I wouldn't have thought a modern definition would have stressed either good writing or characterization. Those are assessments that seem irrelevant to genre. So it's odd if there are definitions that contain those.
Here's a pretty well-known editorial comment from Locus:
"Old school space opera was all about scale. Everything in it, from the lushly romantic plots and the star-spanning empires to the light-year-spurning space ships, construction of any one of which would have exhausted the metal reserves of a solar system, was big. But while it may have been stuffed full of
faux-exotic colour and bursting with contrived energy, most of the old school space opera was, let's face it, as two-dimensional and about as realistic as a cartoon cel. New space opera - the
good new space opera - cheerfully plunders the tropes and toys of the old school and secondary sources from Blish to Delany, refurbishes them with up-to-the-minute science, and deploys them in epic narratives where intimate, human-scale stories are at least as relevant as the widescreen baroque backgrounds on which they cast their shadows"
That's a pretty fair example -- there's also a definition by Pringle that I'm failing to locate which is more explicit. This, though, is pretty clear -- it's the same as the old school, but with better characterization and modern science. I can find a number of commentators on the new school's thinking, for example:
"The new space opera was a reaction against the old. New space opera proponents claim that the genre centers on character development, fine writing, high literary standards, verisimilitude, and a moral exploration of contemporary social issues"
The definition quoted and attributed to Aldiss, I believe allegedly from his Trillion-Year Spree (not from his anthology "Space Opera", which I believe defines space opera as "the good old stuff" or something similarly simple, which was already a somewhat outdated view in 1974), is as follows:
- The world must be in peril.
- There must be a quest,
- And a man or woman to meet the mighty hour.
- That man or woman must confront aliens and exotic creatures.
- Space must flow past the ports like wine from a pitcher.
- Blood must rain down the palace steps,
- And ships launch out into the louring dark.
- There must be a woman or man fairer than the skies,
- And a villain darker than a Black Hole.
- And all must come right in the end.
And he apparently states it would have most if not all of those characteristics. If we look at Iain M. Banks for example, you have work fairly hard to even get to get to a definite "most" in with a lot of his work, and you pretty much never find 8 and occasionally 9 and rarely 10, often 6 is skipped, sometimes 4 or 5 or 7 is, I think there's at least one where 1 isn't the case, and 2 is sometimes arguable - almost always 3 happens at least! Yet you and I would both agree Banks generally wrote space opera (even if Use of Weapons feels like an opera in a more traditional sense!).
Use of Weapons satisfies 1 (several times). for 2, the book is explicitly a quest with a definitive objective at the end. There is certainly a main hero (3) who confronts, well, everything (4). Plenty of space travel (5) and ungodly amounts of blood (6), maybe even in literal palaces! (7), definitely.
8, 9, and 10 are debatable -- and this is probably where the newer space opera diverges most from the old; it's much less optimistic and "good guys win" in tone. For UoW, I'd argue there is an extremely dark villain, so user Aldiss's assessment, this make sites ay 80% of a good fit? That seems pretty good to me.
My point, which perhaps this makes more clear, is that his definition appears intentionally constructed in such a way that few things are definitely space opera (as few things hit all 10), but can easily be suggested that something is somewhat space opera-ish (as many things hit 6 or more, especially if you stretch it a bit), if you want to. As such I don't find it very useful. I also get the vibe from it that he's still very much mentally picturing Lensman or the like, which by 1987 was really a bit much.
Yup, I can see that. For me, I haven't seen any definition more compelling, and I guess that also, for me, the
Lensman series,
Star Wars and
Guardians of the Galaxy really are exemplars of what I think of as Space Opera, and so Aldiss's definition which fits these perfectly, works well.
Banks, who I absolutely adore (both his SF and non-genre work) I think deliberately created the
Culture to be a rebuttal of the dystopia/Cyberpunk movement that was reaction to Space Opera and the "high optimism" of early SF. So his work ended was a reaction to a reaction to Space Opera -- and hence was very similar to the original "high optimism" view of SF, but influenced and aware of the arguments against that. I'm happy to call it Space Opera, but it's not the
exemplar of Space Opera to me -- and it's better because of it!
Maybe as an analogy, PULP FICTION is a gangster film. But it doesn't have all the tropes and it couldn't be viewed as an exemplar the way that GODFATHER is, for example. So, for me, a writer can be writing Space Opera even if they are not doing it 100% -- I'm OK with 70% or so.
Honestly, I'd have through a succinct example of a modern definition of Space Opera would be more readily available online. Most irritating.
