: Re: Book/Novel About aliens fearing humans - perspective delivery I read a very interesting novel or book about aliens accidentally discovering humans and finding out how dangerous they are, where

@Kaufman555

Vote Up Vote Down

Animorphs is a wonderful series for this as there are several alien perspectives that give detailed accounts of the alien nature of humans. One of the first aliens (a parasitic brain slug) to ever encounter the species is initially terrified by the transmissions from our television programs because they show that humans are capable of fielding space ships that can travel faster than light in normal space (in series, this is impossible, even for intersteller empires... it is possible to pop into another dimension where the laws of physics allow for FTL travel... but also void any consistency in distances between two fixed points... it's still reasonably quicker even if today it's a 5 hour trip and tomorrow it's a 5 year trip to the exact same location). Of course, right before she's about to get the hell out of their before the humans kill her, she realizes that she's watching Star Trek, a work of human fiction. She still has trouble of conceiving of how a species could wage war with other members of it's own species until she is able to infest a human and realizes that human minds are capable of questioning their own actions and were frequent to make bad judgement calls despite knowing just how bad the call is... she likens this to having a traitor stuck in your head. Self-doubt and even suicide are alien concepts to her.

She and other members of her species tend to hit on the idea that this dual mind of humans is also why they are the most difficult hosts to take as other races they have enslaved do eventually reach a point where they accept their fate... but humans do not shut up accept when they "rest". And they persistently belittle the aliens despite not being able to do anything about it... a few have even managed to wrest temporary control from their captors and in an attempt to be free, something no species has done.

The other aliens, which are clearly more allied with humans than against, are capable of shape shifting to other animals and one gives the human protaganists of the series this technology. His thought was that the humans would use it to hide from the evil brain slug aliens and wait them out... he had no idea that humans would weaponize the tech because, both alien powers had adaptive abilities that made them dangerous prey or top predators in their own very small environments. He had no idea that humans were relatively defenseless animals compared to other creatures on earth and that suddenly becoming an elephant was a powerful weapon. When said individual was younger, he found himself favoring Mustang Cars, the music of Rolling Stone, and the feel (not the taste, the feel) of Dr. Pepper.

Another member of his finds human culture interesting, but not the parts you would think... He goes insane for Earth Foods whenever he becomes human and his favorite television programs include Soap Operas (Particularly The Young and the Restless) and "These Messages" (aka Comercials) and couldn't understand they were not a television show. Their race also thought there must be something odd about the need for human dwellings to include as many rectangles as possible, something humans couldn't really explain because it was something they thought about.

And of course, even the humans get on the act. As the main characters are shapes-hifters and their shape-shifting brings in animal instincts, there's frequent descriptions of the initial instinctual mind of the animal... some of them have trouble separating themselves from the animal's own alien understanding and the confusion at an otherwise perfectly human object or item.

Overall a great series to read about all sorts of bizarre human through alien eyes situations from humorous to nightmare inducing (the heroes were so traumatized by their ant morphs that they are constantly reminded about it whenever the plan of the week calls for becoming an insect).

(0)

Login to post a comment!