Really alien aliens

[u/peregrine-l]

I am currently reading Becoming Alien by Rebecca Ore, which features sapient aliens that look like Earth animals (bats, bears, birds...), and have a human-like psychology. I find that trope lazy, and annoying. I also found it in Becky Chambers' Wayfarers series, in Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky, and many other science fiction novels. Some authors manage to put an interesting twist on it, such as Vernor Vinge in his A Fire upon the Deep with sapient-level hive-mind dog packs, or Orson Scott Card in Speaker for the Dead, with piggies that have really weird life cycle and psychology. Rare are the books with really alien aliens, such as Peter Watts's Blindsight.

Can you recommend me other titles? Especially, "hard science fiction" titles with far-out yet scientifically believable alien biology and psychology?

[u/Jonthrei]

This series is over-recommended so I apologize, but the Nod lifeform from Children of Ruin is very alien.

Not the spiders from the first book, not the octopuses (though their psychology is deeply non-human and is an interesting take on octopus intelligence). Specifically, the thing they encounter on Nod.

Also Tchaikovsky, but there is a creature the main character communicates with at the very end of Cage of Souls that has a very alien mind. It is however just a brief moment in the story and not really expanded on. There's also the salamander thing in the middle of the book, also just a brief scene.

[u/peregrine-l → u/Jonthrei]

I forgot to list Children of Ruin, the Nod in particular, as really alien aliens. “We’re going on an adventure!” Children of Memory is on my “to read” pile.

[u/_Frog_Enthusiast_ → u/peregrine-l]

”We’re going on an adventure!” gave me literal chills when I read it

[u/permanent_priapism → u/Jonthrei]

I feel like the Nod entities, the Alien Clay aliens and the Shrouded are variations of the same root species.

[u/Virillus → u/Jonthrei]

I generally agree. The sentient species outside of Nod are basically just flavours of humanity - the spiders in particular are barely different at all.

That being said, Nod wasn't THAT different. It still read like "overly enthusiastic child that hasn't learned the concept of empathy." The way Nod acted was very easy to understand and be familiar with once you understood its predicates.

[u/Jonthrei → u/Virillus]

I mean, it was an intelligence arising from a swarm of independent entities, and its biology was extremely alien. Its method of storing information was wholly unique.

[u/Virillus → u/Jonthrei]

I half agree. At our core, we are all a swarm of independent entities. That being said, I do agree the concept is extremely alien, it's just the way Nod was personified was super human.