logoalt Hacker News

nosianuyesterday at 7:38 PM3 repliesview on HN

> Good science fiction where the aliens are very alien are hard to come by.

Apart from "Solaris", which many probably know because there's been a reasonably well-known movie, I recommend "Fiasco" by the same author, Good science fiction where the aliens are very alien are hard to come by Stanisław Lem. Spoiler: It does not end well. The aliens are too alien, and the humans do what humans often do.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiasco_(novel)


Replies

bear8642yesterday at 8:21 PM

> Good science fiction where the aliens are very alien are hard to come by

I feel this is one of the reasons I liked Fire upon the Deep with the group mind based Tines

nemosaltatyesterday at 8:27 PM

In Shroud, Tchaikovsky does very alien (“real” aliens, not “uplifts”) very well. Anthropocentrically, it does not “end well.” Literarily, it vies for my favorite SciFi read of ‘25. Technically, I read “There Is No Antimemetics Division” last year, but I’d already kind of read it... or at least I think I thought I had.

uh uh, uh

thomyesterday at 7:50 PM

Wang’s Carpets usually comes up alongside Solaris as another example of deliberately alien aliens.