Scott Aaronson:
Can’t we imagine the SF writers reasoning that they’re never going to succeed anyway in creating “real aliens,” so they might as well abandon that goal from the outset and concentrate on telling a good story?
Personally, I recall often hearing both writers and readers mention that you shouldn’t try to make your characters genuinely alien—not because it’s hard, but because readers will have a difficult time understanding and emphasizing with totally alien characters, thus detracting from their enjoyment. I even read some reviews of Egan’s Diaspora where people complained about the characters being too alien—considering that those were still pretty human in my eye, it seems like it’s rather easy for people to get that feel. From reading one of the Uplift novels, I can relate—there were aliens there who were sufficiently alien that I did found them rather interesting, but definitely couldn’t relate to them on an emotional level.
Scott Aaronson: Can’t we imagine the SF writers reasoning that they’re never going to succeed anyway in creating “real aliens,” so they might as well abandon that goal from the outset and concentrate on telling a good story?
Personally, I recall often hearing both writers and readers mention that you shouldn’t try to make your characters genuinely alien—not because it’s hard, but because readers will have a difficult time understanding and emphasizing with totally alien characters, thus detracting from their enjoyment. I even read some reviews of Egan’s Diaspora where people complained about the characters being too alien—considering that those were still pretty human in my eye, it seems like it’s rather easy for people to get that feel. From reading one of the Uplift novels, I can relate—there were aliens there who were sufficiently alien that I did found them rather interesting, but definitely couldn’t relate to them on an emotional level.