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Xenofiction and Non-Human Protagonists Rec/Ideas/Discussion Thread

FloraRead

FloraRead

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There wasn't a thread of this, so I figured why not make one.

Xenofiction, despite the title, just means stories centered around non-humans, pretty much. Whether they were human before or not, hardly matters. The only thing that matters is that the character is non-human. Some people tend to apply a test where to prove something really is Xenofiction they'll try to replace the protagonist with a superpowered human, but this, I've found, is far from a surefire way of proving something is Xenofiction or not.

Regardless of my search for stories with non-corporeal protagonists of the Memetic variety, I decided to cut down on possible future threads and include all stories with non-human protagonists for once. Regardless if they could be counted as xenofiction or not, I figured this may be the best place for them.

So to start this thread off, I'm going to recommend... HUMANS, or Koi Format, depending on which of the two titles of the article you choose to interpret as the true one. It's an article of the Wanderer's Library, written by SpectralDragon. It's an article describing humans, written from the perspective of Carp. Some of them are magical. Magicarp, if you will. I love this piece despite how short it is because as all fish know, humans do, indeed, look very similar to one another. I would recommend more things but damn is it hard to find anything close to xenofiction these days.

Regardless, since I already invited the sort of story where it's merely a non-human protagonist onto this thread... have The Songbird, by PyreElegy. It's pretty good, although it's not finished. I found it by accident but I can safely say it's a decent read. It's a Halo SI fic, which presents a human mind in skirmisher body. Not exactly what I was looking for when I started out on this search, but I'm glad I found it regardless.

Anyways, with all of that said, go ahead and post your ideas/fics/discussion.
 
The, uh. Most recent I can remember reading with a substantially non-human MC would be All the Dust that Falls, in which a Roomba gets isekai'd into a fantasy world and promptly starts vacuuming up warding circles. The natives freak the hell out and flee, mostly.

There's a pile of reincarnated as X, where X is everything from fish to monkey to tree to vending machine isekai stories out there, really. Rarer is one that a perspective character that's meaningfully inhuman in perspective afterwards, but they're still out there.
 
I like (and am re-reading) Harry Is A Dragon, And That's Okay over on Spacebattles. The premise is that Harry Potter is for no known reason transformed into a small dragon while quite young, and has no idea there's anything odd about that until Hagrid shows up because Muggles still see him as human. As far as he knows it's just something that happens, occasionally. Everything else that changes is due to butterflies from that. He's also quite happy as he is, thinks of himself as a dragon not a changed human, and has a happier time in general; abuse and the occasional attack are a lot less traumatic when you're nigh-indestructable. In fact that's one of the quirks of the story; unlike the great majority of "give a character more power" stories he's not really significantly more powerful; he's just nearly impossible to harm or even discomfort. About 90% slice of life and humor. Also well written enough to be enjoyed by somebody like myself who's never read/watched the original works.
 
Frumple said:
The, uh. Most recent I can remember reading with a substantially non-human MC would be All the Dust that Falls, in which a Roomba gets isekai'd into a fantasy world and promptly starts vacuuming up warding circles. The natives freak the hell out and flee, mostly.
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Oh this one I've read. Very enjoyable, very funny. There's times where it seems to threaten into falling into more serious territory, but then the author is kind enough to remind one that "wait, this is a Roomba" and things calm down somewhat. Even if the issues aren't resolved and the story knows they're not resolved, it flows in a sort of slicey-of-life manner.

Frumple said:
There's a pile of reincarnated as X, where X is everything from fish to monkey to tree to vending machine isekai stories out there, really. Rarer is one that a perspective character that's meaningfully inhuman in perspective afterwards, but they're still out there.
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This reminds me of Little Leavanny In The Big City. It's pretty much a human reincarnated as a Leavanny, much as the title says, but her perspective is very heavily affected by the body she inhabits to the point of her struggling to make out things such as expressions, and some movements. This also goes for the instincts she has and how it affects the way she wanders around the world. Very enjoyable read. Highly recommend.
 
You know what, gonna shill for my Against the Deep here. Worm/Kantai Collection, wherein Taylor Hebert finds her hometown under Abyssal attack and becomes the neverbuilt light cruiser Lordsport in order to protect what's hers.

And honestly, any KanColle fic with shipgirls as the focal character would count here, but specifically also recc'ing Leave Her Johnny on SB.
 
As a kid I read Call of the Wild, Waterhouse Down, and Black Beauty avidly. Whether they count as xenofiction is questionable but personally I'd grandfather them in.

