Le Navigateur de Jacques Sternberg ou la phylogénèse parodiée du space opera

It is henceforth a commonplace; the science-fiction would be a refractory genre by nature against the definitive assimilation to the literary mainstream. We can say that the usual thematic of the genre, to which is added the irresistible propensity to prospect the future in all its forms, immunizes the SF against the “academic confinement” to the benefit of other forms of confinement. Indeed, the SF belongs to the great family of the paraliterature where the more or less listed subgenres are waiting to receive a likely definition. Popular genre which relies on a remarkable poetic, the SF is an open place to the imagination, to the verbal and the figurative creativity. It owns itself its subgenres, among other things, the space opera which was, in a way, the original matrix of the speculative fiction and of its contemporary imitators. The Sternberg’s work did not have a special vocation to feed the already rich world of the science-fiction. It constitutes however a new step liable to bring a touch of self-reflexivity, we will notice that, to the history of this genre.