Grand-scale science fiction set across galaxies, featuring epic conflicts, interstellar travel, and sweeping adventure.
Space opera is science fiction at its most cinematic and ambitious. It spans galaxies, features empires and armadas, and tells stories where the fate of civilizations hangs in the balance. Scientific accuracy is optional; emotional and narrative scale is mandatory. Think of it as epic fantasy's cousin in space. The label was originally a put-down (like 'soap opera') but has been fully reclaimed.
Space opera is one of the most commercially successful and culturally influential science fiction subgenres. It teaches you to manage massive scope while keeping readers emotionally invested. If your science fiction instincts pull toward grandeur, spectacle, and big casts, this is likely your home.
A warship's consciousness in a human body navigating an interstellar empire, with radical experiments in pronoun and identity.
Near-future space opera grounded in realistic physics and political tension across the solar system.
Space opera through the lens of an ambassador navigating an empire's politics, proving the genre works at intimate scale too.
Big explosions and fleet battles only matter if readers care about the people involved. Ground your galactic stakes in personal ones.
If your aliens are humans with forehead ridges, you're wasting the genre's potential. Push yourself to imagine genuinely different civilizations.
Write a scene set on a space station where two characters from different civilizations meet for the first time. Convey the scale of their galactic context through small, concrete details: what they eat, what they consider polite, what technology they take for granted. Big worlds are built from small moments.