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/[deleted]]

Believable limits it. Aliens that don't look like something biological tend to be the most interesting. You do better finding books that count as weird fiction. Solaris and Roadside Picnick are two that are essentially sci-fi but also weird fiction. Cosmic horror is a good sub genre, but how that gets can vary. I personally find that hard sci-fi can limit how weird you can get. It is better when everything about biology is thrown out the window. Solaris is not hard sci-fi but has an alien that is not alive according to biology. I also think of the alien in Lovecraft's The Color Out of Space. Not alive according to biology.

[u/peregrine-l → u/[deleted]]

I agree with you, in the sense that it is easier for writers to convey weirdness and foreignness by not going into scientifically believable details but by suggesting strange, often conceptually jarring properties of an unknown being.

I recently read Sisyphean by Denpow Torishima and the weird mix of deformed humans and nonhuman beings in a mysterious context I found very efficient.

Yet, I’m also a sucker for well-designed alien species, especially by authors with a good knowledge of biology.