I’m wondering if it’s pseudo religious with humans being created in God’s image (Ancient Aliens stuff), the human-centric idea that intelligent life must resemble us, it being easy to make costumes for movies and TV when all you need to do is paint someone’s skin, or if SciFi writers were going for the uncanny valley effect for example.
One of the many things I liked about Hail Mary Project was that the aliens are extremely non-humanoid, but you still develop empathy for them. It’s my favorite Andy Weir book by far.
Big same.
I REALLY like Andy Weir’s work, but was super surprised when he delivered a not-at-all humanoid alien in a compelling way. The Alien’ crazy math skills felt really Deus Ex Machina, but was still compelling.
I wish Weir would write something like The Expanse, with a major human civilization spanning the solar system, maybe something even bigger. He’s good at making normal problems in fantastic situations feel real and grounded and I’d love to see that style continued into bigger stories like that.