GW and Jack Shoot the Poop 2: Space Opera

GW: What’s your all-time favorite space opera novel?

JM: You know, that’s a tough one. I love several space opera series, but the kinds that I like best are the ones that have the full package for me. That includes spaceships, galactic travel, aliens, robots, etc. I love current series like James S. A. Corey’s The Expanse series, John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War series, and particularly Iain M. Banks’ Culture novels, but I would have to say that my all-time favorite space opera novel is still Frank Herbert’s Dune. People regard it as an SF classic and tend to focus on the politics and the spiritual elements, but I think a lot of people tend to forget that it is still a great example of a space opera. I don’t care as much for the series, and to be honest I stopped reading the books after Children of Dune, but the first book is still the absolute best example of the best that the space opera genre be, much derided as it is, can be.

If I had a runner-up it would be The Witches of Karres by James H. Schmitz. In fact any of Schmitz’s short stories, or story collections are fantastic examples of fun space opera.

So, let me ask you, what are some of the essential elements that a space opera novel has to have in order for you to consider it a “true” example of the genre? Or are you not that picky?

GW: I think Space Opera, as far as elements go, is not really about certain tropes (robots, aliens, etc.). It’s more of an attitude. It is a feel that Space Opera fiction has, that says here’s the wide universe and all the exciting things that can happen in it. In a sense, it is frontier fiction. That may be part of the reason it is so derided, being associated with Westerns. (The Space Western is a specific type of Space Opera that has received some new attention since Joss Whedon’s Firefly.) Space Opera can feature galactic empires so it can also feel a bit like historical adventure, too. But that too is often about frontiers, empires pushing outward. Whether it comes off or fails as cheesy is really about the power of the storyteller. If you read classic Jack Williamson or Edmond Hamilton you can feel that sense of wonder. Some hack who is regurgitating Star Wars or Star Trek will seem like the pale photocopy of a photocopy that it is.

How much universe-building do you think an author needs to do to pull it off?

Jack: Well, as far as world building and Space Opera go, you need to do as much as you can and as little as you can get away with. I know that sounds contradictory, but when your canvas is the galaxy, or a galaxy, or the universe, then you have to do a lot of work to populate that universe, especially today. You can’t just introduce a couple of fish-headed aliens in silver suits and saddle them with an unpronounceable name and expect that to be good enough. On the other hand, you can spend hours meticulously working out star charts and plotting interstellar routes and creating convincing planets that have believable biodiversity, or doing the Polymeric Falcighol Derivation equations to make your Alcubierre Drive work… and it still wouldn’t be enough. You will always end up doing just enough to support the story that you want to tell. It will never be enough because somebody will always be around to ask you something about your universe that you hadn’t thought of and then you have to build more and then you never get the book written.

And, once you have written the book, you realize that you have done all that work… well… it’s kind of a waste if you just write one book. That’s the number one reason why space opera as a genre has so many book series.

Which Space Operas for you feel the most fleshed out, the most believably real, and which ones feel like little more than Star Trek or Star Wars pastiches?

GW: I would say my go-to for well-fleshed out Space Opera is C. J. Cherryh with her Chanur series and Foreigner series, though I love Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover, H. Beam Piper, Keith Laumer and Andre Norton too. I know there are all kinds of new authors but I am hopelessly stuck in the years before the 1990s. I like the Dune novels as well but they seem to defy all the wisdom for action adventure. It’s all talking heads but it doesn’t seem that way. As for shoddy knock-offs of Star Wars and Star Trek I’d hate to promote anyone of that ilk here. I’ll stick to the old stuff. I am working backwards instead of forwards.

Are there any older (1920s and 1930s or 1940s) writers that you like?

Jack: To be honest I’m not really keen on much of the older Space Opera from the 20’s or 30’s. I like the idea of E. E. “doc” Smith’s Lensmen series but find most of his works to be unreadable. It’s not until the 1940’s (and the late 1940’s at that) that my favorite Space Opera writers get going. Heinlein, of course, with his juveniles — misnamed, really. Heinlein’s “juveniles” have better writing and more sophisticated concepts than a lot of “adult” science fiction. Have Spacesuit Will Travel, Red Planet, and, of course the proto-military SF novel, Starship Troopers are among my favorites. James H Schmitz with his stories set in the “Hub” universe. Agent of Vega and, of course, The Witches of Karres. Poul Anderson, whose novels were written mainly in the 1950’s, are standouts for me as well. Although I don’t necessarily agree 100% with Heinlein’s or with Anderson’s politics, these works are to my mind, examples of Space Opera at its best.

Although I love Space Opera, I find that much of my thinking about my own Space Operas are actually informed by other genres. Much of the ideas from my novel Debt’s Pledge came from research into the structure of the armies and the lives of the common soldiers in ancient Rome. And much of the sweeping action was actually inspired by reading military adventures set in the 1700’s. C. S. Forrester’s Hornblower novels, of course, as well as the Aubrey/Maturin novels of Patrick O’Brian and the Sharpe series by Bernard Cornwall. Much of that storytelling, I found (as have many Space Opera writers, I suspect) can be translated rather effortlessly into a Science Fiction setting.

Do you find that you get inspiration for your SF or Fantasy stories from non-genre sources?

GW: Ha ha, we are not going to agree about the ’30s vs ’40s. I like Heinlein too but the older stuff has more “sense of wonder” but also less refined. That’s part of the fun. I really enjoy digging back to see who did what first and how that’s changed over the years. Writers like Raymond Z. Gallun, R. F. Starzl, early Clifford D. Simak, and a host of others are my favorites, while the more sophisticated later stuff just gets less and less exciting for me.

As for other genres, I am often inspired by outside stuff. There is plenty of Mystery influence in my Fantasy and Westerns in my Space Opera. They joke about smelling the road apples in some SF. I think you need to bring in outside material otherwise the genre becomes too inbred. That’s how some that Star Wars stuff feels to me. Though I can say that about other genres too. I should think anyone wanting to write about galactic empires would be a student of Rome, India, even the old West. Imperialism doesn’t get the pass it used to. We have new things to say about all that colonialism.

Thanks for talking. Until next time.