Personally, 2001 (the movie, haven't read the book) was the only depiction of aliens I actually like. IMO, FTL travel might require harnessing such crazy physic

Personally, 2001 (the movie, haven't read the book) was the only depiction of aliens I actually like. IMO, FTL travel might require harnessing such crazy physics (negative energy, for instance) that any civilization advanced enough to do it would be completely different from anything we know, or might be even past the need of actually going anywhere. But instead science fiction often makes spacefaring civilizations exactly like our own, but with spaceships intead of trucks.