Mother of Demons

A science fiction novel by Eric Flint, Mother of Demons follows the establishment of a human colony on an alien planet... well, more or less. It also follows the native sentients as they reach the tipping point of empire formation, and the linked point of the establishment of a new religion.

Somewhat unusually for an aliens-meet-humans novel, there is almost no effort to establish which species is superior and which is inferior, and neither is there any immediate humans-versus-aliens conflict. Instead, the book integrates the few surviving adults and the multitude of children from Earth with the less aggressive sentient species.


 * Fantastic Measurement System: Gukuy mathematics are based on the number eight instead of ten, due to the analogy with squids. When they say "eighty" what they are really saying is "eight times eight" or sixty-four. This is the same as 100 being ten times ten.
 * Humans Are Cthulhu / Humans Through Alien Eyes : Humans are initially seen as demons (the title refers to them) by the native inhabitants since they move faster than any local species and their jointed limbs allow them to use hand-thrown projectiles--something which the tentacled locals cannot do. The impression as otherworldly demons generally dissipated as the locals learned more about humans and their origins (although there is still some religious element for them).
 * Lovable Sex Maniac: According to Ushulubang, Goloku turned into this when she got drunk. May also intersect with Bottle Fairy because she was apparently drunk a lot.
 * Starfish Aliens: The native intelligent species are vaguely equivalent to land-dwelling mollusks, using modified "feet" for movement, having thick mantles as "shells" and squid-like faces. There are absolutely no instances of vertebrates. There are also four sexes; sterile females, breeding mothers, "truemales" who breed with the mothers, and eumales who are pretty much eunuchs.