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A comment on Towards a taxonomy of cliches in Space Opera (2016).

Re:Towards a taxonomy of cliches in Space Opera (2016) by sircastor on Monday September 06, 2021 @12:47AM (#28430377)
This reads a bit like someone who wants to write hard sci-fi and has been asked to write space opera. I feel like the point of space opera is the setting. The hand waving is almost a component of the genre. Your audience doesn’t need you to explain why the blerf doesn’t affect the blorf. They excuse it.
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Re:Towards a taxonomy of cliches in Space Opera (2016) by kybernetikos on Wednesday September 08, 2021 @08:37AM (#28456138)
He wants to achieve something in the same ballpark as what Iain M Banks achieved, and rightly thinks that's going to be hard and take a bunch of thought.

Lots of writers care about their craft, and are not pursuing the minimum that their audience will let them get away with, but rather have specific things or innovations they are looking to achieve.

> The hand waving is almost a component of the genre.

I take this post as asking "but what if it weren't".

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