#literally any other series that is xenofiction

[clovepaw]

I'm curious if anyone has any list about certain cliches or common tropes in other xenofiction series.

[novella-november]

What's your favorite thing to write about?

I love fantasy and scifi!

One of the Big Works I'm planning on doing in the future is a big old series set on the same planet across multiple eras and stages of development, which starts off as your typical Fantasy setting, full of various species of people in a lower-technology era of settlements, kingdoms, and a few bigger cities in each region, up to steam technology, then "modern" equivalent, all the way up to space-faring times, etc.

One of my biggest issues with xenofiction (any fiction where the main character is Not Human, usually in fantasy settings but also scifi with Aliens) is that people come up with these really cool designs and concepts that are interesting, but they usually have some form of Biological Essentialism baked into them that is never actually addressed, or if it is, its ultimately dismissed as

"We evolved this [oppressive culture] eons ago, therefore we cannot [do not want to] change it ,and it is in fact *correct* and *natural* for our kind to be this way."

Like, as an example:

Say a fantasy series where there's cool fantasy animals inspired by hyenas with extremely rigid gender roles and abilities, where its matriarichal and the males of the species are commonly beaten up by the females who are asserting their dominance? Neat, I wonder what kind of role they play in the fantasy ecosystem!

But if you take those same hyena-inspired fantasy animals and make them a fantasy sentient species who are *People* and their behavior stays the same...

.. you do, in fact, have to actually put in the work to say that just because their ancient animal ancestors behaved in this way does not make it right or just for them to continue to beat down and oppress literally 50% of their population, and what kind of movements are going on either currently to change the status quo, or decide at what point in the past they mostly stopped such Explicit Behavior, while they perhaps continue it is more subtle ways, much like how misogyny, heteronormativity, and associativity are still widespread even in ""progressive"" countries.

TL;DR:

My favorite thing to write about is taking a generic trope and *Actually Thinking About The Implications* if it were something in an Actual Society of living people.

My other, less complicated favorite thing to write is I am planning on writing some (*cough cough* A LOT *cough cough*) original Arsène Lupin stories in the future once I have finished reading all of the books that are currently Public Domain in my country :D

If you are curious about Arsene Lupin, here is a link to the first book on Project Gutenberg, and here is a link to a fantastic audiobook on youtube made by Games and Gutenberg :)

[literary-illuminati]

Book Review 35 - Translation State by Ann Leckie

I preordered this book and then took literally a month to get around to picking it up and actually reading it, so I’ve probably missed the entire initial burst of hype and discussion already. Still, I was really pleasantly surprised how nice it felt to slide back into this universe, and Leckie remains as fun an author as always.

The book is set in the Imperial Radch universe, a vague amount of time after the events of the Ancillary Justice series proper – the main plots don’t exactly intersect, but the story absolutely assumes a decent amount of known context, and also reading it will spoil you on the entire resolution of the trilogy – but at some remove from where any of it actually took place. The jumps between three POVs: an inconvenient child of the aristocracy given a diplomatic sinecure and sent offworld after hir grandmother dies, a working-class man who founds himself entangled in diaspora and resistance politics when someone tell him he’s the rightful heir the whole oppressed nation might rally behind, and a juvenile Presager Translator being raised and educated before they’re ready to Match and take their place in the wider universe. All three plots start intersecting fairly quickly, thankfully, but importantly none of the three are Radaachi – the only characters who are are some of the antagonists of the piece.

I don’t exactly mind any of the three – there wasn’t a POV whose chapters I dreaded or was tempted to skip, which happens quite a lot in books like this – but I would be lying if I didn’t say that Qven the juvenile Translation was my favourite several times over. Especially in the books early stages, when he’s living amongst the other juvenile Translators and we get a good look at what their socialization and life cycle actually looks like. Somewhat less so in the latter stages when they end up much more human in perspective (tragically) as well as politically, but I’ll take the xenofiction we get. (If I had a nickel for every time a sci fi book used a love of trashy genre serials as a character beat to make a nonhuman intelligence everyone in-universe is terrified of sympathetic to the audience and code them as relatably neurodivergent, etc, etc)

This is the fifth book Leckie’s written in the Imperial Radch universe, and the second that’s more or less entirely unrelated to the plot of the original trilogy (well, not entirely, but the connections are fairly minor and high-level). Which honestly does an amazing job at making the world field vast and lived-in – nothing to make it feel like there’s a wider universe out there and the protagonists aren’t actually the main characters of all creation like it being objectively true, after all. I’m honestly slightly disappointed how pivotal the Republic of Two Ships was to the whole uncomplicated happy ending but that’s an incredible nitpick.

