Top 5 Wednesday -SFF Creatures

Top 5 Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Lainey at GingerReads and Samantha at Thoughts on Tomes.  You can find the group on Goodreads. 

This week’s topic is a good one.  

Favorite SFF Creatures *Booktube SFF Awards Crossover Topic*
— Discuss your favorite creatures from Science Fiction and Fantasy books! This is a crossover topic with the Booktube SFF Awards Book Babble discussion for this week.

I decided to stick with just Science Fiction Creatures, as I wanted to challenge myself not to do dragons yet again.  It took a bit of thinking to come up with five but I think you will like what I came up with. 

1. Artificial Intelligence, otherwise know as AI’s.

So I am pretty sure that I haven’t mentioned the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells in a couple of months, so I am overdue for a gushing session.   If you like AI’s then you really must read this series! Murderbot is the best depressed and anxious AI since Marvin.  I just love him!  And the plot is not so bad either.  If you would rather have an AI to swoon over than you can’t go wrong with Abel from the Constellations series by Claudia Grey.  I have been rereading this series in anticipation of the final book coming out in April.

2. Friendly Aliens, who you just want to hug and take home

There does seem to be a lack of friendly aliens out there right now, most aliens seem to just want to wipe us out.  So I found Nadim, a sentient alien that is sorta of like a spaceship, very endearing and fascinating.  If you haven’t read Honor Among Thieves, I highly recommend you do.  It is a very different take on what we might encounter out there.  

3. Unfriendly aliens who want to kill you.

There are a ton of unfriendly aliens out there, but I think my favorite ones right now, or at least the ones I’m most afraid of, are the ones found in these three books.  Plague land has the most unusual aliens that I have run across.  It is hard to describe without ruining the plot of the book, so I just recommend you read it and find out for yourself.  The Last 8 aliens were just ruthless in their pursuit to kill every last human they could find.  And the aliens in The Rains had the ickiest use for us.  Again if you like scary and icky invasions these are the books I would recommend.  

4. Steampunk Creations

These can range from mechanical AI like things to the ones found in this series by Scott Westerfeld.  The Leviathan is like a dirigible, but it is a living creature created from whale DNA.  It is an incredible invention.  There are lots of other creatures that are both mechanized and created with animal DNA that are all over this series.  The books are beautifully illustrated as well as being a great younger YA read.  

5. Zombies, yes zombies!

Some might argue that zombies are fantasy not science fiction, but don’t most zombies come from some sort of man-made or alien made virus?  In my mind that puts them in the SF category.  And zombies can be sweet and cute like in Warm Bodies.  It has been awhile since I read this, so I can’t remember how the zombie thing started, but it is such a sweet romance story that I couldn’t resist adding it.  I haven’t read the second one, but maybe some day I will get around to it.  The author of Enclave doesn’t come out and say that the creatures in this story are zombies, but they start off kind of like that.  And of course my favorite zombie book, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.  What a great idea to combine those two. 

So those are some of my favorite Science Fiction creatures.  Any mention of those in a book will get my attention.  What about you?  What are your favorite SFF creatures?