identifying with characters

[Micah]

Dan wrote: "...I can say, "I find that all writers use only three types of men in their writing: 1) short men - those less than 5'2", 2) medium men - those between 5'2" and 6'2", and 3) tall men - those over 6'2"... After I make such a statement, and I think Micah's classification of aliens is similar..."

Only once again you're conflating three arbitrary categories with the ones I observed when thinking about aliens. In literary terms, classifying characters by height makes no sense. Character height serves no purpose in stories in general.

My alien categories came about, however, from me thinking to myself "Why do I find the aliens in most SF books, TV, and films to be so utterly un-alien?"

Reason one: most of them sound like, act like, and think like humans no matter what body shape they're in. That's not necessarily a bad or lazy thing. It's more a function of how much you want your readers to be able to understand the alien characters.

Reason two: another large bulk of them are in the story only to serve as the central point of conflict. And what's more conflict driving than a weird monster that wants to kill you and take all your stuff?

And that left a small minority of truly alien-seeming aliens who were normally on the borders of the story and remained in large parts enigmas. The truly alien is, by its very alien-ness going to be incomprehensible.

Red Dwarf break...
Rimmer: Look, you're not thinking alien. That's what aliens are: alien. They do alien things. Things that are... alien!

So each of the categories I described have actual literary purposes. If you need a POV alien, your readers have to be able to understand their actions and motivations; that makes them more human. If your story requires more visceral scariness, then you need the ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal: a monster. If you need a truly believable alien, then you're likely in need of an enigmatic race, something that defies human thought and logic (no matter how tall it is).

[Scott]

Last night I listened to a conversation between Sam Harris and Neil DeGrasse Tyson, and part of it was a discussion about alien intelligence. Tyson pointed out that we share most of the same DNA with the other creatures of this planet (over 99% similarity with chimpanzees in particular) and we don't communicate on the same level, then posited that we'd have even less genetic similarity with creatures from another galaxy, so...... maybe the "enigma" portrayal is the most realistic.

[Micah]

Scott wrote: "Last night I listened to a conversation between Sam Harris and Neil DeGrasse Tyson, and part of it was a discussion about alien intelligence. Tyson pointed out that we share most of the same DNA wi..."

Exactly.

I just finished reading Blindsight, and while I didn't like the book all that much -- it was OK -- I do have to give kudos for its alien(s). It's about the best portrayal of a realistic first encounter as I've ever seen. We learn some about the thing by the end, but we still end up with a profound feeling of how different the thing is. As in, we probably will never ever be able to fully comprehend it (as long as we insist on staying human).

It's of the enigma variety, but it's deeper and more complex than just an unseen, unknown entity.

Probably worth reading just for that. Still, it's a pretty dense Hard SF work.