One of the things I love most about science fiction is the space it provides for writers to stretch their imaginations. Aliens are a prime example of this. Sure, there are many sci-fi stories that are full of beings that are essentially humans but with blue skin or pointy ears, but every so often a writer will conjure up an otherworldly creature that feels truly alien.
I find it particularly interesting to read from the perspective of such an extraterrestrial for two reasons. Firstly, it’s fascinating being placed into the consciousness of a being that sees and experiences the world in a totally different way to humans. Secondly, it can sometimes provide an outside perspective from which to view humanity, highlighting just how strange we ourselves are as organisms.
Below are five such short stories that adopt an alien point of view.
“The Monster” by A.E. van Vogt (1948)
Enash and his fellow crew members land on Earth as part of a reconnaissance mission. Their species, the Ganae, have a rapidly growing population so they’re constantly searching the universe for planets to colonize. When they touch down on Earth (well, a far-future version of it), they find that all of the animals—including humans—are long dead.
But before claiming the Earth as their own, the invading aliens need to know whether the planet itself had something to do with humankind’s demise (and that therefore might be a threat to them too). They’ve cracked the technology for resurrection, so they head to a museum where they can speak to humans throughout history in an effort to understand what happened. This backfires on them in spectacular fashion.
Although the Ganae aren’t the most alien of all the aliens on this list, this role-reversed first contact story is still intriguing—in large part thanks to seeing how humanity has developed. Some of the ideas are admittedly a bit silly, but I think that just adds to the fun.
“Odd Attachment” by Iain M. Banks (1982)
“Odd Attachment” is told from the perspective of a large plant-like alien called Fropome. He begins the story lamenting the fact that the female plant he’s in love with doesn’t pay him any attention. He’s grasping at straws in his lovesick state, so when he sees what he describes as a “big seed pod” (i.e. a human spaceship) descend from the sky, he takes it as a sign from the universe that she actually does love him.
Fropome is perplexed by the alien that comes out of the pod, but his thoughts are still dominated by his unrequited love, leading to a rather careless first encounter with humankind. Not only is it entertaining to view a human being through a sentient plant’s eyes, but this story also has a darkly funny ending.
“They’re Made Out of Meat” by Terry Bisson (1991)
For a story that is far more about humans than it is aliens, check out “They’re Made Out of Meat,” which can be read in just a few minutes. The entire story is comprised of a conversation between two aliens who have come across Earth. They’re utterly shocked to discover that, as the title suggests, humans are made out of meat. The physical form of the two extraterrestrials isn’t described, but given how horrified they are by humans, they certainly aren’t meat-based.
This hilarious short story is likely to make you very aware of your own body and how strange it is. Plus, the ending provides one possible answer to the Fermi paradox—the discrepancy between the likelihood of extraterrestrial life being out there and at the same time, our complete lack of evidence for such life.
“The Things” by Peter Watts (2010)
“The Things” is a retelling of John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982) from the POV of the Thing itself (okay… I’ll now try to limit my use of the word “thing”). We soon learn that the Thing extraterrestrial biomass is just as disgusted by humans as we are by it. From our perspective, it’s a body horror nightmare that, by assimilating us, erases our individual identities. From its perspective, we’re isolated beings and assimilation—or in its own words, “communion”—is a pleasurable feeling of completeness.
Finding ourselves in the head of an otherworldly creature that thinks that the violent joining of cells is good, actually, is exactly as disconcerting as it is fascinating. While Carpenter’s film offers a buffet of horror delights, Watts’s short story is far more sharply focused on existential terror.
It is possible to read this story without having seen The Thing, but I do think it’s more rewarding to be familiar with the human perspective first (plus it’s an incredible movie!).
