When wearing my science fiction writer’s hat, I haven’t found my day job as a space lawyer uniformly helpful. Sure, it’s great for my bourgeois, legal science fiction but not so much for the space opera. Until now.
I have long thought that my Waking Late trilogy — which covers the tale of a cryo-frozen space marine trapped on a lost, medieval colony planet — was space opera.
Then one day, while rambling around on Facebook, I ran across a discussion which cast doubt on my happy assumption. Someone suggested that space opera has to take place in space, in spaceships, not planetside. Space stations were fine, too. They were in space.
I may have turned a little pale. What was Waking Late? It takes place entirely on the ground, but I’ve been categorizing it as space opera. The newly released audio version reached the Top 100 in the Space Opera sub-genre today, however briefly.
It was at this moment of crisis when my legal training finally came in handy for the space opera. Some of you will have already guessed the answer, and you are correct. According to the Outer Space Treaty, my Waking Late series is space opera.
It works like this. Although the treaty neglects to mention where outer space begins, it’s very clear about what outer space includes. Outer space includes planets. It says so. For example, Article I says “Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, shall be free for exploration and use…” In most instances (I suspect it’s all of them, if memory serves), wherever the treaty mentions “outer space” the drafters made sure to throw in that outer space includes the Moon and other celestial bodies. During my legal career I have many times pointed out the flaws in this, noting that anyone remotely conversant with science fiction would agree with me that once you reach another planet you are no longer in outer space. You are on the ground. And, if you reach a planet like my fictional one, you can breathe. Nonetheless, that’s what the treaty says, and the planet Nwwwlf is a celestial body. Therefore, since outer space includes Nwwwlf, my little trilogy is space opera.
Just like in my youth when I handled black lung cases and had to contend with “legal pneumoconiosis” (which means that even though you don’t have medical pneumoconiosis you are entitled to benefits), I think I can say that planetside science fiction can be “legal space opera.”
So, please check out the audio version of Waking Late. It contains Sleeping Duty, Out of the Dell, and Like a Continental Soldier. You may listen secure in the knowledge that it is legally classified as space opera. Also, my publisher Podium Audio did a great job with the recording. And the cover.