Pa i nije. Ako ne postoji konsenzus po tom pitanju među više teoretičara. A ovde ne postoji.
U veoma dobroj studiji njegovog "kolege marksista" Istvana Csicseri-Ronaya piše ovako:
Space opera is sometimes said to be the quintessential form of sf narrative, not
always with flattering intent. The term was originally used for trashy, pulp sf,
much as
purists use the term “sci-fi” today to distinguish works intended purely
for entertainment from the more dignified science fiction or sf. But the term has
become a descriptive one (also like sci-fi), signifying spectacular romances set
in vast, exotic outer spaces, where larger-than-life protagonists encounter a variety
of alien species, planetary cultures, futuristic technologies ...
Moj bold je na ovo purists. Meni to deluje kao ograda, kao nešto što ipak nije široko prihvaćeno.
Takođe u endnoti:
Most sophisticated theoretical approaches to sf tend to disparage the formulaic commodities
produced solely for mass entertainment as “sci-fi,” to be distinguished from the
semantically richer and aesthetically more complex “sf.” I shall use a similar distinction —
less for aesthetic reasons than to distinguish between two contexts of expectations, one
addressing elite artistic concerns and the other, popular entertainment. The two clearly
flow together throughout the history of the genre. The fact that I am using “sf” as shorthand
to indicate both the big tent of all forms of science fiction and the elite pole of the
genre, clearly makes “sci-fi” the marked term for me. Stockwell maintains that the genre’s
definition remains fluid because audiences’ ideas of what belongs in the class are a result
of the texts and motifs they have associated with sf in their social experience; that is, their
“prototype texts”; see Peter Stockwell, The Poetics of Science Fiction (New York: Longman,
2000), 6–8. People will revise their sense of what defines this class as they gain more experience
with other putative sf texts — although this process is also extremely fluid and
socially determined; these new inputs must also be seen as sf for some reason before they
are included in the mix. For lack of a better justification, my present approach — and my
relegation of “sci-fi” to the margins — is a consequence of the fact that my prototypes
have been literary and philosophical, and my adjustments have been mainly concerned
with accommodating nonliterary sf. In future work that will focus on sf in nonliterary
media, I shall address this imbalance more directly and theoretically.
Navodi su odavde:
https://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/currentstudents/undergraduate/modules/en361fantastika/bibliography/2.3csicsery-ronay_jr._i.2011the_seven_beauties_of_science_fiction.pdf