SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

Hi,
I'd like your ideas and opinions on naming alien species and planets. We, presumably, are all Humans from Earth. If a character is an X from planet Y how should he be referred to? If the POV is from a human character we could call him anything we want; a Lizardman from planet AlphaPrime. If we could understand the sounds he makes in his language we could try to label him from his POV phonetically; a Larknot from planet Zelpha. But what if he is a bug or a fish and the sounds he uses for language can't be mimicked by humans?

A related question is what words should be used for "human" or "mankind" in a universe with many sentient species?

Your suggestions and comments will be appreciated. Thanks.

Al

A.R. wrote: "Hi,
I'd like your ideas and opinions on naming alien species and planets. We, presumably, are all Humans from Earth. If a character is an X from planet Y how should he be referred to? If the P..."

Lots of authors have addressed this. I would suggest reading books with numerous alien species.

The easiest thing is to say, "Their name for themselves was unpronounceable by humans, as it involved both subsonics and infrared flashes, so we just called them Squids. They didn't seem to mind."

A.R. wrote: "A related question is what words should be used for "human" or "mankind" in a universe with many sentient species?"

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. "Human" is fine. Terran, Earther, Earthling, Monkey Boy, Naked Apes... all good, depending on context.

Trike, I think he means a word that would encompass all life from lizards, bugs, lights (whatever the species are) and humans alike.

Now, I'll have to think about that one. Good question.

G.G. wrote: "Trike, I think he means a word that would encompass all life from lizards, bugs, lights (whatever the species are) and humans alike.

Now, I'll have to think about that one. Good question."

That's not what he said. He specifically called out homo sapiens. I think if he meant all life on Earth, he would have asked "what's the name for all life on Earth?"

In which case it would be "Terran life" or "Earth lifeforms" or something. Just as if we discovered a living ecosystem on Mars or Titan, we'd call it "Martian life" or "Titan life", then drill down to specific types.

I like to keep things simple so I don't confuse my readers (and myself). So, I come up with one name for a species and their world and leave it at that.

Though, in my last three novels, I had a race that resembled lizards (Norseen) and another that resembled dragons (Draconians). I had characters refer to them simply as lizards and dragons and characters who referred to them by their proper names.

I would tend to call an alien lifeform by the name of the star they come from (example: if from Alpha Centauri: Alphans). If they have a pronounceable name, then use what they use. For us, 'Humans' or 'Humanity' is fine by me, while lifeforms from Earth are for me 'Earthlings'. Intelligent lifeforms through the galaxy are for me simply 'Sentients'.

In my current novel I have several alien lifeforms, both plant and lower animals, and I just named them what humans would probably call them after a slight, two-millenia corruption of the language. My favorite was the dome-shelled vagrant. Some of the names given to aliens in early Science Fiction were somewhat laughable and I really wanted to avoid that.

My only advice is to shove each and every made-up name and term through Google. If that keen name you just made up for the alien species is also a slang term in Dubrovnik for an X-rated kind of piercing that you never ever want to see a photograph of, you want to know. Do the same for all your major characters, even if they're named Jim Jones. You want to at least be aware of the Jim Jones who was serving weird Kool-ade in the jungle.

And make sure they are pronounceable, or that you give a phonetic rendering. I read aloud to my husband and I hate stumbling and bluffing over nonsense. (And I've heard from friends that unpronounceable names bother them even when they're silently reading to themselves.)

Good tips. Looks like using "Martian Ambassador Dirty Sanchez Santorum from East Xcipppk'loqj" is probably a bad idea.

A self invented name in a story ought to look and sound good. As others on this thread have said, it ought to be able to be pronounced. It should sound convincing, right. Inventing names for a story is difficult. To inspire me to find the right names for my stories, I looked at such works as the Book of Enoch, Gilgamesh and The Mabinogion. There I found names that sounded strange, remote. They looked good on the page and to the ear when said out loud. I used variations on some of the names I found in my stories. I have seen names in some science fiction and fantasy tales that may have looked odd on the page, with strange spellings, but they did not seem authentic and could not be pronounced without some guesswork. In a science fiction story, the inhabitants of Earth could be simply described as humans, just as the inhabitants of Mars can be called Martians.

The tip about Googling the names is a good one. I chose something early in my writing that fit a species well, only to find out it meant the essence of some flower. For a powerful species with multiple abilities, this was no longer a good fit, forcing me to alter the spelling.