The sheer messiness and number of different cultures and ethnicities adds a lot to how big and complex the world feels, too, and the number of political conflicts that couldn’t possibly shake the setting or even interest the really high level players, but are still matters of life and death for everyone involved. I did really dearly love the whole subplot with the diasporic ‘cultural association’ that was like 50% a way for the host state’s foreign ministry to keep a handle on and funnel supplies to a resistance movement they were funding in a neighbouring stellar nation.

Speaking of cultures – so this is a very trans book, or a very nonbinary book specifically I suppose. Only 1/3 of the POV characters is cis, another of them transitions from nonbinary to a different type of nonbinary over the course of the novel, a major supporting character is literally ‘she/her but like an 18th century ship of the line’, the defining cultural quirk of the hegemonic human empire is that they misgender you, etc, etc. But, like, outside the Radaachi there seems to be general consensus among all the human cultures we see of not just it being fine to be nonbinary but of the specific existence and legibility of a third and fourth gender, with their own presentations and scripts and expectations and so on. And I’m just, so curious what the differences in normative expectations and stereotypes between the two are.

Anyway, if I had one really substantial critique of the book it’s that holy shit we get it already. My tolerance for intense mutual pining ran out like 50 pages before the 2 POVs in question actually talked about it and instantly figured things out, and in the meantime it seemed like every single chapter from either of their perspectives included a passage of obligatory angst over how obviously the other doesn’t want to Match with them. One of you is theoretically in your thirties, my guy (even if he never actually acts like it).

More broadly, the whole drama around matching is just the most brute-force analogy with sex and commitment I think I’ve ever seen. With basically every attendant trope (being terrified of trying again after a traumatic attempted rape, being filled with guilt over the urges you get during puberty, hell even waking up in the middle of the night all sweaty and unpleasant). I prefer my alien life cycles to be, like, genuinely strange, but this was laid on so thick it went beyond that to just feeling like a Buffy episode.

Anyway, did really enjoy the book, the fact that all three of the POVs are more fuckups who’ve wasted their potential (and just, like, over thirty) more than world-shakingly talented teenagers, especially. Also bureaucrat and courtroom drama, my beloved.

[bookshelfpassageway]

The Youtuber Cardinal West has a channel pretty much dedicated to the topic! He's got guides and recommendations and really solid analysis videos.

(Cardinal's channel got me following the Xenofiction tag, which got me into a genre Discord server, which is where I first saw the cover artist for Hunters Unlucky posting its propaganda lmao. It's a fun one with a 4-hour free audiobook sample)

Some more webcomics from my own stash:

Golden Shrike (deer with deer mythology and a big quest and demigods)

What Lurks Beneath (what if Warrior Cats was more game of thrones and had a crab cult. The comic is better than I make it sound whoops, it's one I'm honestly riveted to get new pages for every time)

Runaway to the Stars (about space aliens and accommodations. It's also pretty human heavy, but the worldbuilding Jay's done on the alien cultures is phenomenal and I would call xenofiction. There's even a short comic just set on the Avian planet with exclusively bird alien characters)

I've never played Rainworld but I also get the impression it's a video game with strong xenofiction vibes from everything I've heard.

I'm also trying to think of literally any movies other than Spirit Stallion of the Cimarron but yknow I really can't argue with it.

There's almost certainly more I'm forgetting but eh what can you do (except reblog later)

Of course there's other books I like but you've probably already heard of all of them because they're xenofiction big shots (Ga'Hoole, Wings of Fire, Rats of NIMH, Watership Down, etc), and I haven't read all that broadly outside of the YA genre mainstream (Hunters series being my main exception). If you like Anthro stuff I actually prefer the Mistmantle Chronicles over Redwall, and Cardinal also recently did a video overview on Anthro works I'm excited to go through.

