SF and aliens
Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2025 7:03 am
At first it seems obvious that SF is about aliens. And yet, over 100+ years, things have changed, not very surprisingly.
Originally aliens were often BEMs (Bug Eyed Monsters) which behaved in various fairly predictable ways, not exactly human, but Terran at least. The last of these I read was Footfall (1985), where the space elephants in elevator shoes behave like herd animals, pretty much throughout. On a slightly less dull excursion OSC's piggies were at least comprehensible. As John Campbell said in exasperation, give me aliens who don't think like humans. I think we should extend that to Terrans.
Then we move onto the aliens who behave in ways we cannot understand. Of course if their motivations remain unknowable then it will probably be a dull book, so you need some resolution. Arrival is a good example, as perhaps is Annihilation (two films I will rewatch, I never got the ending of the latter). 2001 probably falls into this. A good novel on this is Embassytown by Melville. The motivations of the Xeelee in Stephen Baxter's books are mostly a mystery until it turns out that spoilers await.
And finally we have humans or humanoids which do not behave in a way we can understand (or at least like). I suppose this has been around forever- the Eloi and the Morlocks, many human cultures, The Moon Mask by Jack Vance 1961 (a damn sight better than Footfall), Ann Leckie's Ancillary justice universe, and Stephen Baxter's creepy ant-colony people in Coalescent etc.
Why did I write this? Because I am hate-reading Footfall.
Originally aliens were often BEMs (Bug Eyed Monsters) which behaved in various fairly predictable ways, not exactly human, but Terran at least. The last of these I read was Footfall (1985), where the space elephants in elevator shoes behave like herd animals, pretty much throughout. On a slightly less dull excursion OSC's piggies were at least comprehensible. As John Campbell said in exasperation, give me aliens who don't think like humans. I think we should extend that to Terrans.
Then we move onto the aliens who behave in ways we cannot understand. Of course if their motivations remain unknowable then it will probably be a dull book, so you need some resolution. Arrival is a good example, as perhaps is Annihilation (two films I will rewatch, I never got the ending of the latter). 2001 probably falls into this. A good novel on this is Embassytown by Melville. The motivations of the Xeelee in Stephen Baxter's books are mostly a mystery until it turns out that spoilers await.
And finally we have humans or humanoids which do not behave in a way we can understand (or at least like). I suppose this has been around forever- the Eloi and the Morlocks, many human cultures, The Moon Mask by Jack Vance 1961 (a damn sight better than Footfall), Ann Leckie's Ancillary justice universe, and Stephen Baxter's creepy ant-colony people in Coalescent etc.
Why did I write this? Because I am hate-reading Footfall.