G.G. wrote: "Trike, I think he means a word that would encompass all life from lizards, bugs, lights (whatever the species are) and humans alike.

Now, I'll have to think about that one. Good question."

Carbon based lifeforms perhaps?

Here's my thoughts on this interesting set of questions:

1. From a human perspective, alien species would be referred to via human metaphor, analogy, symbolism, and culture. So they may have different names in different languages, or an agreed-upon name if contact was public and with an international body. They would likely not call themselves by this name, if they were able to communicate with us in any meaningful way at all.

2. From a human perspective, we might call them peoples. Or intelligences. Or sentients.

Cheryl wrote: "And make sure they are pronounceable, or that you give a phonetic rendering..."

Agreed. That's a pet peeve of mine...as is the "Alien names must have Z's and X's and Q's and lots of consonants and/or hyphens/apostrophes in them in awkward positions" trope. What these kinds of names say to me is that the author is declaring "I just made up a cool looking alien race name! Kewl!" And it throws me right out of the story and kills the verisimilitude. Xeelee, Mahendo'sat, Mor-Taxans, Zakdorns...hate them. Reference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_... for an alphabetic list. I dislike most of them.

Michel wrote: "I would tend to call an alien lifeform by the name of the star they come from (example: if from Alpha Centauri: Alphans)..."

Very sensible. That only gets a bit sticky if there are more than one alien species from a given star system. Easily gotten around by tagging them with Alpha, Beta, etc. secondary names (Alphan-As, Alphan-Bs, etc. or something like that.)

Although how you name them really does depend on the tone of the book. I have a couple philosophies about how to do it.

If the book has a lighter, more casual tone, then I prefer to have a few names for each species, like a scientific name and a common name. Scientific names should conform to contemporary naming systems for Earth species, augmented with a star system reference. Common names, however, should be 1) easily remembered by uneducated people in your world, 2) reference something relevant to the aliens like how they look, or some way they act. For example in one book I’m working on I’m using the common name Big Blue Meanies (yes, a Yellow Submarine reference) for one alien race because they’re big, they’re blue, and they get very aggressive when they hear certain sound frequencies, which are unfortunately common in human voices.

In a more serious toned work, I’d stick to something more like what Michel suggested. Even then, however, nicknames might also be used by characters among themselves.

As for how humans would be known...I see nothing wrong with Humans, or Terrans, or something similar. But then, why would an alien race use a human name for humans? They’d probably call us something in their own language that has no direct translation to us.

Trike wrote: "Good tips. Looks like using "Martian Ambassador Dirty Sanchez Santorum from East Xcipppk'loqj" is probably a bad idea."

See? My comment about tone. That would be a perfect name if the book were a comic send-off of sci-fi books. You know a HHGTTG kind of thing.

And names are tied to their time. People don't name countries after other people any more, but it used to be very fashionable (Virginia, Rhodesia, Georgia, and so on). What is in fashion, at the moment in time that the new planet or new race is named?
I have blogged fairly extensively on this subject. See here: http://bookviewcafe.com/blog/2015/01/...
And links within carry you to the other posts in the series.

Brenda wrote: "And names are tied to their time. People don't name countries after other people any more, but it used to be very fashionable (Virginia, Rhodesia, Georgia, and so on). What is in fashion, at the mo..."

Not just fashionable, but also cultural.

Anyplace the British went, they named stuff after their monarchs and other royals. That's why virtually every country has a King George Something-or-Other in it.

Whereas the Dutch were extraordinarily pragmatic about names. Every place they named makes sense because they called it what it is.

These two different approaches were really apparent to me in Cape Town, where they have places like Zandvlei (sand marsh), Rondevlei (round marsh) and Steenberg (slag heap), while right next to them you have things named Prince George, Victoria and Edward.

Brenda wrote: "And names are tied to their time. People don't name countries after other people any more, but it used to be very fashionable (Virginia, Rhodesia, Georgia, and so on). What is in fashion, at the mo..."

ooh, I like this idea... individuals (and tribes) named after historical leaders, homeworlds, etc.... I'd like to read a story written by someone who pays that kind of attention to their ET creations....

It's very possible aliens will communicate in a way we cannot communicate back without equipment and possibly we may not be able to distinguish some of the differences between their sounds or theirs ours. Odds are we would just translate the names roughly into a human or alien equivalent, when communicating with the other race. Probably with early contact picking very safe common names.

