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Top Ten Aliens |
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The Affront |
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The Cheela |
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Vorlons |
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Tines |
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Pak Protectors |
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Dark Star Alien |
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The Alien |
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Wheelers |
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Jophur |
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The Thing |
In no particular order, ten of my favourite science fiction aliens.
The affront are seriously over the top. Appearing in Iain Banks' "Culture" novels, the affront were named for their habit of treating ambassadors as food parcels. Jovially offensive, bumptious and violent, they are hugely entertaining. Consider an affront banquet - where the cutlery consists of small weapons such as harpoons, and the dishes scamper live around an inner track of the table...
Really out on a limb, the Cheela are particularly weird physically. Well, you would have to be, to live on the surface of a neutron star. About the size of a pinhead, built of condensed matter, and living life at such a furious pace they can produce a short wavelength laser waving a mirror by 'hand'... The Cheela are the product of the fertile mind of Robert Forward, in this case his excellent book "Dragon's Egg". The physics of this weird race is more realistic than you would think!
Part of the time he comes up with extreme ideas for NASA, and if he can't find a real use for it, it goes into his SF. And unlike Arthur C Clarke, he remembered to copyright his idea for an orbit!
To my mind, Babylon 5 was the best science fiction to ever hit television by a mile. And while many of the aliens were essentially funny looking humans, (Centauri, Narn, and Minbarri certainly aren't very different from humans), there were a couple of real gems. And perhaps the best of them were Vorlons. In season one they were pretty standard mysterious and powerful types, nothing very special. But as things develop their ruthless side becomes more and more evident, (while remaining completely compatible with the early episodes). By season 4 they are almost indistinguishable from the bad guys.
Taken from Vernor Vinge's excellent space opera "Fire upon the deep", the Tines are definitely alien. An individual is a small pack of dog-like creatures with a shared mind, (linked by sub-sound over short distances). He has immense fun with the possibilities presented by pack minds, where a 'person' might long outlive it's members.
Larry Niven is rightly known for his aliens, with many genuinely
innovative and exciting creations to his name. Many of them from his 'known space' books.
But Pak protectors are his ultimate creation, the adult stage of a race that act as
protective grandparents, very strong, terrifyingly intelligent, and supremely patient.
Perhaps the real masterstroke was the relationship to humans - in his books humans are
basically rogue breeder stages of the Pak, that never mature.
Worth noting that Niven was frequently assisted in creature by Jack Cohen, who has written
some excellent witty and educational science books, (including the science of Discworld),
some with Ian Stewart.
A film that almost makes Dr Who look extravagent, with a low budget alien.
It looks like a beach ball with duck feet, (and I don't mean it looks a bit like that - it
looks exactly like that). And yet despite this, it manages to have great character, great
humour, (and considerable personality). Just watch it tap its feet, clearly not satisfied
with the bowl of food slid in front of it!
Proof that talent can defeat the lowest of budgets.
From the film of the same name. You've all seen this one, right? H. R. Giger's classic design for a deadly alien beast, made all the more effective by the tiny amount of time it actually spends on screen.
Giger's work is too well known to need much more publicity, but if you like his stuff, his large format book "Necronomicon" will make your flesh crawl
When Jack Cohen started writing his own SF, he excelled himself with the aliens, and produced a first rate fast and fun space opera in 'Wheelers' A species with so many genders that they themselves aren't sure how many, (low thirties?!). Of course, if you float through the atmosphere of Jupiter, you want to remain light, so why not excrete excess metal? As machinery?
How exotic do you want to get? Well, in David Brin's case try the Jophur a race that looks like a pyramidal stack of donuts with tendrils. Their memory is stored as layers of wax that they read by stroking it - this also means they decide directly what to remember as they manipulate memory directly. Brin's uplift books have many weird species, but none weirder than these round tubular chemical factories. Traeki and Jophur are essentially very similar, but the Traeki are peaceful where as the Jophur with their master toruses are widely, (and wisely), feared.
From John Carpenters film of the same name - despite the naff 50's title, its a great monster film. You could almost consider it the opposite of 'Alien' - in this one the beast is everywhere. A great paranoid tale of a shape shifting alien that could be anyone or anything. The effects of the thing changing shape are brilliantly repulsive, particularly when you think that they predate computer graphics. Based on the excellent short story by the father of SF, John Campbell. (And that one had the much better title of 'Who goes there?').
All too often aliens in television science fiction just are not very alien at all. American television SF in particular is guilty of this, with no worse offender than Star Trek.
Not only are almost all their aliens essentially human (in outlook as well as appearance), most of them are essentially American in terms of values. It seems that in 'Star Trek' to be alien all you need to do is stick a Cornish pastie on your head and waffle about honour... Or perhaps that should be stick a waffle on your head and honour a Cornish pastie...)
In Doctor Who, at least most of them actually were rather alien. But they tended to become 'monster of the week'. And I don't care what anyone says, an up-ended waste paper basket with a sink plunger is NOT frightening!
Star Wars seem to have them fall into one of two camps - either they are essentially unusual looking humans, (Wookies, Ewoks etc), or they are animals and toy like marketing opportunities. They are all there for set decoration, rather than having any intrinsic alien qualities.
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