It's been two years and four months since I finally completed my main character alien species, the Aturan.
For those who haven't read my short stories yet, I have two short stories that appeared in Kyanite Press: The Journal of Speculative Fiction: THE HUMAN NETWORK and CATCHING FEELS.
To make a long story short(see what I did there?), my short story series takes place in a near-future New York City where an alien species known as Aturan live among us. Most of us don't know they exist because they are natural shape-shifters or polymorphs, to use a Star Trek term, and so can look like many other alien species, including us.
In April 2018, I started work on how these aliens would appear and was bored by the regular heteronormative binary that 'plagues' other aliens in other stories. Not only did I work on figuring out that my aliens defaulted as polysexual, but I wanted to use the term omnisexual, an ElfQuest series' term, to mean that my aliens were not only sexually and romantically attracted to other sexual identities and genders among their own, but that they could be romantically and/or sexually attracted to other aliens too.
Now in September 2020, I finally completed the last four identities. If you want to see them in their technicolor glory, head on over to my Instagram page: handdrawnbycarmenjr. I also have explanations for each of the identities but purposely remained vague. I want readers to learn more as they take in the stories.
Lastly, I can count on one hand which science fiction writers heavily influenced me into writing complex alien characters.
The first is Andre Norton. Her explanations on how aliens viewed and explained things to the humans in her novels and short fiction is nothing short of amazing.
The next is Anne McCaffrey. She shows that aliens can often get along with humans and have their own senses of humor.
The next is C.J. Cherryh. I can't begin to tell you how often I read her stories over and over just to get a sense of her physical descriptions and biological explanations of aliens, their societies and even their history. Just the way they interact with humans and view things is something I rarely saw in most of the scifi I read.
And last is Octavia Butler. Yes, her aliens invading and changing humankind's destiny is nothing short of glorious. To see Black characters forging through and participating in said future is magnificent to read. And that she seamlessly weaves in racial injustice, oppression, and racism into the fabric of her hard-hitting stories is breathtaking.
