Post History

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/8745
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/8745
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Absolutely. CJ Cherryh's stock-in-trade is advanced sophisticated nonhuman species, and showing how humans flail around when meeting them.

[Foreigner](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0756402514) (15 books and counting) Human among atevi

[The Faded Sun trilogy](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0886778697) Human among mri

[The Chanur Saga](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0886779308) 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](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1416532838) 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.

Original score: 6