Just poking my head up above the surface to note that I participated in the most recent Mind Meld, addressing this question: Humans with funny foreheads are easy; truly alien aliens are hard. With that in mind, here’s what we asked our panel of experts: Q: What successfully makes an alien character, well, really alien? A bunch of authors responded. Also, I did (somewhat at length). Interesting stuff.  You’ll notice Peter Watts’ Blindsight gets prominent mention here. It just so turned out to be the book I was reading when the invitation to participate showed up in my email, and, well, was perfectly …