Discussion
#WritersCoffeeClub 26 Aug: What are good examples of texts written from a non-human point of view?
"Excession" by Iain M. Banks tries to tackle a vastly superintelligent AI as the viewpoint character, as do some of the other Culture novels. And a whole lot of C. J. Cherryh's work goes there—consider "The Pride of Chanur" as an easy way in.
(And my own "Saturn's Children" and "Neptune's Brood" are told by post-human protagonists, long after humanity is extinct.)
@cstross *adding your titles to my book list*
@cstross
#WritersCoffeeClub 26 Aug: What are good examples of texts written from a non-human point of view?
Also, from Seth Dickinson, one from a nonhuman POV, and the other very effectively *about* a nonhuman POV
@cstross
#WritersCoffeeClub 26 Aug: What are good examples of texts written from a non-human point of view?
"The Things" and "Malak" are both short stories by Peter Watts (available free here https://www.rifters.com/real/shorts.htm)
I also very much enjoy how Terry Pratchett would write nonhuman POVs such as dogs and werewolves.
@cstross 'Excession' was my introduction to message boards!
@cstross The Captives War series, and especially the 2nd book, The Faith of Beasts, writes quite a bit from the perspective of the very different aliens involved in the story. As in, a wholly different ontology that repeatedly vexes us incorrigibly anthropomorphizing humans.
@cstross Michael McCloskey's "Parker Interstellar Travels" series (https://www.squidlord.us/writings/pit.html) has a lot of non-human viewpoint characters. My favourites are the Celarans, a pacifist species of flying sap-suckers who have no native word for "weapon", so must translate the human word as "tool for harm". Another nice touch: because all the species communicate in such different ways (e.g. the Celarans communicate with light flashes), names can't be copied from one system to another, so every character has a different name in each language.
@pozorvlak Do not cut off the hashtag prompt!
@cstross a better known example would be Vernor Vinge's Zones of Thought series, which shows the action from the perspective of the doglike, semi-hive Tines in one book and the arachnoid Spiders in the next. Or Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time series, which also has arachnid protagonists, and later crows, octopuses, and sentient alien bacteria.
@pozorvlak Do not leave out the hashtag prompt! (You broke the toot thread.)
@cstross ah, sorry, I didn't realise. I've added it now.
@cstross Ann Leckie's Ancillary series has a decidedly non-human, or post-human, perspective.
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