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Jump to navigationJump to searchSalvation by Peter F Hamilton (view source)
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Apparently the term ''space opera'' was coined in 1941 as a pejorative. It was borrowed not from the high-brow musical art form, but from the common or garden 'soap opera'. It related to a particular kind of science fiction which the coiner (one Wilson Tucker) described as a ''hacky, grinding, stinking, outworn, spaceship yarn"''. It would be fifty years later before the term started to be re-appropriated to cover – if still the same themes of distant futures, military conflict, heroism and a simplistic set of values – more literary, more expansive works. The term is now taken as compliment.
Space opera has moved from soap opera to a purer form of opera. Whether you think that is a good thing or not is a matter of personal taste. This review represents mine…and my answer is no. I am not an opera fan. I find the form unnecessarily complex, even pretentious and I don't like the music. When it comes to space opera…I'm probably old school…I like the simpler stories…(for which read Anne McCaffrey's ''Pern'' stories)…the stories that are at the fantasy end of sci-fi, arguably the more romantic stories. Or, I like my Sci-fi to be emphasising the science (see ''The Wandering Earth'' by Cixin Liu) which tends to lend itself to the short-story format. In that light, I struggled with ''Salvation''.
