Author PJ Hoover (THE EMERALD TABLET) poses an interesting question about writing books with humanoid aliens over at The Spectacle, about humanoid aliens. Check it out!

Her last question is: So what do you think? Humanoid aliens or not? Which do you like? Which would you write?

Here’s what I said in my comment:

In visual media I tend to just suspend any disbelief, as long as things are consistent (frex when watching Avatar I kept thinking “why do the Na’vi have four limbs, and all the other fauna on their planet have six?”).

In books, where we don’t have to worry about SFX budgets, I think it is very cool when authors create completely alien creatures. But you can’t just say they look like giant fuschia spider-apes, and then have them nodding their heads for yes and eating with forks and forming democracies and listening to rock music. You have to provide a whole alien culture that also makes sense. Off the top of my head I can’t think of very many MG/YA sf novels that do that.

I myself spent a bunch of time thinking about this when writing my third novel (CIRCUS GALACTICUS, tween sf due out in 2011). Part of the reason I was writing it in the first place was to try to capture that feeling that science was cool and that space exploration could be fun and exciting. So at the same time I really wanted to try to make it an accessible story. A down-to-earth story. For me, that meant making my aliens very “human”. So I built an explanation for the similarities into the fabric of the world of the novel and the plot. Hopefully will make sense to readers. I guess I will find out!

I am curious to hear what others say, and if there are any examples of really well done non-humanoid aliens in YA/MG lit that anyone can recommend.

Tags: circus galacticus