Aliens: The Good, The Bad, And The Impossibly Cute

My Hubbin has been waiting and waiting and waiting for the TV show Falling Skies to start back up again.  So to tide the poor boy over I thought I would examine some of the different aliens in literature.

 As far as a good classic alien story goes I think I will recommend The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells.  Considering that this book was first published in 1897 it's aliens are fairly hi-tech.  This book is a fairly brutal look at invaders from Mars (which during this era of sci-fi is where all the aliens came from).  The tri-pod vessels, the red weed and the blood sucking aliens are all an introduction to the idea that aliens are scary beings out to conquer our planet with little regard for humanity. This book has been one of the basis for a lot of what we might consider classic us vs them alien stories.

Enders Game by Orson Scott Card takes a look at humans gut reaction  to aliens.  This story features a bug/hive like race that ended up in a war with humans when there need to colonize led to confrontation.  This book shows a child's perspective of having grown up in this environment and eventually having to deal with the revelation that the humans, not the aliens are the ones continuing the conflict.  I like the mix of classic alien elements mixed with a more psychological side that asks us to rethink how we handle a race so different from our own.

 Most Sci-Fi, especially the older stuff seems to be geared toward the male side of the population, which is why I particularly enjoy Anne McAfferey's science fiction.  Her Tower and Hive series features females in very strong lead roles, and gives them a way to stay feminine and have there own personality all while battling various alien threats.  She gives several examples of very different types of aliens. There are the insect/hive aliens (similar to Enders Game) who are bent on colonizing every habital world they can find (these are not as sympathetic as the ones in Enders Game), there is the lone alien who is intelligent beyond belief, but has malicious intents, and then there are the Mrdini, a small furry alien that always comes in pairs who end up being allies.  Great books for guys and for girls.

For the slightly younger set I always liked the Animorphs series by K.A. Applegate.  This series for young adults features a group of kids who encounter a race that is described as having the lower body of a deer the torso and head of a man, fleshy antennas and a long tail ending in a scythe...all covered in blue fur (if that's not an alien I don't know what is). The kids are given the ability to morph into other living things to help fight of an invasion of a different alien known as the Yeerks who are slug like beings who slip into your brain and live like parasites controlling whatever population they are inhabiting.

There are many many many more aliens in books that I have not mentioned mostly because I ran out of coffee, but also because there are so many.  I like how authors use aliens to show us our present fears, to try and help us work out issues with each other by giving us a common enemy or an unknown entity to stand in for more realistic threats. They can represent facets about ourselves we don't particularly like, or embody a standard that we have yet to achieve.

What are your favorite aliens?  Do you like the evil aliens that we can unite to fight against, or the benevolent ally aliens better?  Do you think there are other races out there?  Do you think they write books about "aliens" that resemble humans?