This book is to some extent a companion to the earlier Hard SF Renaissance but to a larger extent a parallel volume to that book and its predecessor The Ascent of Wonder; this book considers "space opera" as a separate entity from hard SF, and extends its purview back to the begining of the SF genre to show how stories that have been described by that label have changed, along with the reputation of the term. Stories thus range from 1929 into the beginning of the 21st century.