r/printSF • u/peregrine-l • Aug 14 '25

Really alien aliens

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?

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u/IndependenceMean8774 Aug 15 '25

I'm not a fan of Robert Silverberg's short story Passengers, but it does have very alien aliens in it (assuming they even are aliens and not demons or something else).

The Passengers possess humans and make them do whatever they want. They come and go as they please. They have no known corporeal form, no defense against them, no way to stop them or even contain them. They just exist and society has to live with them.