Extraterrestrials can only appear in two types
of literary works: in essays, or in novels, and in the latter only in the genre
of science fiction. If an extraterrestrial appears in any novel, the novel automatically
becomes science fiction.
Science fiction literature shows very many types
of extraterrestrials:
- Fully humanoid, such as the red men in the
Mars series by Edgar Rice Burroughs, who are so humanoid that they are
even fertile when mating with terrestrials, as shown by the two sons of
John Carter and Dejah Thoris, despite the fact that Martian women are
oviparous (!!!) To this group also belong the aliens of The
People series by Zenna Henderson, who are only different from us
by their mental abilities, and those of Perelandra by C.S.Lewis,
also titled Voyage to Venus.
- Partially humanoid, such as those in Star Ways by Poul Anderson, whose women are also capable of falling in love with terrestrials. This novel develops a typical Anderson argument: extraterrestrials who differ culturally from us in their ecological view of the world, but who are fated to be defeated when confronting terrestrials, who are much more active and aggressive than they are.
