Anybody know of any science fiction novels where humans are the bad guys and aliens are the heroes?
I’m looking for sci-fi novels that have humans set as the main enemy of the story, rather than being the heroic underdogs that most science fiction portrays us as. I’m not exactly looking for something in the “Independence Day” vein of science fiction, where humans would ravage an alien world for its resources. We already did that to our own world, so I don’t need a novel to tell me what that’s like. I’m more interested in the something along the lines of Star Wars, except humans = empire, and aliens = Rebel Alliance. If anyone knows of any novels that have this kind of setting or something similar, please tell me. Oh, and please no Warhammer 40k.
- Roger W
Tags: Alien World, Bad Guys, Empire, Independence Day, Sci Fi Novels
May 19th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Nice little short video is an episode of the original Twilight Zones series called “The Invaders”. You may like it.
May 22nd, 2009 at 10:46 am
I read a story decades ago that might fit this pattern. Can’t give you a name. It was part of a collection about sci-fi with religious themes, and was a re-working of the biblical story of Balaam.
In Numbers, chapters 22-23, we’re told of Balaam, who was an advisor to the King of Moab, when Moab was about to go to war with Israel. Balaam (after his donkey miraculously talks to him!) sees that he is on the wrong side of the war, and he says so to “all the princes of Moab.”
“How can I denounce/ A people God has not denounced” and so forth.
The sci-fi re-write portrayed a chaplain of an army of humans on another heavenly body. The aliens were better adapted to that terrain than the humans. The chaplain realized this, and when he was to preach to his own troops, he preached a message of defeatism.
It was very movingly done, and on a small scale, focusing on the personal travails of the one chaplain, rather than some vast moments of armies or fleets.
Can’t think of a title now, though. It would have been written in the 1960s, I’m pretty sure. Even before Neil Armstrong’s famous footprint.
May 25th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
You might like a science fiction anime movie called Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.
I can’t remember any sf novels like that. Something slightly (only slightly) similar is Deathstalker, which is about a rebellion thing, and there are some aliens on their side, although humanity doesn’t like them (for good and bad reasons). It’s by Simon R Green.
May 27th, 2009 at 9:24 am
Maybe not exactly what you’re looking for, but an interesting view can be found in
The Mote In God’s Eye, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
Whatever your goal, it’s an excellent book about alien contact.
May 30th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
why don’t you write a story like that??