One of the main attractions to Alan Dean Foster I have is his ability to create alien life and even define or question what is and isn't intelligent life. Right now I am researching what alien life is possible and what is necessary for intelligence in a species. I consider the Anthropomorphic view lazy where all intelligent aliens are humanoid. I read Foster as well as Piers Anthony for the aliens actually being different from us.

I find it both egocentric and even boring if all aliens are humanoid or have cultures that are too similar to us. Read below a quote from a website claiming in real life only humanoid aliens are likely or possible. Is this even close to true? From Alan's writings it would seem that he is more on my side. But I'm not sure.

Also any good links to aliens in sci fi ? And no I don't mean Star Trek. In Star Trek for the most part aliens seem humanoid and humans seem to be the best evolution can do. To me again boring and begging the question. Any thoughts on this? Any links or suggested reading?

THE TWO VIEWS
sacred-texts.com/ufo/aliens.htm

Conveniently, disagreement over the likely appearance of intelligent ETs divides itself into two opposing camps. On one side are those who take a rather anthropormorphic view of the ET and believe that it would basically be humanoid in shape with two ,arms, two legs, a head at the top of the body and the main sense organs located on the head.

Opposing this view are those exobiologists
who believe that the intelligent ET is bound to appear exotic because the creature would inevitably have taken a totally different evolutionary path from man and would have arisen in a very un-earthlike planetary environment.

This article will show, however, that the case put forward by the non-humanoid ET protagonists will not stand up to the example of the evolution of intelligent life on Earth, nor the necessities of morphology that a creature requires to become intelligent. It is therefore suggested here that any intelligent life across the galaxy will have evolved into a basically humanoid form.

sacred-texts.com/ufo/aliens.htm