What fools these mortals be

Aliens are unique to science fiction.

In no story about detectives solving a murder or heiresses wondering what baron to wed will you find anything told from the point of view of a nonhuman intelligent creature. All other genres, from Westerns to War Stories to Historical drama to mainstream tales about college professors cheating on their wives, are told from within the human realm of human nature and can never leave it. In science fiction and in science fiction alone is there an opportunity to step outside the human realm, and turn, and look, and to see the mask of man from the outside.  Only in science fiction can we speculate on what humans look like to intelligent nonhumans.

Science fiction has this unique property because it is the only genre where the readers will accept the introduction of props, settings and characters which do not exist now on Earth or at any time in the historical past. All other genres are restricted by their readers to the confines of the real; and, as a matter of fact, extraterrestrial intelligences do not exist now on Earth or at any time in the historical past. By definition, a story with a nonhuman extraterrestrial character is science fiction.

A broader question is how well (if at all) we humble human authors can invent and readers can imagine anything from a point of view other than a human one.

If the task is absurd or impossible, then this unique aspect of science fiction is trivial.

If the task is feasible, and can be done and done well, then this unique aspect of science fiction grants the genre a profound purpose—a purpose far deeper than the mere telling of tall tales about earthmen fencing four-armed green Martian savages to rescue a kidnapped space princess.

If the task is feasible then science fiction is the only place to go, the only vantage where to stand, to look at mankind, because it and it alone steps away and turns and looks at humanity from the outside.

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Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.