What elements do you like in a Space Opera?
For me the things I definitely like are:
- FTL. I want scope and multiple worlds with the same people.
- I like the science and tech as hard as necessary to be convincing, while still wild enough to be fascinating and different. (Yes, energy hand weapons aren't as realistic a possible tech as we once thought they might be, but I still want my pew-pew rayguns, dammit!)
- Spacecraft combat, both at small (fighter) and large (capital) scales.
- Politics and exploration, definitely.
- Action as well as drama.
- Aliens I can take or leave, but I definitely like a universe large enough to contain them even if they aren't in a given story.
- I definitely like psi/mystical powers, although not at such a level that characters without them become irrelevant to the plot.
What KILLS Space Opera for you when it raises its head?
The things that I really don't like are less specific tropes and more general attitudes, all of which can probably be summed up as anything that feels too "anti-human", or "anti-hope". Alastair Reynolds' stuff looks very bleak and cynical, as does much of Iain Banks' Culture stuff or John Scalzi's Interdependency. Hitting too hard on ideas like "no place in the universe will ever really live up to Earth as a home for humans", "transhumanism is both inevitable and dehumanizing", "people are just no damn good and won't get any better out in space", etc. I don't mind acknowledging the universe's vastness and darkness, but not at the expense of any light.