Planetary romance

Planetary romance[1] (other synonyms are sword and planet,[2][3][4][5] and planetary adventure[citation needed]) is a subgenre of science fiction or science fantasy in which the bulk of the action consists of adventures on one or more exotic alien planets, characterized by distinctive physical and cultural backgrounds.

Some planetary romances take place against the background of a future culture where travel between worlds by spaceship is commonplace; others, particularly the earliest examples of the genre, do not, invoking flying carpets, astral projection, or other methods of getting between planets.

[7] In Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels (1985), editor and critic David Pringle named Marion Zimmer Bradley and Anne McCaffrey as two "leading practitioners nowadays" for the planetary romance type of science fiction.

Second, hard science fiction tales are excluded from this category, where an alien planet, while being a critical component of the plot, is just a background for a primarily scientific endeavor, such as Hal Clement's Mission of Gravity,[7] possibly with embellishments.

Allen Steele writes that while the label "space opera" has been posted on any story away from Earth, it stands apart from "planetary romance", which he describes as a "close cousin" of "space opera".