Thousands Of Races

World Without Stars, VI.

On the planet where they are stranded, the Meteor crew glimpse some human-sized bipeds with powerful legs and tails. The first person narrator, Captain Felipe Argens, comments:

"I, who have met thousands of different races, still feel that each one is a new epoch." (p. 42)

Thousands? In that timeline, yes. In our timeline, it seems that multicellularity might be rare.

Argens adds that stars, planets and biologies can be categorized whereas minds cannot:

"...you never know what strangeness will confront you." (ibid.)

But most alien minds in sf are recognizable. 

I am being pulled in another direction because I want to reread more of James Blish's Welcome To Mars and to contrast it with his last Haertel Scholium volume, Midsummer Century. Fortunately, there is time for Anderson, Blish and more, especially when retired.