“We Have a Cultural Difference, Can I Taste You?” by Rebecca Ann Jordan (2016)
This short story is set at an intergalactic school where the student population is comprised of an eclectic mix of beings from many different planets. But even at a school that is as accepting of differences as this one, Filo/Gee doesn’t really fit in. Most of the students are bipeds, while Filo/Gee is an amoeba-like being (although a fair bit bigger than Earth’s tiny amoebas) who experiences the world via sound and taste. The latter sense works best when they fully absorb objects into their gelatinous body, but that doesn’t go down so well with some of the other students.
The story is a bit heartbreaking at times—with Filo/Gee being misunderstood and mistreated by pretty much everyone at the school, students and staff alike—but it’s ultimately an uplifting tale about overcoming differences.
Please feel free to share your own recommendations of stories told from an alien perspective—whether they’re short stories (like the ones above) or full-length novels (like the ones on this list!).
A lot of Adrian Tchaikovsky’s books are told partially though as alien perspective. Children of Time mixes Spider chapters with Human chapters, Shroud is at least partially from the pov of the alien give mind beings, Sidelight is massively from the perspective of a spider magically changed into a more of less human shape.
“The Dance of the Changer and the Three” by Terry Carr is a famous one from 1968.
“The Things” may refer to the movie “The Thing”, but remember too that the movie was based on the short story “Who Goes There?” by John Campbell.
At the other end from very ‘alien’ portrayals of, well, aliens, there’s Becky Chamber’s The Galaxy, and the Ground Within, which has no human characters at all. But despite being alien, all the characters are somewhat relatable.
(I realise this reads as being a bit negative, these books have as much as place on my bookshelf as, eg, Adrian Tchaikovsky. It’s just a different sort of story)
My last two Analog stories, “Aleyara’s Descent” and “Aleyara’s Flight,” and the third story “Skin in the Game” coming late this year, are set in the preindustrial past of an alien world, so they’re entirely from the perspective of beings who have never heard of humans or anything Earthly. It makes it a challenge to describe them and their world to the reader without using references to Earthly things. I have to settle for subtly hinting at things like their planet’s gravity being lower than Earth’s and the air denser, and hope it comes across to the reader.
I actually wrote “Aleyara’s Descent” in 1997, but gave up on selling it because I figured I’d need to establish the Biauru in stories or novels told from a human perspective before I could go back and tell stories about their deep history. I’d planned to incorporate it into a novel that would have a frame story of starfaring humans contacting their world with flashbacks revealing their history, inspired by the format Diane Duane used in Star Trek: Spock’s World to frame her survey of Vulcan history. And over the years, as I ended up doing mostly Star Trek novels myself, my plans for original novels stalled. But a few years back, I realized I’d run out of other stories to submit, so I took a chance on “Descent,” and Trevor Quachri bought it and made it my first Analog cover story, so I realized I didn’t need the crutch of a human perspective to make the stories accessible.
Love these recs. A couple of my favorite books are favorites precisely because of the deliciously alien perspectives in them:
Arkady Martine’s A Desolation Called Peace
Vernor Vinge’s A Deepness in the Sky
Vernor Vinge’s A Fire upon the Deep
I think this fascination with the ultimate Other is also what drives the wide appeal of mind ships, drones, and murderbots, a la Banks and Wells and others.
DAE recall a short story from the POV of a married couple who get caught up in civil unrest on Earth? They are taken care of by a group of humans, which also includes a married couple, one of whom dies to buy everyone else time to get to safety.
The alien couple take every opportunity to touch each other, preferably sexually. They assume that humans can’t really love because the human couple communicates through wordless glances when they bother to make eye contact at all. So they report back to their people that Earthlings are basically unemotional meat machines, after having been saved at the cost of a human life.
I have long since lost the magazine but the story sticks with me after 30-ish years.
Stephen Goldin edited an original anthology of stories like this, The Alien Condition. The best known is probably Alice Sheldon’s “Love is the Plan the Plan is Death”.
I was making sure someone mentioned “Love is the Plan the Plan is Death.” Such a delight!
“Acts” by William Sanders, told from the point of view of an alien talent-agent, who sends a rising comedian to a backwater planet, with unexpected results.