Oct 24, 2023 07:18 PM
(This post was last modified: Oct 24, 2023 07:19 PM by C C.)
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20231...ce-fiction
EXCERPTS: . . . Wade Roush, a science and technology writer and the author of the book Extraterrestrials: "And the standard depiction of aliens at that point became the little grey man," he says...
[...] But what were depictions of extraterrestrials like before this collective tuning of the public imagination? And what has influenced the way we view them? Generations before, the aliens of early science fiction were considerably more fantastical – bloodcurdling octopus-beings, intelligent swarms of insect-creatures and monstrous reptiles.
In 1887 – before the invention of sliced bread, ice lollies or even the word "teenager" – the science fiction author Joseph Henri Honoré Boex set pen to paper in his Brussels office and imagined up Les Xipéhuz.
The book is set on Earth, a thousand years before the ancient Mesopotamian cities of Nineveh and Babylon were founded, and begins with a dream-like encounter in a forest clearing. A nomadic tribe of people are looking for somewhere to rest one night, but instead they stumble upon "Les Xipéhuz", translated as "The Shapes".
The bizarre, geometric creatures resembled "bluish, transparent cones" with their point facing upwards. Each was around half the size of a human, with some stripey markings and "a dazzling star near its base like the sun at midday". The creatures are considered among the first non-humanoid aliens in science fiction, within a cautionary tale that shows how devastating first contact can be with an unfamiliar "other". After many battles, (spoiler alert), it becomes clear that there's no room for diplomacy. Even the way the Shapes communicate, by tracing symbols on each other's bodies using the rays of their stars, is alien. In the end, they are exterminated.
[...] Humanity has been contemplating the possibility of life on other planets for thousands of years. After an intensive, career-spanning observation of the skies, around 450 BC the ancient Greek philosopher Anaxagoras tentatively suggested that the Moon might not be a god, as was widely believed, but a rock like the Earth. In fact, he supposed, it might even contain life.
Anaxagoras was promptly sentenced to death for his insubordination – but the idea that there might be other celestial bodies like our own planet persisted...
[...] But though speculation about life on other worlds is ancient, the extraterrestrials of these early musings were not like the imaginative creations found in books and on television today. "When people thought about aliens, I'm afraid they pretty much assumed that if there were aliens, they would look just like us, right? That intelligent, sentient animals would basically be humans," says Roush.
[...] But this all changed in 1859 .... This was Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection" – and its impact on science fiction was as great as its influence on biology. "Then I think that our imaginations about the form that aliens might take started to range much more broadly," says Roush.
[...] First there were the geometric creatures in Les Xipéhuz. But these were soon followed by a diversity of strange lifeforms to rival those on Earth itself. By the time "The War of the Worlds" was published in 1898, aliens were beginning to get truly monstrous... (MORE - missing details)
EXCERPTS: . . . Wade Roush, a science and technology writer and the author of the book Extraterrestrials: "And the standard depiction of aliens at that point became the little grey man," he says...
[...] But what were depictions of extraterrestrials like before this collective tuning of the public imagination? And what has influenced the way we view them? Generations before, the aliens of early science fiction were considerably more fantastical – bloodcurdling octopus-beings, intelligent swarms of insect-creatures and monstrous reptiles.
In 1887 – before the invention of sliced bread, ice lollies or even the word "teenager" – the science fiction author Joseph Henri Honoré Boex set pen to paper in his Brussels office and imagined up Les Xipéhuz.
The book is set on Earth, a thousand years before the ancient Mesopotamian cities of Nineveh and Babylon were founded, and begins with a dream-like encounter in a forest clearing. A nomadic tribe of people are looking for somewhere to rest one night, but instead they stumble upon "Les Xipéhuz", translated as "The Shapes".
The bizarre, geometric creatures resembled "bluish, transparent cones" with their point facing upwards. Each was around half the size of a human, with some stripey markings and "a dazzling star near its base like the sun at midday". The creatures are considered among the first non-humanoid aliens in science fiction, within a cautionary tale that shows how devastating first contact can be with an unfamiliar "other". After many battles, (spoiler alert), it becomes clear that there's no room for diplomacy. Even the way the Shapes communicate, by tracing symbols on each other's bodies using the rays of their stars, is alien. In the end, they are exterminated.
[...] Humanity has been contemplating the possibility of life on other planets for thousands of years. After an intensive, career-spanning observation of the skies, around 450 BC the ancient Greek philosopher Anaxagoras tentatively suggested that the Moon might not be a god, as was widely believed, but a rock like the Earth. In fact, he supposed, it might even contain life.
Anaxagoras was promptly sentenced to death for his insubordination – but the idea that there might be other celestial bodies like our own planet persisted...
[...] But though speculation about life on other worlds is ancient, the extraterrestrials of these early musings were not like the imaginative creations found in books and on television today. "When people thought about aliens, I'm afraid they pretty much assumed that if there were aliens, they would look just like us, right? That intelligent, sentient animals would basically be humans," says Roush.
[...] But this all changed in 1859 .... This was Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection" – and its impact on science fiction was as great as its influence on biology. "Then I think that our imaginations about the form that aliens might take started to range much more broadly," says Roush.
[...] First there were the geometric creatures in Les Xipéhuz. But these were soon followed by a diversity of strange lifeforms to rival those on Earth itself. By the time "The War of the Worlds" was published in 1898, aliens were beginning to get truly monstrous... (MORE - missing details)
