How Inhuman?

[M.]

Hey everyone :)

I'm new here and just wanted to discuss how 'human' the main characters have to be for you to get really involved in the romantic aspect. Do you prefer them to be fairly human (i.e. different skin colour, slight modifications like a cylon), humanoid (i.e. twileks, other aliens that are typically human except for a few small modifications), or fully alien (i.e. different body shape, different genders/no genders, different genitals).

I've always had a bit harder time getting into the fully alien stuff, but I can see the appeal in non-romantic plot lines. I think for me it's just a matter of it being slightly harder to empathize with the romance between two very different species, yet at the same time I definitely want to read a book where it was done convincingly.

I could definitely see the forbidden love / taboo aspects of the relationship working for me.

What about everyone else?

[mlady_rebecca]

Not sure what twileks are, and last time I checked cylons are robots. (I'm an old school Battlestar Galactica fan. Could never get into the re-boot.)

But using my own definitions of human, humanoid, and completely alien, I'd say the furthest afield I've seen, in a romantic context, is humanoid.

I'd consider humanoid to be bipedal, sentient creatures with the same 5 senses we have. So that would include some of the individuals you classify as fully alien.

* No gender - although I can't think of a book at the moment, there was an old Star Trek: The Next Generation episode with Riker and a gender neutral character.

* Different genitals - Hmmm, I've read about a true fully functional hermaphrodite, male characters with two penises, and another male character that had "extras" in the form of tentacles.

Not sure how you'd classify furry cat-like creatures that walk on two feet and are sentient, but I'd call them humanoid, as well. Same with reptile like creatures.

In fact, I have a hard time thinking of an alien species - beyond some sort of blob like creature - that I'd consider completely alien. Reminds me of the old Star Trek (I think Next Gen) episode where they found out all of the humans and Klingons and Vulcans ... were seeded from a common ancestor.

Closest I can think of to completely alien was an insectoid like creature. In that case, there was affection, maybe even love, but no physical sex.

Were you looking for titles?

[M.]

Not necessarily, though more books are always nice :) Mostly I'm just trying to find out how alien is too alien that it would turn off people who want there to be romance. Like, would people love a romance between a hut and a human or would they rather a twi'lek and a human.

[mlady_rebecca]

Here are the books from msg 2.

Dara Joy has cat-like aliens, although they look human.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20...

But as for the furry version of cat-like aliens, I was thinking of Lisanne Norman. Her books are more sf, but they have a romantic plotline, as well.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14...

I think she also had a lizard like alien, but there was no romance there. Sex, but no romance. The other lizard like alien that was coming to mind was from the tv series "V" - the original, not the re-boot.

As for the insectoid alien where there was platonic love, I was thinking of Vel from Anne Aguirre's "Grimspace" series. Again, more sf than sf romance.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18...

The males with two penises was Morgan Hawke:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23...

The last two are more fantasy than sf, but I was thinking of Laurell K. Hamilton. The hermaphrodite is in her "Anita Blake" series and the male with tentacles is in her "Merry Gentry" series:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25...

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10...

[mlady_rebecca]

Anjasa wrote: "Like, would people love a romance between a hut and a human or would they rather a twi'lek and a human. "

Okay, what's a twi'lek and what's a hut?

The first sounds like a Twilight reference and the second only brings to mind Jabba the Hut from "Return of the Jedi".

[M.]

Yea, I was using two star wars races :) Twi'leks are http://bellobitesback.files.wordpress...

And thanks for the books!

[mlady_rebecca]

Thanks for the clarification. They look vaguely familiar.

[AnnaM]

Hi! I prefer a humanoid h/h particularly if there's sex in the story. I can handle them looking or being a bit different, but I can't handle things like tails used as genitalia, or spiders or lizards being the basis of the difference. Most aliens are based in part on creatures from Earth. Robots don't bother me at though. Don't know why.

Now a non-sexual Romance could have any type of characters. In the Grimspace books I'm reading there's a romance between the insectoid Vel and human Jax. But there's no sex. It doesn't bother me at all. I've read lots of cyborg/genetically modified human stories that are good.

[TravelingGal]

Cottonwood by R. Lee Smith features a non-platonic love story between an insectoid alien and a human. The book itself is very dark - mainly because of the overall theme of the book - but the love story is very touching.

Starkissed by Lanette Curington features an alien of reptile descent handled in what I thought was a very realistic manner. Also a really nice love story.

[namericanwordcat]

Humanoid usually but as with anything good writing can pull off all sorts of wonders.