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Before this, there was Mission of Gravity, by Hal Clement (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_of_Gravity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_of_Gravity) H

Before this, there was Mission of Gravity, by Hal Clement (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_of_Gravity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_of_Gravity) He even wrote an article about the creation of his high-g planet, featured in Astounding SF in 1953.

JoeAltmaier 8y ago
As a kid, I read Hal Clement. He was lauded as one of the few authors to write aliens as alien. They had different goals. This was refreshing after so many 1-dimension aliens, or aliens who were just humans in a different guise. Actually even as a kid I didn't think he'd gone far enough. Sure they had different outlooks. But fundamentally there weren't as different from me as some other people I knew. I was wishing for an alien that thought completely differently - different morals, different logic, different cultural blind spots and esthetics. Not just different solutions to obstacles they found, which they could explain in perfect western logic.
- JoeAltmaier 8y ago
  And also, when they got to that cliff and made a hot-air balloon to ascend, I was appalled. The balloon was described as round, which in the crushing gravity gradient would have torn itself apart. It should have been pancake-shaped or cigar-shaped to reduce the pressure differential from top to bottom, to something that the fabric could reasonably have withstood.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
  Several of Stanisław Lem's works feature truly-alien aliens, to the point that the reader and probably even the author have no hope of comprehending their motives.
- JackFr 8y ago
  "If a lion could speak, we could not understand him." http://existentialcomics.com/comic/245 http://existentialcomics.com/comic/245
- Iwan-Zotow 8y ago
  > I was wishing for an alien that thought completely differently - different morals, different logic, different cultural blind spots and esthetics. "Solaris" by S.Lem
- fractallyte 8y ago
  In case you're curious... Isaac Asimov wrote an introductory essay 'The Second Nova' (1974) for a volume of collected stories by Stanley G Weinbaum. This is what he said about Weinbaum's first published story, 'A Martian Odyssey' (1934): "Weinbaum was the first, as far as I know, to create extraterrestrials that had their OWN reasons for existing. He did more than that, too; he created whole sense-making ecologies." It's a really great story! Most of Weinbaum's science fiction is just brilliant.
bookofjoe 8y ago
The protagonist of "Mission of Gravity," Captain Barlennan, is one of my all-time favorite SF characters. Wonderful book.

JoeAltmaier 8y ago

As a kid, I read Hal Clement. He was lauded as one of the few authors to write aliens as alien. They had different goals. This was refreshing after so many 1-dimension aliens, or aliens who were just humans in a different guise. Actually even as a kid I didn't think he'd gone far enough. Sure they had different outlooks. But fundamentally there weren't as different from me as some other people I knew. I was wishing for an alien that thought completely differently - different morals, different logic, different cultural blind spots and esthetics. Not just different solutions to obstacles they found, which they could explain in perfect western logic.

JoeAltmaier 8y ago
And also, when they got to that cliff and made a hot-air balloon to ascend, I was appalled. The balloon was described as round, which in the crushing gravity gradient would have torn itself apart. It should have been pancake-shaped or cigar-shaped to reduce the pressure differential from top to bottom, to something that the fabric could reasonably have withstood.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
Several of Stanisław Lem's works feature truly-alien aliens, to the point that the reader and probably even the author have no hope of comprehending their motives.
JackFr 8y ago
"If a lion could speak, we could not understand him." http://existentialcomics.com/comic/245 http://existentialcomics.com/comic/245
Iwan-Zotow 8y ago
> I was wishing for an alien that thought completely differently - different morals, different logic, different cultural blind spots and esthetics. "Solaris" by S.Lem
fractallyte 8y ago
In case you're curious... Isaac Asimov wrote an introductory essay 'The Second Nova' (1974) for a volume of collected stories by Stanley G Weinbaum. This is what he said about Weinbaum's first published story, 'A Martian Odyssey' (1934): "Weinbaum was the first, as far as I know, to create extraterrestrials that had their OWN reasons for existing. He did more than that, too; he created whole sense-making ecologies." It's a really great story! Most of Weinbaum's science fiction is just brilliant.

bookofjoe 8y ago

The protagonist of "Mission of Gravity," Captain Barlennan, is one of my all-time favorite SF characters. Wonderful book.