I cannot buy aliens that resemble kangaroos! See the cover for Question And Answer here and here. Aliens should look alien, not like some kind of Terrestrial animal.
Imagine:
the inhabitants of a planet orbiting a nearby star resemble the Sigman (or the Reardonites, the Puppeteers etc);
one of them writes fiction about a visit to Sol III;
he describes the Solarians as closely resembling his own species - or maybe some other animal species that is familiar to them;
in fact, he goes on to populate the galaxy with intelligent races closely resembling the Sigmans!
It won't do. In 2001, Arthur C. Clarke avoided the problem by not showing any aliens whereas Star Trek, a TV series, gives us Vulcans (interfertile with human beings), Klingons and many planetary populations played by actors without any make-up or exotically shaped ears.
The aliens in Planet Of No Return have a language that is difficult to understand but call themselves "Rorvan," which sounds like the adjective derived from the noun, "Rorva." Not alien-sounding enough.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I took a look at the cover for PLANET OF NO RETURN that you linked to, and I agree the "Rorvans" don't look alien enough. Too much like kangaroos. I'm reminded of how one reason why I like the illustrations for the Ace Books edition of A STONE IN HEAVEN was because of the artist had actually read the book and thought about it before he began drawing. The aliens he depicts from Anderson's descriptions in STONE actually LOOK non-human.
And I have wondered, because of your comments here, whether the human anti-stellar conspirators who contacted the "Rorvans' suggested that name, as being something easy to pronounce.
Sean
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