Anyone got any good xenofiction recommendations? Or maybe sources that are good guides for writing xenofiction stories?

Idk... I kind of want to read xenofiction stuff-

[yarrowleef]

Daffodil, Laurel, Lily, Sunflower, Violet, and Wisteria? Also Begonia but I'd like to know your favorites of the old covers and the newer/reprint covers. And the Russian Warrior Cat covers too! Some of their art is quite pretty.

laurel, violet and sunflower answered previously

Daffodil: When did you first start reading the series?

Start of third grade when I was 8 years old, which I believe was 2007!!  .......so like literally most of my life I have given to these cursed cat books. I remember The Sight was the most recent release. It was the first real book series I ever read, and I think I went through the first 2 series within a couple months.

Prior to that I just read stand-alone books and I only read because I wanted to win “accelerated reader” points....i couldn’t do sports, so reading was the only thing I could win at AND I DID WIN. but warriors was the first thing I read that I was actually like...into. and realized I could read for reasons OTHER then winning the most points.

Lily: If your five favorite characters were foods, what would they be?

asdfghgfdxs I honestly have no idea how to answer this question, in part because I don’t think I even have 5 favorite characters. I suppose Firestar is doritos out of obligation. What else can he be?? I mean ok flaming hot cheetos maybe seems more fitting on the surface because ~flame-y~ but lets be honest, Firestar is a bit too bland a character to be spicy. He is one of my favorites for nostalgia sake, I mean it’s Firestar, how can I not be fond of him?

I also have a soft spot for Scourge just because of the sheer ridiculous audacity of him. I wish he’d come back as an evil ghost. Anyway, when I was about 9 and going through my brief (incredibly unfortunate) twilight phase (I was just jumping on the popularity bandwagon tbh) I went to Hot Topic right before one of the movie premieres and they had this...edible bag of blood? it wasn’t actual blood obviously, but I remember it was advertised as being really high in iron to mimic blood, but it was really this sickly sweet mystery juice packaged inside of a fake hospital blood bag. I of course bought it because I went through my edgy phase early, and for some reason thought it would look cool to pretend I was drinking blood. It was the most disgusting liquid i have ever consumed but hey it did also have the unpleasant metallic tang of blood because I guess they were going for authenticity over edibility, so it’s not like I didn’t get what I paid for (or rather what my mom paid for, because i was 9)

Anyway, Scourge is that. He’s awful fake blood juice from the Hot Topic in the mall.

 That's all I got.

Wisteria: Are you looking forward to the Warriors movie?

YES ABSOLUTLEY!!

don't get me wrong, I fully expect it to be terrible. Embarrassing even. I expect they will try to change it for a wider audience appeal, and of course it will end up bad, BUT IT WILL BE SO FUNNY!! I have this inescapable morbid curiosity about it, like I really want to see what they try to do. Like watching a train crash. I can't help it.

Warriors is a silly series. I have a feeling this is why a movie hasn't been made yet, even I would have no idea who to market it for. Yes it's violent and touches on very dark topics, but the fact that its about cute little cats with very dumb names coupled with those dark topics in a way makes it look even MORE silly. I don’t think Warriors will ever have wide appeal outside of its fanbase, the concept looks too ridiculous if you’re not someone already into animal xenofiction like this, but a movie is inevitably going to try to have wider appeal anyway because that's what movie studios feel they need to do. They will either water it down, or worse, try to go a more family friendly comedy route since that’s how general audiences are used to seeing animated talking animals and they think that's the only “”safe”” way to market an animal movie, which will 100% ruin it either way. The second one is more likely, I mean why else do you think they hired the guys who wrote kung fu panda, and the recent alvin and the chipmunks and Spongebob movies to make the script?? [no shade to kung-fu panda, it’s good in it’s own way, but it is not the same vibe as warrior cats at all]. For me, this is simultaneously the absolute best and the absolute worse scenario, because like, it’s horrible, its an insult to everything I love about the warriors world, i have surreal nightmares about it, but it’s so horrible it f*cking hilarious ya know? how can you not be a little curious to watch that train crash (and the outraged reaction posts that will inevitably follow)????