I would say it's safe to say humans and alien cultures like ours we call ourselves by our nation-state first, then say where we are from.

I started this thread, and I want to say thank you to all the people who contributed so far. Your ideas are immensely helpful to me.

It all depends upon your POV character. The aliens themselves are going to think of themselves as something approximating what WE think of OURSELVES. In "Children of Destruction", my aliens thought of themselves as "The People". The humans in the story called them "Grunts" because that's what the alien's spoken language for themselves sounds like to the human ear. The aliens called us "Slime Worms" because they have a low opinion of any other race.

I've heard "humans" referred to as "Terries", "Hu-maans", "Earthmen", "Earthlings", "Soft Ones" (no exoskeleton), "Meat Sack" (Men in Black #2), and so forth.

>22 Al
Yes, your first paragraph answers my question exactly. My book needs some sections told from the alien's POV, which introduces the problem. Of course, keeping the aliens' other thoughts and actions from being too human is another issue.

Some language issues (the writer's choice of words) can be eased by using telepathic translators (my current choice) and computer translators (more reality than sci-fi now, although someone has to create the dictionary.) Another approach is writing from the POV of the omniscient narrator.

A.R. wrote: ">...Yes, your first paragraph answers my question exactly. My book needs some sections told from the alien's POV, which introduces the problem. Of course, keeping the aliens' other thoughts and actions from being too human is another issue.

Some language issues (the writer's choice of words) can be eased by using telepathic translators (my current choice) and computer translators (more reality than sci-fi now, although someone has to create the dictionary.) Another approach is writing from the POV of the omniscient narrator. "

I've had aliens speaking in odd sentence structures. One was coming along just fine until Star Wars came out and Yoda was using the same structure, so I had to change the syntax. Annoying.

Beware of using omniscient POV. It's hard to do and many readers don't enjoy it. First person is a great exercise and forces you to learn to keep your POV consistent within a scene (avoiding "head hopping") if you should end up writing in 3rd person.

And remember that accents or annoying speech mannerisms can be grating over the long haul on the printed page. It may be cute to listen to Yoda or Jar-Jar on the screen, but to read them? No.

Brenda wrote: "And remember that accents or annoying speech mannerisms can be grating over the long haul on the printed page. It may be cute to listen to Yoda or Jar-Jar on the screen, but to read them? No."

It's a tightrope. Many people speak differently (regional accents and such) and one of my idiosyncrasies is to give characters their own speech patterns if they're from different families or regions.

An interesting study is the Scot sidekick, Alex, in "Sten" by Allan Cole and Chris Bunch. His accent was very much in evidence, but didn't manage to grate on my mental "ears" once I got used to it. Others may react differently.

Getting inside alien heads is so difficult that I don't think I've seen it done well ever.

When seeing things from an alien's point of view, it usually ends up just being a human in different makeup.

Just using a different speach pattern is, I think, kind of a cop out. Yoda still expresses the same ideas and emotions as the humans in SW. And really...And "after 900 years, speak better English should he. Hmmmmm?"

I suppose my thinking on seeing things from an alien perspective is that it would be better to focus how the alien's thinking is different rather than how their language is different: focus on ideals, social structures, emotions, and world-view rather than just trying to make them sound different.

For example, humans come from a "big males have the power" evolutionary tract. So even now when muscular strength is not what makes one powerful and socially successful, we still place an emphasis on size and physical appearance. Tall, dark, and handsome. We also tend to organize ourselves in pack formations; that is, in a social hierarchy where people strive to be the prime alpha, and then everyone finds their place down the pyramid. Our governments are largely structured that way, our business mostly are, our religions mostly are.

Aliens might well have other arrangements, based on their own evolutionary path.

I'd like to see those things explored more than sticking to very human-like structures.

Micah wrote: "Getting inside alien heads is so difficult that I don't think I've seen it done well ever.

When seeing things from an alien's point of view, it usually ends up just being a human in different make..."

Actually, if you strip away the different words, languages right here on Earth have different speech patterns. English simple sentence is subject-verb-object, but other languages, such as Greek, sometimes put them in different orders. I can't go any further than this because I'm a dunce where foreign languages are concerned.

So, Yoda's sentence structure is actually quite formalized and "logical" even here on Terra (Sol-3).

