https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_opera Would anyone like to discuss Space Opera, as a subgenre of Science Fiction? Given the circumstances, I'm aware that there's more than one kind of Space Opera, but what particular kind of Space Opera do you think I'm looking for? Personally, I may need to listen to Audio Books for often, but I might look forward to listening to David Brin's Uplift Saga for example. Logically, because I'm really into Nostalgia, I probably should think about writing Nostalgic Space Opera, but have it be much less goofy than say the Guardians of the Galaxy. 2 Last Things I'd like to point out are: 1. I love Anthropomorphism, regardless of whether it's Talking Animals or Aliens who act and look kinda' Human. 2. I might decide to use Shrink Rays, even though Scientists say that's impossible, I guess that makes it also Science FANTASY rather than Pure Science Fiction. And Yes, I mean like Shrinking People down to the Size of Insects, and then killing them just by stepping on them.
I like aliens-as-animals, too. A lot of people don't. I sometimes squawk at them. My big like is spaceships. Anything with a spaceship - I'm going to love that. I know for many science fiction stories (even space operas), ships are just the thing that gets you to the planet where interesting stuff happens. But I like stories that spend some time on the ship.
Meh, I’m a mix. Sometimes I love space opera, sometimes I hate it and prefer hard sci-fi. The problem with aliens is that real aliens are likely to be so foreign to us both in how they look and more importantly how they think, that hard sci-fi is also very difficult. There is a monsterously huge thought gap between humans and our own closes genetic relatives and there is no indication that any of our thoughts are favored for convergent evolution. This makes anything with human-like drama very difficult. The most alien aliens tend to be basically ancient human groups (Klingons are basically Spartans, Vulcans are idealize Athenians...) So for explorative stuff, I prefer hard sci-fi. I do like human interest stories as well though. If the story is about how human characters react to alien condition, I have no qualms with the aliens being basically humans with pointy ears.