SOLVED. Late 80s/Early 90s Sci-Fi - Lots of Philosophy [s]

[Jeremy]

Over the weekend I had a discussion about science fiction books with a strong philosophical element (similar to the feel of most of L.E. Modesitt's works). I recalled reading a book that fit those parameters in the late 80s or early 90s, but I couldn't remember the title or author.

The MC was an alien that was basically described as a bear with humanlike hands. There were several other alien species depicted in the novel, one of which was insectoid.

The book may have been the first of a series. As I recall, it was fairly short - maybe 150-200 pages.

Ring any bells for anyone?

[Jeremy]

Still looking for this. *bump*

[Amanda]

The bear-like alien reminds me of H. Beam Piper's Little Fuzzy books.

[Jill]

A lot of Robert J. Sawyer's books tend toward the philosophical, but he wrote more in the mid-late '90s through today.

Do you remember any of the plot? Did it take place on Earth or another planet? A spaceship?

[Peter]

I don't think it's Little Fuzzy, since the Fuzzies were no more than 2 or 3 feet tall. It's still a great book that's available free online, though:

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18137

I can only think of a couple of bear-like aliens in science fiction that old, and neither seem to fit.

Gordon R Dickson's Spacepaw is about a human sent to a world where the inhabitants are giant humanoid bears. It's a good book but I don't think any of it was from the aliens' point of view.

The Hoka stories by Poul Anderson and Gordon R Dickson are about a race of 3 foot tall teddy bear-ish aliens who are absolutely smitten with human fiction, with hilarious results. They all tend to take on identites from various fictional settings, which confuses other races to no end and leaves their poor human allies holding the bag. One of the stories, for example, is about an interstellar baseball tournament in which the Hoka's team the Mudville Nine are the clear favorites because of their star player, Mighty Casey. Unfortunately, their opponents manage to get "Casey At The Bat" played over the PA system, and all seems lost until Our Hero manages to improvise a sequel to the poem that pulls Casey out of his depressive catatonia. All the stories are ridiculous like that, but they're a hoot and a half and I highly recommend them.

Since neither of those is likely to be what you're looking for, you might take a look at the Ursine Aliens page on TV Tropes:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php...

[Juels]

The First Jewel of Earth?

[Ann aka Iftcan]

Retread Shop has a bear like alien, plus all kinds of other aliens. The only problem with that one is that the MC is a human (the only human on the Shop which is a space station that has been in place for millions of years and which is used to launch expeditions out to find "garbage" which is the cast off remains of previous star going civilizations.)

[Jeremy]

Thanks for the input folks. I checked all of your suggestions, and it's not any of those.

Here's a few more details that I dredged up: The story took place on a planet rather than in space. All of the characters were aliens of differing types; there were no human characters at all. If I recall correctly, the plot revolved around some sort of competition.

[Jeremy]

One other detail popped into my head - The writing style included a lot of flashbacks (possibly alternating chapters between current plotline and backstory?)

[Jeremy]

I found it!

It's Labyrinth by Dennis Schmidt, the first book in the Questioner Trilogy.

I described the book to a friend and he suggested that based on the fact that there are no human characters, I add the term xenofiction to my search parameters. That did the trick.

[Kris]

Great! Thanks for the update, Jeremy.