In addition to the bazillionty things I said I would do this week, I need to get my astrobiology students to pick their final project topics: they have to evaluate a work of scifi on the plausibility of its aliens using what they learned from my astrobiology course.
I've asked here before, but I'll ask again: what are some scifi works that have really great aliens and/or alien worlds?
@sundogplanets Octavia Butler's Lilith's Brood should also be on this list, as should George R. R. Martin's Nightflyers (the story at least — I know nothing about the Netflix filmification).
@sundogplanets Peter Watts Blindsight. Very interesting take, and their biology is discussed in afterword – the author is a (marine) biologist. As a bonus, there are vampires also ;)
Not translated to English, but Dukaj's Different Chants involves aliens so alien, that nothing can be reliably told about them, as the logic and physics themselves bend at the border of their influence. And the in-novel world is based on ancient Greek theories: four elements (plus aether), geocentric....
... they have to evaluate a work of scifi on the plausibility of its aliens using what they learned from my astrobiology course."
Do you mean 'what the aliens have learned from your course'? or 'how plausible the aliens in the story are' based on what your students have learned from the course?
I assume the 2nd option, but I really like the idea of aliens in your classroom. If that's the case, please offer the class online!
@sundogplanets I recall there being a wide variety of aliens in each of Piers Anthony’s “Cluster” series, Harry Harrison’s “Stainless Steel Rat” series, and Robert Asprin’s “Phule’s Company” series. Also the antagonists in Star Trek Discovery season 4 were more interesting than the usual Star Trek aliens
@GregorDeBalzac I loved the first half of nightfall, and would probably love the short story. The second half of the novel was absolutely depressing nightmarish stuff.
@sundogplanets I have to say Flatland as it's one of my favorite books though I'm not sure I'd classify the aliens as great; some of them are quite 1 dimensional.
cries because this golden toot will remain buried due to a lack of algorithm
@sundogplanets ... this is a really good question, and we feel like we were once people who would have had a dozen answers to it off the top of our head. today we're at a place in life where it just all feels so incredibly silly and we don't actually LIKE any of those books, so, hmm...
Dragon's Egg, by Robert Forward, certainly had a unique species that deserves to be mentioned in this context. the writing felt pretty flat.
@sundogplanets A Fire Upon the Deep, by Vernor Vinge, has aliens that do distributed computing with their organic bodies. That's pretty cool.
None of these stories are really trying for plausibility, only for the illusion of it, but that's fine, that's a thing students can assess for themselves.
Contact-Sagan (book & movie)
The 3 Body Problem-Liu
To be Taught if Fortunate-Chambers
Old Man's War-Scalzi
Rendezvous with Rama-Clarke
Andromeda Strain-Crichton
Alien (movie)
Project Hail Mary-Weir
Leviathan Wakes-Corey
The Expanse season 1 (show)
Arrival (movie)
Dune-Herbert (book & movie)
The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet-Chambers
Childhood's End-Clarke
Ender's Game-Card
Ammonite-Griffith
All Systems Red-Wells
The Sparrow-Russel
Fuzzy Nation-Scalzi
Left Hand of Darkness-Le Guin
Though I feel that Eden is less on biology, than sociology.
In the same sense it might be said that "Fiasco" is less about the Aliens, but rather about human psychology. Though the lifeform is interesting: Sessile, but intelligent. It's technological system informed by this difference, humans don't understand it (interpreting this through a human perspective) and more or less accidentally destroy the alien civilisation.
Adding to the things that have already been mentioned:
Greg Egan's "Permutation City" and "Schild's Ladder" (though both play with laws of physics so may not fit your purpose)
Sheri S. Tepper "Grass"
(And you are perhaps aware of the disclaimer Card's work should come with - if not just wanted to mention it, even though it's a great readable book...)
@vicgrinberg@sundogplanets I would add "Blindsight" by Alan Watts. I think I've reread it over two dozen times, because the sci fi and information density is just so great, and the aliens are the most inventive I've read so far. And once you work out what their point of view is.... most excellent. Note that it has a reference section at the back as he bases a LOT of the science on real world stuff. https://rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm
@sundogplanets I missed this question earlier and just want to shout out one of my all time favorite first contact books: Constellation Games by Leonard Richardson.
Worth considering how our understanding of both space travel and extra terrestrial life have changed with science and how they may have shrunk (considering Cavendish's work posits a portal or passage to another world).
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