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<blockquote data-quote="Gorgon Zee" data-source="post: 8245620" data-attributes="member: 75787">I haven’t read the Hunger Games, but I didn’t think there was any space travel in it? And is there really a lot of death in palaces? Or alien creatures?&nbsp; I thought it was mostly about people killing each other in contest grounds from my admittedly&nbsp;&nbsp; Limited exposure.&nbsp;Actually though, I do agree with David Pringle that Space Opera requires space travel. He suggests that without it, it can be at most a “Planetary Romance” — which means Flash Gordon gets redefined, and I’m OK with that. There was also an interesting review I think in Interzone on Gardner Dozois’s Space Opera collection which suggested that most stories failed to be Space Opera because they weren’t grand in scale, which also seems right to me. So to address your concerns, I’ll factor Pringle’s requirements into Aldiss’s definition and say that the middle four are the heart of the definition and more important than the others; in particular 9-10 are more characteristic of older works and if you’d like to omit them, I’d be OK with that.One thing to bear in mind is that Aldiss‘s definition is not a tone-free description. He doesn’t just require that elements be present, but he requires them to be present in a (melo)dramatic and grand(iose) format. It’s not enough simply to have space travel, but space must be dark, dangerous and threatening. I quite like that way of defining things as it helps me, at least, distinguish between writing that might have similar elements, but very different presentation. Whatever definition we would like to update to, I think it needs to capture the tone requirements of Aldiss’s.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Gorgon Zee, post: 8245620, member: 75787"] I haven’t read the Hunger Games, but I didn’t think there was any space travel in it? And is there really a lot of death in palaces? Or alien creatures? I thought it was mostly about people killing each other in contest grounds from my admittedly Limited exposure. Actually though, I do agree with David Pringle that Space Opera requires space travel. He suggests that without it, it can be at most a “Planetary Romance” — which means Flash Gordon gets redefined, and I’m OK with that. There was also an interesting review I think in Interzone on Gardner Dozois’s Space Opera collection which suggested that most stories failed to be Space Opera because they weren’t grand in scale, which also seems right to me. So to address your concerns, I’ll factor Pringle’s requirements into Aldiss’s definition and say that the middle four are the heart of the definition and more important than the others; in particular 9-10 are more characteristic of older works and if you’d like to omit them, I’d be OK with that. One thing to bear in mind is that Aldiss‘s definition is not a tone-free description. He doesn’t just require that elements be present, but he requires them to be present in a (melo)dramatic and grand(iose) format. It’s not enough simply to have space travel, but space must be dark, dangerous and threatening. I quite like that way of defining things as it helps me, at least, distinguish between writing that might have similar elements, but very different presentation. Whatever definition we would like to update to, I think it needs to capture the tone requirements of Aldiss’s. [/QUOTE]

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