A warriors movie will be bad, I can't see any way that it won't be bad, and honestly? I think that's ok. I don't need a good movie, I simply need a good laugh, and then I'll go back to watching fan animations which will always be more interesting anyway because they don't feel the need to have ~mass appeal~

Listen, we don't actually need a good official adaptation. In some ways, a good adaptation might be bad for the fandom. The fandom is cool because of how wildly different and creative it is, the series is so bare bones with no consistent official art that people can go nuts with it. I worry on the off chance we get a really good adaptation, it might take over the books. People might be less likely to draw/create with their own wild bonkers interpretations of canon in favor of sticking closer to what the official adaptation presented us with, and idk if I want that. I also def don't want to deal with searching "warrior cats" for the rest of my life to only bring up gifs/discussions of the movie/tv show, rendering material and fan creations for the books almost impossible to find. This is something i've suffered with when other books i like get popular adaptations, where as series with bad adaptations (like percy jackson) I have less trouble finding content about the books. 

Begonia: Which book cover is your favorite?

So of the old covers I admit i have a soft spot for the darkest hour, it was my favorite as a kid and I know I tried to redraw it several times. Warrior covers have a tendency to blend together, there’s only so many ways to draw mysterious cats fighting, but I think this cover is one of the most memorable for me, if only for the center art (shout out to the old Fire and Ice cover though, I also really like the center art on that. I wish the box had kept being used for more than just a single cat face in the later series)

but now that i’ve gone and looked, I really really like the full cover art for Tallstar’s Revenge, the colors just look super nice and match his eyes and everything. Tallstar having a fun and more unique looking design gives it extra points. Maybe I just like warm tones idk. And shout out to Wayne for also imagining the moor as a golden-brown field even though it’s probably supposed to be green.

out of the new covers, I like the vibe of Dark River, it just looks spooky and mysterious......and I think this artists cats look better from the side, they are always a little crooked from the front (honorable mention to Place of No Stars cover, I really like the colors and the ominous vibe, it definitely had an impact when I first saw that cover, I just don’t love the look of the cats faces blown up close from the front. The more I look at it the more off it becomes, but the colors are cool)

and I definitely agree the Russian warrior cats art has a very charming look to it, I like seeing it whenever it comes across my dash, but unfortunately I’m having trouble finding a catalogue of it to look at so I can’t pick a favorite

[thenixkat]

Nix Reviews: Animorphs

Summary: Five teens take a shortcut home, run into an alien, and get the power to transform into animals. They are tasked with saving the world from a covert alien invasion.

Score: 1.3/10

Sexual Assult Drinking Game: at least 5*

(+) Very iconic

-has some of the most creative alien designs in scifi

- the hork-bajir are wonderful

- actually very good fuel for fanfic inspiration

- the introduction of James and his friends

- a decent start for baby furries

(-) Really needed to go through a few passes with an editor b4 being published

- is the opposite of educational

---frequently gets basic, easy to research things about animals wrong in a series where animal biology/behavior is a significant factor ie. dolphins don’t have blubber

---gets everything extra wrong with prehistoric animals. Absolutely everything. Looked like they based an entire book off of the Jurassic Park sequels

-both blatant and harmful animal biases ie. bugs and reptiles are not scary or ugly and predators aren’t evil

-Written as White and male default as you can get regardless of the viewpoint character

- Filled with inconsistencies and plotholes

-literally so lazy that a deus ex machina was turned into a recurring character

- Once you reach book 7 with the reveal of a godlike being who does whatever he wants and wants the main characters to succeed there are no longer any emotional or narrative stakes in the series

-Also really fucking racist across the board

---there is a book where an alien species that is uniformly described as ugly and stupid by every viewpoint character and the writers themselves out of universe are directly compared and paralleled to Black people

---said aliens are stupid b/c they don’t speak or understand English well, except for the rare smart ones that speak properly.

