K.T. Katzmann's Reviews > Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials: Great Aliens from Science Fiction Literature

An incredible bestiary with one deep flaw that gets less worrisome by the year. You will see scarlet lion-centaur vagina; if that's a deal breaker, leave now.

Its my favorite format: beastie on one side, info on the other. I'll use this pic of my favorite alien in the book as an example.



Man, thanks for leaving such a good description of your starfish socialist slavelords for Barlowe, Howie. Barlowe gives that level of care to everything in the book, although most species only get one or two pullout pictures.

The selection still holds up after all these years. Big names like the Guild Steersman, the Thing (I used this art in a 7th grade reading passage!), and Solaris share the roster with species I've never heard of. What amazes me about all this research is the youth of the author. Take a look at the whippersnapper's painting in the size comparison chart.


Seriously, dude made this famous masterpiece at twenty-one. That’s incredible.

So, let's go to that issue.

This book would have been massively spoilerific at the time it came out. For instance, the Overlord from Childhood's End looks wonderful, but their appearance is a major mystery for a quarter of the book. Hell, the notes on their society is information the reader only gleams in the last thirty pages.

Moving through the book, you never know when that's the case. A race like the Overlords is treated exactly like a race that cameos in a short story. Reading this might ruin some surprises for classic SF.

And I don't think that's a bad thing anymore.

Hear me out.

Imagine a world in which Star Wars is basically forgotten.

So, the best moment in Reign of Fire.

Now, picture a fan who runs across the "I am your father" scene. Yes, they've been spoiled, but they now actually want to experience something that they never suspected existed.

A lot of these books have become obscure, regardless of the amount of Hugos or Nebulas they've snagged. I keep this book on my classroom shelf, hoping that the kids who read it are intrigued enough to track down one of the books mentioned within. Regardless of the spoilers, this book is worth it.


Even with the lion-centaur vagina.
One other interesting tidbit: there was some kind of dust-up over whether Dougal Dixon plagiarized a design for Man After Man: An Anthropology of the Future from the sketches in the back of the book. I own both books, and I’ve never been able to find the connection. Anyone who knows, please leave a hint in the comments!