How to Build an Alien
Discover how to build an alien with top sci-fi worldbuilding books—from Stephen Gillett's *World Building* to Stanley Schmidt's *Aliens and Alien Societies* and Barlowe's classic extraterrestrial guide.
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World Building
by Stephen Gillett
With Stephen Gillett's help, you'll be on solid ground, no matter what kinds of worlds you create for your science fiction. World-Building explains science to help you make your fiction plausible. You'll give your worlds the pull of gravity, aware of the effects on inhabitants and the planets themselves. Mix elements and build planets with chemically credible, geologically accurate characteristics - and anomalies - that affect those who live there. Create planetary "engines," convincing atmospheres and fact-based weather patterns. Colonize a truly weird world: ancient Earth. Explore our neighboring planets and their satellites for SF possibilities. Light and heat your landscapes with the right types of stars. See how things might be on a "chloroxygen" world and other hypothetical places.
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Aliens and Alien Societies
by Stanley Schmidt
A thoughtful, clear and utterly fascinating reference, this book is absolutely vital to writers who want to put extraterrestrial life-forms in their novels and stories.
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Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials
by Wayne Douglas Barlowe
50 aliens from science fiction plus a special section taken directly for the artist's sketchbook, featuring renderings, notes and locomotive studies.