The Star by Arthur C. Clarke is a short story that I read for this week's space opera lesson. While only four pages this introspective story offers up enough information for me to confidently agree with its space opera classification. The first and fore most criteria in this science fiction sub genre would be the fact that it is located in or pertaining to space. In this story a group of human explorers proceed to investigate a small nebula slowly expanding from a supernova star. The story doesn't shy away from exploring the more technical aspects of space and space travel associated with science fiction but also contains the melodrama necessary to be an Opera.
This operatic drama is provided in a rather unique way, using ideas like alien civilizations to examine and age old and forever relevant quandary of how can God allow bad things to happen if he exists. This story is told by a Father who finds himself questioning his own faith and unable to keep up that of the crew after discovering the last remnants of a beautiful civilization, much like humanity, which had been slowly preparing for their mass extinction due to the degradation of their star. Whether fiction or reality, mass deaths like these always invoke the feeling of divine abandonment and leave humans wondering 'why?'.
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