Q:  What Is It About This Particular Generation’s Diversity And Point Of View That’s Different From

Q:  What is it about this particular generation’s diversity and point of view that’s different from previous generations of space opera? Martha Wells: Older science fiction, especially way back towards the 50s and 60s, anticipated these big technological changes in these far future empires and these faster-than-light ships, but they didn’t think about changes in society. And you see these older works where everybody’s in a little nuclear family and the gender roles are so stratified and stilted and everybody’s smoking. There’s just no anticipation of changes in society, not even little things like that.

And I think we’re kind of in a generation where people are imagining changes in society, how society will be different, what it might look like, and how relationships would be different and how relationships would be changed by technology and the ability to upload your consciousness or relating to a machine intelligence and all these other different things … That’s one reason why I think space opera’s gotten a lot more exciting.

- Author Event: Martha Wells In Conversation with John Scalzi, on YouTube