james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2012-09-27 11:29 pm

Not feeling inspired tonight

From my inbox: A request for the names of (living) SF writers who regularly write about weird or exotic forms of alien life. Suggestions?

Well, obviously

(Anonymous) 2012-09-28 08:17 am (UTC)(link)
Iain M. Banks

[identity profile] ffutures.livejournal.com 2012-09-28 08:44 am (UTC)(link)
John Varley
kjn: (Default)

[personal profile] kjn 2012-09-28 08:44 am (UTC)(link)
Dave Freer.

(Anonymous) 2012-09-28 10:28 am (UTC)(link)
Peter Watts

[identity profile] michaelgr.livejournal.com 2012-09-28 10:34 am (UTC)(link)
"Regularly" is a stretch, but Rosemary Kirstein has the best damn realistically exotic aliens this side of the millennium.

[identity profile] thebluerose.livejournal.com 2012-09-28 10:37 am (UTC)(link)
Julie E Czerneda

Kristine K Rusch

Lee and Miller

China Mieville

Kay Kenyon

ext_58972: Mad! (Default)

[identity profile] autopope.livejournal.com 2012-09-28 10:43 am (UTC)(link)
Al Reynolds (at least in some of his work -- the Revelation Space universe is full of 'em).

Iain M. Banks (although they have a worrying tendency to be either Star Trek aliens (with latex face bumps) or talking squids in gas giants).

Karl Schroeder has some terrestrial-biota-derived but really alien stuff in the Virga books.

Are you looking for people who have tried to make their biology plausible, or just LOOK!!! ALIENS!!!1!!?

[identity profile] krfsm.livejournal.com 2012-09-28 11:18 am (UTC)(link)
Peter Watts. (Blindsight, "The Island", "The Things"...)

[identity profile] arielstarshadow.livejournal.com 2012-09-28 03:26 pm (UTC)(link)
You beat me to it. :)

[identity profile] brownkitty.livejournal.com 2012-09-28 01:26 pm (UTC)(link)
Octavia Butler.

Is this a request for aliens as bad guys? Or just aliens in general?

[identity profile] james-nicoll.livejournal.com 2012-09-28 03:08 pm (UTC)(link)
Butler died six years ago.
jazzfish: Jazz Fish: beret, sunglasses, saxophone (Default)

[personal profile] jazzfish 2012-09-28 03:01 pm (UTC)(link)
Amy Thomson.

(Anonymous) 2012-09-28 03:55 pm (UTC)(link)
Cherryh, particularly in the Chanur books: stsho, knnn, t'ca, hani, kif etc. Plus the atevi, majat, calibans, nighthorses, ...

-- Paul Clarke

(Anonymous) 2012-09-28 10:08 pm (UTC)(link)
Niven. Whatever you might think of his aliens' psyches, he at least avoids the vertebrate chauvinism common in the field.

[bandersnatchi, outsiders, Puppeteers, kzinti, grogs, slavers, moties, ...]

[identity profile] rachel-swirsky.livejournal.com 2012-09-28 06:51 pm (UTC)(link)
Gwendolyn Clare seems to be doing short stories on the subject. And Mercurio D. Rivera.