If you get into space-faring aliens, you have a few basic requirements. " Pre-historic brutes in space" is idiotic. They'd never be able to develop the technology involved. So, a space-faring culture has to have a level of technical cooperation necessary to create the vehicles for the trip. That eliminates quite a few TV shows and films involving mindless viruses traveling around in ships. Yes, you can have an alien "ant culture" as long as the drones and workers have sufficient IQ's for the task -- and opposable digits (gotta be able to handle tools).

An interesting alien mindset was illustrated by Bruce Davis' "That Which is Human". His aliens are a LOT better than mine (more "alien").

Female-dominted cultures aren't anything new. They exist here. In some societies, the women inherit all the property and the men have to fend for themselves (and pass their property off to their wives or daughters when they die).

Al wrote: "So, Yoda's sentence structure is actually quite formalized and "logical" even here on Terra (Sol-3)..."

Exactly. There's nothing in the way Yoda spoke that marked him as alien. I.e., they used that speech pattern just to make him sound exotic.

Exotic <> Space Alien (Or rather, I should say, given that space aliens are exotic, but that not all of the class of exotic things are space aliens, we cannot say that exotic equals space alien.)

So that way of differentiating aliens from humans, to me, is nothing really more than window dressing.

I agree with you on the rest of that. The tool maker supposition is one of my litmus tests of aliens: could this alien have evolved to be a tool maker capable of the tech required for space travel?

Aquatic species (fish or other), balloon-like aliens native to gas giants, and single celled aliens the size and shape of a swamp don't fit the bill. I've seen all of them used by famous authors. Intelligent? Sure, that's possible, but tool makers/spacefarers? No. Not unless you explain how it was done. No explanation, then "I choose to disbelieve" (as we used to say in my old D&D games).

Telekinesis? :P

G.G. wrote: "Telekinesis? :P"

What, as a tool maker work around? Sure. If that's the kind of mojo your book does...But you'd still have to explain it. And aquatic species are still out unless they can use telekinesis to wield fire and smelt ores.

Broadly following a number of comments earlier in this discussion:-
I was in Waterstones today and I picked up a book (no names - actually, I can't remember title or author). Read the cover blurb, decided it looked interesting, opened it, read a couple of random paragraphs . . . and realised most (all?) of the names had no vowels.
I put it back on the shelf.

Yoda isn't even exotic it's the equivalent of using pig Latin. If you want an alien to speak English funny you have to not just flip around their grammar structure but you have to render it unable to do certain things such as only be able to declare a single subject in a sentence.

Basically all fantasy languages are equivalent a human one or still very human in thought. Even in my opinion the holy grail of fantasy languages Hymmnos's logical structure is based off programming.

Micah wrote: "I suppose my thinking on seeing things from an alien perspective is that it would be better to focus how the alien's thinking is different rather than how their language is different: focus on idea..."

This and for the love of all that is right stop with the hive mind bug aliens.

Micah wrote: "G.G. wrote: "Telekinesis? :P"

What, as a tool maker work around? Sure. If that's the kind of mojo your book does...But you'd still have to explain it. And aquatic species are still out unless they..."

No sorry, I don't have crazy alien forms in my books. :P I was just naming what some people might use to explain how they'd do it. As for telekinesis starting fire, well, we all know a certain popular author who has a protagonist (in a very popular book) who can do it, so what's so wrong about that idea? Remember that they aren't Earthlings, who knows what they can do. They could also enslave other beings to do it for them.

Also if you take the movie Starman for instance. A being made of light. What was his spacecraft made of? Who knows, they don't mention it in the movie, and quite frankly I didn't care. Sometimes a good story is just that: a good story.

Personally I prefer to craft my names by how they sound, rather than how realistic they might be. I'm far less likely to remember or much care for a species called Tk'lk than Klingon for example.
There's also a fair degree of power in a name. A carefully crafted name can say a great deal about the overall demeanor of a species. A soft flowing name with lots of vowels goes great for a peace loving species, whilst short ones with harsh consonants and single vowels can denote a more stern attitude.

Micah wrote: "Getting inside alien heads is so difficult that I don't think I've seen it done well ever..."

I tend to agree. It's something I avoid; I'd rather aliens remained inscruitable. One non-SF book I thought worked well was The Inheritors, where all but the last chapter was told from the point of view of Neanderthals, who were trying to understand what they were observing of the Homo Sapien upstarts muscling in on their territory.