The Book of Night with Moon is delightful. From the perspective of magic housecats, fighting entropy where they can.

I recently had the Well World series recommended to me when I mentioned that I enjoy this type of fiction. I haven't read it though so I can't judge its suitability.

At some point I'll go through and make a typology of xenofiction, perhaps, detailing which kinds I consider separate from others. That may help people find stories they like better, since xenofiction is at the same time very niche and very broad.
 
Obligatory Now You Feel Like Number None rec, because that series does a great job expanding on the fundamental hunger and inhumanity of Hollows and Arrancar and how they become more "human".
 
Well I just found this, but thought it deserves a bump, so I'll add the stuff I found around too.

A nerubian's journey. MC reborn as a Nerubian, proceeds to prevent his race from being turned into a Madman's undead army.
Chrysalis MC is reborn as ant, he proceeds to find his hive.

All the dust that falls Roomba isekai. A stub unfortunately so you'll have to buy the books to read them but fun.
 
I don't know if I will be considered cringe for suggesting it but I really liked the Wings of Fire serious by Tui T Sutherland.

All the main characters are dragons, and yes it might be for a younger audience and they seem weirdly hunan, but there are many little things to add up just how inhuman they are while still being very easy to care about.

its a setting were humans (aka "scavengers" from a dragon's point of view) absolutely lost the evolutionary arms race, and dragons are the dominant people. not even extinct, but rendered irrelevant for 90% of the content in the series.


and even if there are parallels to humanity, this as a world not run by or made for humans. Dragon kingdoms being almost universally run by Queens is a subtle hint of a very different evolutionary process. Most likely from something similar to lions with a large mother in charge of nest and facing challenges from daughters and sisters at times.

The first arc's introduction is during a continent-wide, three way civil war is because Queen Oasis of the Kingdom of Sand was killed by a human treasure hunter (realistically something rare here, and because one of the daughters arranged something), were none of her three daughters challenged her in a fight to the death for the throne.

that is in the background though as the five main characters are trying to figure out how to end the war or if they should just leave.

I know I have mentioned the series a lot, but even with some flaws, it is worth reading.
 
I have an idea for a Story (or Quest)

i'm not a writter so if anyone likes this idea, they are free to take it.

An alien (appearence, name, gender (if any) and background to be picked by whoever picks up the story or by the readers if quest) crash lands on Earth in the times of ancient Japan, their ship can self-repair but it will take some time before it's functional.

The ship crashed near a small village, leading to it being discovered pretty quickly, the humans believe the alien to be a yokai and the alien, not wishing for word to spread about it's presence on the planet, decides to pretend to be whatever a yokai is, ordering the villagers to keep it's existence a secret from anyone else by helping it hide it's ship (they build a temple around it, the alien has originaly no idea what the building is, or why the humans sometimes leave things on it) in exchange for it's aid in whatever problem the village may have.

At first everything is going well (or at least it appears to) the alien spends it's days in a slice of life manner, helping repair a house here, tending to some injured or sick there, ocasionally fend off some random wildlife away from some crops, maybe engage in conversation with the villagers if it feels like it (except for that elderly human who keeps waving a stick with a bunch of papers attached on it in it's face) it even starts to feel some attachement to the human (endearing weirdos that they are) it has started to treat it's stay on earth like a vacation.

However it's not long before strange things start to happen, objects and animals going missing, giant claw marks and foot prints appearing at ramdom in the village, it isn't long before a villager catches sight of a creature unknown to the alien but very well known to the villagers, yokai, REAL yokai have started to appear, weather it's a result of the alien's presence or some other unknown event doesn't matter to the alien, if these freaks keep making a mess of things they will either destroy the village (and the ship), or bring unwanted attention to it.

So now the alien must use it's wits, skills and technology to fend off, kill, capture, negotiate or otherwise deal with this supernatural menace and protect the village (at least until it's ship is repaired).
 
I would recommend everything written by Bard Bloom, they wrote a ttrpg setting where there aren't any humans around, and the different races do think differently- I enjoyed reading A Marriage of Insects, and his World Tree TTRPG sourcebook which reads more like a lorebook. I would also recommend Sythyry's Journal and the Wrath of Tree's- though I haven't really gotten around to reading those two. I don't know about any of the other books by Bard Bloom though, and how they faire. They were very interesting to read set in a really unique setting.
World Tree: A Role Playing Game of Species and Civilization


 
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