if we can't begin to comprehend the truly alien, as Shir points out, then should we just give up on sci-fi altogether? Is it a pointless genre?
Sci fi doesn't have to be about aliens to be good sci fi. It can be about "just" the impact of technology on our culture.
I second the recommendation of Octavia Butler--she did a lot about the cost of alienness. I can't recommend anything of Sheri Tepper's beyond her YA stuff, which I don't think was remarkable in handling aliens. Her adult work I found shrilly one-note political.
Staying true to my words, I'll say goodnight to you too, Bitches.
Don't talk so much while I'm away, OK? I have the feeling I'll wake up tomorrow to 152 new posts in discussion I hate to miss.
Williams Gibson's stuff mostly isn't about aliens but is damned good science fiction.
Her adult work I found shrilly one-note political.
This is why The Family Tree remains the only book of hers I've read. Really annoyingly strident in her political agenda. I have similar issues with James Tiptree, Jr.--she (Alice Sheldon was her real name) was blatantly anti-male in her writing, but she did write some beautiful short stories nonetheless.
It's not necessarily a shortcoming that any given SF alien species serves as a metaphor for some aspect of humanity, either. It's a reasonable approach.
I did find that bias in Tiptree - except in "Brightness Falls from the Air" which is a CRUSHING novel, about inevitability, and cruelty, and vengeance. The writing is so beautiful that I have to re-read it every so often, but not more than once every couple of years; I find it shattering.
(I'm sure this comes as little surprise to most of the Bitches that the "James Tiptree Award" is handed out every year for SF/F that challenges assumptions about gender)
I can totally see how some of Tepper's works could be seen as one-note, ita. Some of her books I just have to roll my eyes at, but some of them, I think she has some gallow's humored, funny scenes.
"Ensign Rock" shows up in 2 (non-canon) Trek novels from the 80s, as a Starfleet Academy trainee.
It's only Ensign Rock because humans can't pronounce Horta, and he's a son of the original Horta (I personally find the series of books quite fun). And I think only the Romulans call him Ensign Rock. Diane Duane, I think, wrote them, and she has some interesting stuff about Romulans and Vulcans.
re: Sherri Tepper--
Grass, Raising the Stones,
and
Sideshow
are the ones I recommend for her, they're something of a trilogy, and there's a lot of her typical gender/social issues involved, though not as strongly as
Gate to Women's Country,
which I tend to argue with.
