Space Opera vs Military Sci-Fi
My DarkGalaxy books certainly have plenty of all that. But they have a lot of space opera elements as well. They are set in a spacefaring civilization in the far future. Technology is ubiquitous and secondary to the story. The universe is big, there are empires, political conflicts and intrigue. The action ranges across a good portion of a whole galaxy. It also has a romantic element which distinguishes it from most HardScienceFiction: big love stories, epic space battles, oversized heroes and villains, and awe-inspiring scenery.
My books could never be accused of being hard sci-fi,
by the way. Hard Sci-Fi makes some attempt to relate the imagined
future to real science, and all the artificial gravity, FTL and such
like in my latest book automatically disqualifies it from being
considered for too long as being on the «harder» end of the sci-fi
spectrum. I don’t, for example, worry too much about the science
behind how robots gain AI in my setting, but I do put some thought
into what that means for society. Robots do not automatically become
intelligent slaves, there to do their masters’ bidding, which means
a lot of reliance still on drones and dumb systems. There is even the
cautionary tale of an extinct species represented now only by the
artificial biomechanoids they fashioned to serve them - who rose up
and destroyed them. So definitely not Hard sci-fi, but that still
leaves the question of whether it is space opera or military sci-fi.
According to Wikipedia:
The key
distinction of military science fiction from space opera is that the
principal characters in a space opera are not military personnel, but
civilians or paramilitary. Military science fiction also does not
necessarily always include an outer space or multi-planetary setting
like space opera.
The male lead, Knave, is the only character who
starts the story in the military, and he resigns his commission
towards the end of the last book so, following Wikipedia’s
definition, I’m going to be listing this installment of the Dark
Galaxy books as space opera, when the time comes to upload it.
Whatever subgenre you happen to find them listed
under, they are a ripsnorting, mile-a-minute read with robots,
spaceships, action, and adventure, so pick up up the first book, Galaxy Dog, and start
reading now.
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