There's a nice study out today about the intelligence of plants. If you define intelligence as problem solving, then plants do it. But we don't communicate with them well -- why? Our wavelengths, our modes of communication and living, are so different, that it's almost impossible. And this is all on this one planet.

The problem with aliens in fiction is that you do have to be able to communicate with your reader. An alien intelligence as difficult to communicate with as an oak tree will make for a very difficult book. And so the author makes compromises. Yoda does talk just like a regular American (except for that subject-verb thing). You have to throw a bone to your customer.

In my opinion it is better art (and certainly easier to read) if the alien or the foreigner's speech is not laden with X's and Z's, or funny spellings. Alien or foreign can be conveyed solely with word choice.

Aaron wrote: "... and for the love of all that is right stop with the hive mind bug aliens. "

A....men.

G.G. wrote: "As for telekinesis starting fire, well, we all know a certain popular author who has a protagonist (in a very popular book) who can do it, so what's so wrong about that idea? .."

Underwater?

I was talking about space faring fish aliens. Harnessing fire and smelting/refining metals is a bit difficult underwater.

Brenda wrote: "If you define intelligence as problem solving, then plants do it. But we don't communicate with them well..."

We don't even communicate with great apes, our closest genetic relatives.

What if aliens find us to be beneath contempt and not worth communicating with?

Alan wrote: "Broadly following a number of comments earlier in this discussion:-
I was in Waterstones today and I picked up a book (no names - actually, I can't remember title or author). Read the cover blurb, decided it looked interesting, opened it, read a couple of random paragraphs . . . and realised most (all?) of the names had no vowels.
I put it back on the shelf. "

So it was in Welsh?

:D

G.G. wrote: "As for telekinesis starting fire, well, we all know a certain popular author who has a protagonist (in a very popular book) who can do it, so what's so wrong about that idea?"

Which book is this? There's no need to be coy. It's not like someone is going to put a hit on you for discussing a book.

Michel wrote: "What if aliens find us to be beneath contempt and not worth communicating with?"

Pretty sure this has been done a few times in literature. Robert Charles Wilson's books do the whole "super-powerful alien entities do inscrutable things which are never explained and can't be understood" thing pretty well. Although I don't think we ever see the aliens in his books. We're like ants to them; they just do stuff and we never know why.

Trike wrote: "Which book is this? There's no need to be coy. It's not like someone is going to put a hit on you for discussing a book.
..."

Haha, nah, I just thought it would be easy to figure out who I meant. The author I was referring to was Stephen King with Firestarter.

If the aliens are very VERY alien, or regard us as beneath contempt, then either they will not talk to us or if they do we can't understand them. Any more than you understand that maple tree talking, in your front yard.
Clearly this is poor material for fiction. Books tend to be written about aliens who are not quite that extreme.

Brenda wrote: "If the aliens are very VERY alien, or regard us as beneath contempt, then either they will not talk to us or if they do we can't understand them. Any more than you understand that maple tree talkin..."


These kinds of aliens are the ones used for apocalyptic invasions because while the humans might encounter them, they usually fight and not talk anyway.

G.G. wrote: "Trike wrote: "Which book is this? There's no need to be coy. It's not like someone is going to put a hit on you for discussing a book.
..."

Haha, nah, I just thought it would be easy to figure out who I meant. The author I was referring to was Stephen King with Firestarter..."

We were talking about aliens, so Firestarter would never have occurred to me in that context.

I've found it's always better to over-explain than assume people will understand your references. What seems straightforward in our own heads doesn't appear that way to others. I learned that the hard way.

The very fact of the aliens invading (and in a militaristic way) shows that they are very like us indeed. Unimaginative!

If they were really REALLY alien they would not send battle-bots. They would send musicians -- no, a single musical instrument. No one would understand it except a young person, a girl (let us say). And this girl would teach herself to play it; the music would be ravishing, completely upending our musical systems and taste. And only then, after the ground, after our minds and hearts, had been thoroughly prepared, would the aliens come. And they would descend, not in a fleet of invading battle ships (how boring, how Hollywood! We have seen that movie), but in a wave of sound, a roar of music that ravishes body and soul together. Earth's resistance would collapse like a house of cards and we would roll over like the dog, begging for a belly rub.

What would that seminal musical instrument look like? Something like a moog synthesizer? Something with long pieces of bamboo. There are wiggly things in long strips, and shiny bits, and areas woven out of fiber...