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Originally Posted by jgaiser
I posted this over on Goodreads but I personally like this definition of Space Opera (from Wikipedia)
Hartwell and Cramer define space opera as "colorful, dramatic, large-scale science fiction adventure, competently and sometimes beautifully written, usually focused on a sympathetic, heroic central character and plot action, and usually set in the relatively distant future, and in space or on other worlds, characteristically optimistic in tone. It often deals with war, piracy, military virtues, and very large-scale action, large stakes."
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As Wikipedia notes, everyone's definition seems to be different.
And unless we go by the original "hacky, grinding, stinking, outworn, spaceship yarn", our definitions are wrong. :P In my day, it was basically synonymous with "space western" - spaceships instead of horses, aliens instead of Indians, and almost inevitably a war setting...