Can Readers Relate to a Book without Humans?
I've been working on a story idea for a few years now, during which I designed a world (fantasy-based) in which it would take place. The thing is that because this is a different planet, I thought it would be cool to create a world without any humans or any animals/plants found on earth. While thinking about it, however, I've become concerned with the thought that maybe a world without humans would be too difficult for readers to relate to. Even stories/movies such as Star Wars, John Carter, etc. all have humans found throughout the universe.
Even though there are no humans in the world I created, all the races are humanoid, and the plants/animals are mostly similar to earthly/fantasy plants/animals, which I thought may be able to give readers a base to start from.
So I guess my question is: Is a world without humans just too alien for a reader to get into? or do I need to re-design my world to include humans (and possibly other "already known" species)?
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One of the noblest quests of science fiction is to attempt to create a convincing alien. Most of the ones we find, even in good quality science fiction, are mere variations of human beings. Yet stories, even entire novels, have certainly been written in which no human being appears. Trying to understand alien beings is an important metaphor for the crucial necessity of understanding those who are not like us, and science fiction is a marvelous place for opening our minds on this matter.
Yes, of course you can, and should, try to write something with nothing but aliens in it. If I were still editing a science fiction magazine, I for one would love to see it. And I still would anyway!
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The podcast 'Writing Excuses' talked about this in an episode (season 3, episode 3)
They got a question on how to make aliens convincingly alien in regards to personality and behavior as opposed to biology.
Their guest, Eric James Stone, answered the following:
"One of the most difficult things to do in writing science fiction is to write from an alien point of view. For that very reason. We don't relate very well to people or things that don't think like we do. The stranger they are, the harder it is to pull off the idea that this is a thinking being yet with thinking so extraordinarily different from ours. I think what you have to do is essentially try to put yourself in the mindset of the creature and figure out its logic which may be very different from our logic. What its priorities are and how it gets to its priorities."
And Brandon Sanderson had this answer:
"This is an excellent question. I say that because it's something that science fiction writers have been arguing over for about 100 years. Because it's a really fine balance. Science fiction in particular -- fantasy to a lesser extent honestly -- science fiction tries for realism in its aliens. There is an entire movement for this. As Eric said, the more realistic you get, the less identifiable. There are authors out there doing a brilliant job of this. I really like it when Vernor Vinge does it. He manages to do it well. I would say how does he manage to make aliens that feel so strange yet work so well? in one hand, he's building on the common attributes. He's saying what is universal between all sentient beings? What are these creatures... how are they going to be similar? And using those similarities to highlight the differences. So that when you run into one of those differences, you run smack into it face first. It's like The Left Hand of Darkness if you've read that. When some of the differences come in, you run into them face first because the book spends a lot of time building ground between the common beliefs between the humans and the aliens, and then... bam! No. There is something completely different. Using those two things to highlight one another would be what I would suggest."
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Absolutely. CJ Cherryh's stock-in-trade is advanced sophisticated nonhuman species, and showing how humans flail around when meeting them.
Foreigner (15 books and counting) Human among atevi
The Faded Sun trilogy Human among mri
The Chanur Saga Human among kif
And those are just the ones I've read. The woman is more prolific than Asimov. And she's terrifyingly good.
Larry Niven's Kzinti are another great example. (14 books and counting, I think)
For an easier on-ramp — because CJ Cherryh is not for wimps — there are a few Classic Trek novels by Diane Duane (Spock's World and The Romulan Way) which are set on their respective planets, and the humans don't show up until the end.
And if you think about it, Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit don't really have many humans in them either. There are two main humans in LOTR, and one of them dies a third of the way in. The rest are elves, dwarves, hobbits, wizards, orcs, and so on.
The challenge is to make your nonhuman species relatable — to make your characters behave or think in ways which humans can understand.
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