I am a speculative biology buff, but this also means that unfortunately I have a harder time maintaining suspension of disbelief when alien life winds up too Earthlike or they just straight up refer to “birds” on other worlds. Would anyone happen to have recs for books with species that aren’t just rubber forehead aliens? (No disrespect to Star Wars, which I do genuinely enjoy, since it is genuinely challenging to do that level of worldbuilding!)
Bonus points if they’re audiobooks that I can access through Libby!
by ploapgusset
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Have you tried Project Hail Mary? Not a tone of world building, but I could be up your alley.
In Fury Born by David Weber has two main non-human species.
The first are the Rish, a saurian species with incredible sexual dimorphism.
Rish females are two and a half to three meter tall mountains of muscle who are so massively built they look squat even with their height and in combat armour are individually a match for a human tank. Rish males, not so much. Humans, even though they are small and weak by (female) Rish standards, consider them scrawny and puny.
The Rish are responsible for sparking one of the biggest internal conflicts in human history and covertly fund several terrorist organisations to destabilise humanity. Nevertheless, they are highly honourable (by their own cultural standards) and do not go back on their word.
The second are the Quarn (who sadly only play a minor role).
Imagine a giant starfish mixed with a giant spider. You’re pretty close. Oddly, humans and Quarn get along really well. Humans and Quarns don’t like to live in the same planets or environments, so that eliminates a lot of potential conflict areas. And unlike the Rish, humanity can take a joke.
Being fully hermaphrodite, the Quarn think sexual dimorphism is a joke. The Rish think it’s Serious Business while humans, because the difference between human males and females is fairly minimal and technology (and culture) has made it mostly irrelevant, tend to agree with the Quarn’s humorous view.
Quarn are mercantile to an almost ferocious degree, but if they need to fight, they will do so with just as much determination. Even a sledgehammer does little more than tickle a Quarn and they find it amusing to enter a public concourse, check that some Rish are present and then start exchanging jokes about Rish Matriarchs. Due to their strength and resilience, they almost always come out on top of the inevitable brawl.