Why I love thinking about alien porn
Or rather, Science-fiction world-building for Dummies
Okay, I admit, it’s a clickbaity title. However, it’s not untrue. Alien porn does occasionally occupy my mind, among other things, and I enjoy seeing where those thoughtful meanderings take me. But let me assure you, I’m not a pervert. In fact, there is nothing perverted about it at all. This is a discussion about science-fiction worldbuilding, so if you came here with the hopes of learning about weird Japanese space-tentacle hentai anime, you will be be severely disappointed. Sorry ;)
Okay, let me start at the beginning. I love reading and writing science-fiction. My absolute favourite niche is plausible aliens. I’ve lectured on it at writing conferences, and most of my stories explore the difficulties humans may have communicating with life forms so unfathomably different to us, that we share almost nothing in common. It’s my default thought-experiment when bored.
A lot of scifi has suffered from the ‘monoculture problem.’ This is when a fictitious alien race are all exactly the same, often as a focal point of a single human concept. They might all be warriors, or hunters, or sneaky backstabbers, or whatever. This was very common in the past, to the point that it is now considered an eye-rollable trope, and it comes from the same place as racism. Really. It stems from a lack…
