Inventing Plausible Aliens
One of the things that impresses me about James Cambias� novel
A Darkling Sea
is its thoroughly believable depiction of the thoughts and feelings of alien characters.
When writing about an alien, an author can make up anything he/she wants. If he/she wants to give Creature X seven arms or the power to walk through walls, well� voila, an author can, as Captain Picard likes to say, �make it so.�
Unfortunately, it�s one thing to create an alien and another to convince a reader of the alien�s plausibility. As a fan of sci-fi and fantasy, I�m always eager to suspend disbelief, but a writer has to give me something to work with. And that�s one of the wonders of A Darkling Sea: Cambias gives the reader plenty of wonderful details to make his vision complete.
He introduces two alien societies�the Sholen and the Ilmataran. As he explains in our conversation on New Books in Science Fiction and Fantasy, he came to understand the Ilmatarans through their biology �and extrapolated outward from there�:
You have a species which reproduces by spawning, which means there is virtually no difference between the sexes, and there is absolutely no parental impulse at all. Children are �they�re about at the same level people view squirrels.
He incorporates into the narrative the Ilmatarans� caste system, laws, relationships, forms of communication (through sonar and tying knots in cord), methods of scientific exploration, and on and on, weaving a complex and highly believable world at the bottom of a cold, black-as-night ocean.
Another noteworthy feature of the book is its deconstruction of the Prime Directive, the principle articulated in the Star Trek series that more advanced societies shouldn�t meddle in the inner workings of less advanced societies. In A Darkling Sea, the Sholen serve as self-appointed enforcers of the most rigid brand of Prime Directive. Under their rules, technologically advanced species (in this case, humans) are banned from any contact whatsoever with techno-inferiors (the Ilmatarans, who, in truth, may not be so backward after all).
is its thoroughly believable depiction of the thoughts and feelings of alien characters. When writing about an alien, an author can make up anything he/she wants. If he/she wants to give Creature X seven arms or the power to walk through walls, well� voila, an author can, as Captain Picard likes to say, �make it so.�
Unfortunately, it�s one thing to create an alien and another to convince a reader of the alien�s plausibility. As a fan of sci-fi and fantasy, I�m always eager to suspend disbelief, but a writer has to give me something to work with. And that�s one of the wonders of A Darkling Sea: Cambias gives the reader plenty of wonderful details to make his vision complete.
He introduces two alien societies�the Sholen and the Ilmataran. As he explains in our conversation on New Books in Science Fiction and Fantasy, he came to understand the Ilmatarans through their biology �and extrapolated outward from there�:
You have a species which reproduces by spawning, which means there is virtually no difference between the sexes, and there is absolutely no parental impulse at all. Children are �they�re about at the same level people view squirrels.
He incorporates into the narrative the Ilmatarans� caste system, laws, relationships, forms of communication (through sonar and tying knots in cord), methods of scientific exploration, and on and on, weaving a complex and highly believable world at the bottom of a cold, black-as-night ocean.
Another noteworthy feature of the book is its deconstruction of the Prime Directive, the principle articulated in the Star Trek series that more advanced societies shouldn�t meddle in the inner workings of less advanced societies. In A Darkling Sea, the Sholen serve as self-appointed enforcers of the most rigid brand of Prime Directive. Under their rules, technologically advanced species (in this case, humans) are banned from any contact whatsoever with techno-inferiors (the Ilmatarans, who, in truth, may not be so backward after all).
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