---said aliens are also stupid b/c they can’t read English

---every indigenous character shown is incredibly superstitious and immediately believes that the group of mostly White American monolingual kids are spirits from their respective local religion for no known reason

---Makes an African American character a slave owner in one of the alternate timelines and makes a Jewish character an out and out fascist in that timeline as well

---When directly talking about racism in the series is very “Colorblind” about it which is bad

---Introduces an Asian character alongside a group of White characters and for some reason, the Asian character is the only one who’s name is forgotten

---It’s so White. There are literally more specifically blond White characters than nonWhite characters overall

-The series is really in love with the idea of genocide as the solution to conflicts

-Series nerfs every single nonprotagonist to fit a poorly thought out plot instead of letting the story develop organically

-It’s way too long with so much filler for the story they were telling

-Thinks it’s deeper than it actually is

-Assumes the audience has the memory of a goldfish

-The character most frequently used as the authors’ mouthpiece justifies the use of slavery and genocide in their narration

-Writers think that saying ‘respect the differently-abled’ covers their asses for all the ableist shit in the series. It does not

-the andalites receive no narrative punishment for their genocidal actions and racist beliefs and never apologize to their victims or pay reparations

-There is an incredible selection of sexism on display from the male default writing to the tough girl characters who are ‘not like other girls’ to turning compent female characters into shrieking helpless harpies once they aren’t useful to the plot at hand or need to make unlikable before killing them off for mainpain

- Does that really annoying, nonsensical, and boring ‘Humans are Special’ thing that is the bane of good scifi

- Fails in its xenofictional aspects by the writers’ either refusal to go outside of their comfort zone or by their sheer lack of talent

Overall: I could never recommend this series on good conscience. Partially because of racist/ableist messages and partially because of just how bad it is at the science part of science fiction that it feels like something really harmful for children to read in case they internalize the worst of its bullshit. There are much much better things out there to show/read to children about war and grey morality, please find them. If you still do wanna read Animorphs, save yer money and find it free online.

*edit on the sexual assault number. I’d forgotten the implied sexual assault of at the very least 2 hosts of Visser One. Second edit I forgot to include sexually assaulted dudes and rape vis deception. 

[writeroftheprompts]

I've been wanting to write something xenofiction about an animal society (like the Warriors series, for example, or Guardians of Ga'hoole) but every idea I come up with feels incredibly stupid. Any ideas as to how to make it actually interesting?

First of all, I’m inclined to say that no idea in fiction is stupid, there are only ideas that get written poorly. So first off, are these ideas ones that you can dig into and create a full world and full characters? If yes, then you’re probably on the right track. 

Second, who do you think will find these ideas stupid? Because remember that you are not writing for every literate being on the planet, you are writing for your target audience. There are plenty of super successful books, movies and TV shows that I personally think sound like a terrible time but that’s (usually) because they don’t appeal to my interests but other people like them (the other percentage just…are written poorly). Example: I’m not a huge fan of horror or romances so I tend to stay away for the most part unless there are other elements that I do like, but that doesn’t mean all horror and romances suck. There are people who think fantasy is stupid but you’re not writing for those people. You also have to think about the age of your target audience. MG? YA? NA? Adult? Who ever it is, consider what they will enjoy but ultimately write what you enjoy because if your heart isn’t in it it will be that much more difficult for anyone else to enjoy it. 

[yarrowleef]

I’d really enjoy your thoughts on general animal xenofiction. As a kid I really liked the genre but fell out of almost all of it except for Warriors over time. Out of curiosity, what other series/books were you thinking of posting about?

No idea right now! Despite the fact that I really like animal stories, i’m actually really picky about them and struggle to find other books I connect with. Still trying to figure out what exactly it is that I do/don’t like. I need to compile a list. I've been meaning to read Redwall because I somehow never did, idk if i'll have any interesting thoughts about it though. and I've been trying to finish "The Sight" literally since I was 14 and I still haven't done it, but on god I will someday.

...maybe I will feel the need to complain again about what a terrible book Felidae is because god I've never wanted to throttle a protagonist so bad in my life.

Other then that I dont have clear cut plans, its just a thought floating around my head