend here.

Are all these things Space Opera? I don't know, but I'm thinking so. What they have in common is that they combine elements of science fiction interplanetary travel and theoretic possibilities with adventure on a grand scale. For a while, I thought of them as books that read like epic fantasy, but that were set in space. I guess the Dune novels would fit into this category too. I'm not sure where the boundary begins and ends, although I know it when I bump up against it.

For example, I read Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars (Mars Trilogy) recently. That's got adventure and romance off planet, but it's different. It's chained to our known world realities and near possibilities in a way that space opera isn't really.

So what do I enjoy about these novels? Depends on the book, of course. A big part of it comes down to the combination of fine writing, with interesting characterization and thematic weight, combined with pure flights of the imagination. That's a feature of good fantasy too, but only a handful of fantasy authors engage me intellectually - which is part of the attraction to these operatic authors. It's sharp, fun, sometimes scary stuff.

Just thought I'd mention it.