Most unique/interesting aliens

[Cloud]

In honor of Brian's thread about Best Spaceship, which I'm enjoying, here's one about aliens, by which I mean non-Terrestrial sentient life forms. What are some of the most unique/memorable/well conceived ones you have come across, in any medium?

[Cloud]

well gee, no one has a copy of Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials handy? What about those pushmepullyou things from Niven's Ringworld--those engineer thingies, whose names I can't remember.

[j. d. worthington]

Hmmm. Surprised no one has posted here yet.... But then, it being Halloween on this side of the world, it's pretty quiet for now... Okay, Pierson's Puppeteers? Is that what you're referring to, Cloud? Yes, quite interesting... I also rather like the Moties, from the Niven/Pournelle books. And I've always thought Raymond Z. Gallun's "Old Faithful" was a wonderful alien character. John W. Campbell's ultimate chameleon in "Who Goes There?" is also very memorable. And, though I suppose you can't really consider them aliens, as they're an engineered lifeform/artificial construct, Poul Anderson's pseudo-Jovians from "Call Me Joe" have always fascinated me.

And then there are the truly alien entities of Lovecraft's mythos stories; people tend to forget that these are, by and large, alien entities rather than actual supernatural forces, though the boundary sometimes blurs with the psi aspect of many of them (Nyarlathotep in "The Haunter of the Dark", Cthulhu in "The Call of Cthulhu", for instance). And then there's the fascinating Old Ones of At the Mountains of Madness and the Great Race of "The Shadow Out of Time" (though their physical aspect is an unknown, very early form of earthly life, psychically ousted by the minds of the Great Race, which come from some unspecified place perhaps beyond our spacetime continuum). And perhaps the most unique is the alien entity of "The Colour Out of Space", which is truly alien in every way, a true "bit of the Outside" that makes it into our world and causes havoc not through any deliberate intent (that we can tell, anyway), but possibly just because, by its very nature, its existence in our world is, for lack of a better phrase, an unnatural thing.

Those are the ones that come to me off the top of my head.... I'll see what else comes to mind.... Nice thread!

[Nesacat]

One of my all-time favourites because of the poem:
The Bandersnatch - From Larry Niven's fictional Known Space universe. The species is named for Lewis Carroll's Bandersnatch. Their human discoverer took one look at them and named them "Frumious bandersnatch".

Frumious bandersnatch are a herd animal. They are completely white, and resemble a very large slug with smooth, slick skin.

Solaris - Stanislaw Lem's living planet which is covered with an "ocean" that is a single organism. The ocean has a vast but strange intelligence, which can create physical phenomena in a way that science has difficulty explaining. The alien mind of Solaris is so inconceivably different from human consciousness that all attempts at communication are doomed.

Caleban - Frank Herbert's extra-dimensional beings of almost unfathomable power. Their visible manifestation is as stars; that is to say, every star in the universe is, in fact, the visible manifestation of a Caleban.

The Affront - Iain M Banks' alien species in Excession. Originally named after their homeworld, Issorile, their current name was given to them by another species - the Padressahl - after they ate the members of a Padressahl trade mission to Issorile. They embraced their given name, proud of their sadism. Among their technological accomplishments is the genetic engineering of their females to make sex painful for them.

[Coops]

I also enjoy Nivens aliens from the Known Space series.

Arthur Clarke's Ramarians were well thought out as well.

Also, Robert Sawyer's hominids while not technically alien, are a well thought out society of non-Homo Sapiens.

[murphy]

The Atevi from C. J. Cherryh's Foreigner series. Great thought out culture with one human ambassador.

[K. Riehl]

How about the floating aliens in "Up the Walls of the World" by Tiptree or perhaps the Multiple mind beings in "Fire Upon the Deep" by Vinge

[KZCat]

The Puppet Masters from Heinlein's novel, there was also a movie adaptation of the novel in 1994, it starred Donald Sutherland. I thought it was an ok movie, but some critics panned it.

The Goa'uld in Stargate are reminiscent of Heinlein's Puppet Masters.

[Curt Chiarelli]

Oh, let's see, how about the Overlords from Childhood's End? And I'll second J.D.s vote for Nyarlathotep, Cthulhu, the Old Ones and the Yithians while adding the Mi-Gos to our growing list.

[Paige Turner]

You are all going to say, "That's lame, Paige," but I always liked the shape-shifting salt vampires from the original Star Trek.

[Curt Chiarelli]

Originally Posted by Paige Turner

You are all going to say, "That's lame, Paige," but I always liked the shape-shifting salt vampires form the original Star Trek.

Nope! Those are a good choice in my book! Ah, the childhood memories . . . .

[Paige Turner]

Well, I've always had a soft spot for the Horta, too.

[j. d. worthington]

Paige, I'm in agreement ... they were among my earliest memories of a sympathetically-treated alien in television (didn't get to see a lot of the early Outer Limits because of scheduling until years later, when I found they had quite a few "monsters" that were actually very sympathetic). Actually, that brings to mind a few I quite like: The Galaxy Being, from Outer Limits' pilot episode, as well as the "Bifrost" alien from OL's The Bellero Shield, the Ebonite from Nightmare (always one of my favorite episodes ... I'm really surprised that thing got aired in the era it did, with the things it was saying), and the Empyrian from Second Chance (played by Simon Oakland, no less). Each of these was given character, rather than being simply "the boogeyman"....

As Curt says, "Ah, the childhood memories"......

[Perpetual Man]

For unique my immediate thought was the Daleks from Doctor Who (although originally human looking in appearance) the actual outer shell famous Dalek appearance has alway been popular but unique.

It's never really been copied either. (Although it has been tried)

[HoopyFrood]

Oh, I LOVE the Daleks. They are my favourite aliens.

I think Douglas Adams creates a brilliant image with his Hooloovoo...A superintelligent shade of blue! Has to be refracted through a prism in order to make an appearance at the Heart Of Gold launch. Brilliant.