Kathleen Jennings discusses the enormous influence that Heyer has had on a [...]the number of science fiction writers who have referred to her or cited her. Jennings shows how Heyer’s wit and worldbuilding has its echoes in these stories that are a world away from Regency drawing rooms. (11)
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In this chapter I will trace the influence of Heyer’s Regency novels on several speculative fiction sub-genres. After a few caveats in relation to genre terminology I will look at the overlapping readerships, and then consider how speculative genre worlds have consciously and gleefully adopted Heyer’s Regencies – not only as part of the sphere of speculative fandoms, but as a formative influence on their own writing. After considering the more obvious connections with Regency fantasy and fantasy of manners, I will look at three separate, long-running series of space opera novels, the authors of which explicitly acknowledge their debts to Heyer. I will argue that the parallels that can be drawn between those series and Heyer’s Regencies not only illuminate less commonly considered (and emulated) aspects of her craft; they also suggest some less purely techno-militarist grounds for the popularity of these science fiction series. (119-120)
From the introduction to the volume:
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