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Fantasite, v. 1, issue 5, September 1941
Page 6
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SOME NOTS ON ALIEN RACES BY L.R. CHAUVENET Since science-fiction writers from the very beginning have drawn heavily on the concept of alien races of beings, intelligent after a fashion, and friendly, inimical, or aloof as may suit the purpose of the story, it would be wearisome and impractical to attempt a catalogue of the whole works in a brief article. Do not, therefore, write indignantly to the editor, complaining that your pet race of Xlrfsks in a story by your favorite author received no mention here. I think that it may be of interest if I discuss some of the aliens characteristics of various alien races which I chance to remember from my sf. reading, and this is all I am planning to accomplish. For obvious reasons, the aliens have usually been inimical. Perhaps Wells may be said to have set the patterns in his "War of the Worlds"; his Martians are, however, in every way less interesting than his Selenites in "First Men on the Moon", since it is the civilization of the latter which receives far the most attention. The Selenites were an insect-like race which bred and developed individuals for the performance of specific functions; they illustrate specialism carried to an extreme. It is interesting to compare them with the Chlorans of "Skylark of Valeron"l the difference is that the Chlorans' specialization was a temporary matter only, thanks to their amorphous nature, and any Chloran individual could apparently develop any required organic structure for the performance of whatever task devolved on him. Such races are obviously non=human, as well as inimical. Friendly non-humans are not quite as common, but are nevertheless plentiful. For instance, we have Weinbaum's "Loonies" on Io, creatures apparently of a fairly low order of intelligence, and then again Tweel and his race upon Mars. Tweel was a success because he illustrated what others before Weinbaum had chosen to ignore--namely, the possibility that alien minds may function in a radically different manner from ours, so that communication becomes difficult of impossible. The best other illustration of this thesis is EESmith's Vorkuls from "Spacehounds of IPC." The Vorkuls, a serpentine, winged people, were certainly impressive examples of isolationists armed to the claws! Incidentally, regarding the Hexan-Vorkul civilizations, I have always wondered how they ever rose from the jungle, if the Jovian jungle was all that Dr. Smith described it as. If we return to our main theme, obviously Smith's Arisians from the "Pa-
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SOME NOTS ON ALIEN RACES BY L.R. CHAUVENET Since science-fiction writers from the very beginning have drawn heavily on the concept of alien races of beings, intelligent after a fashion, and friendly, inimical, or aloof as may suit the purpose of the story, it would be wearisome and impractical to attempt a catalogue of the whole works in a brief article. Do not, therefore, write indignantly to the editor, complaining that your pet race of Xlrfsks in a story by your favorite author received no mention here. I think that it may be of interest if I discuss some of the aliens characteristics of various alien races which I chance to remember from my sf. reading, and this is all I am planning to accomplish. For obvious reasons, the aliens have usually been inimical. Perhaps Wells may be said to have set the patterns in his "War of the Worlds"; his Martians are, however, in every way less interesting than his Selenites in "First Men on the Moon", since it is the civilization of the latter which receives far the most attention. The Selenites were an insect-like race which bred and developed individuals for the performance of specific functions; they illustrate specialism carried to an extreme. It is interesting to compare them with the Chlorans of "Skylark of Valeron"l the difference is that the Chlorans' specialization was a temporary matter only, thanks to their amorphous nature, and any Chloran individual could apparently develop any required organic structure for the performance of whatever task devolved on him. Such races are obviously non=human, as well as inimical. Friendly non-humans are not quite as common, but are nevertheless plentiful. For instance, we have Weinbaum's "Loonies" on Io, creatures apparently of a fairly low order of intelligence, and then again Tweel and his race upon Mars. Tweel was a success because he illustrated what others before Weinbaum had chosen to ignore--namely, the possibility that alien minds may function in a radically different manner from ours, so that communication becomes difficult of impossible. The best other illustration of this thesis is EESmith's Vorkuls from "Spacehounds of IPC." The Vorkuls, a serpentine, winged people, were certainly impressive examples of isolationists armed to the claws! Incidentally, regarding the Hexan-Vorkul civilizations, I have always wondered how they ever rose from the jungle, if the Jovian jungle was all that Dr. Smith described it as. If we return to our main theme, obviously Smith's Arisians from the "Pa-
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