Uncanny Valley/Literature: Difference between revisions

* Played straight in Neal Asher's ''[[Cormac]]'' novels with the Golem androids. Early in the series most Golem androids are absolutely perfect in their humanoid design, with god-like strength and god-like beauty. Humans are usually pretty disturbed by them in their perfection because it makes the androids feel LESS human, since real humans aren't perfect. Furthermore most non-combat Golems have inhibitors which stop them using their joints in impossible directions and from using strength far greater than even an enhanced human. Subverted when later models have purposeful imperfections (moles, limps, idiosyncrasies) to make them feel more human (but are still quite capable of tearing people, and other androids, limb from limb).

* In ''[[Jane Eyre]]'', Jane is the only person who recognizes that something is wrong with Mr Mason: "...I like his physiognomy even less than before: it struck me as being, at the same time, unsettled and inanimate. His eye wandered, and had no meaning in its wandering: this gave him an odd look, such as I never remembered to have seen. For a handsome and not unamiable-looking man, he repelled me exceedingly...".

* In ''[[Gulliver's Travels]]'', it is implied in Part II that Gulliver was found to be off at first by the Brobdingnagians although it can be argued that it completely falls into this trope because unlike most examples, it does not continue.

* Occasionally this trope's effects are felt in Niven's ''[[Ringworld]]'' novels, as the many hominid natives fall short of being [[Human Aliens]]. Usually it's the ones that are already creepy (ghouls, vampires) which give people the willies when they move their shoulders more loosely than expected or are found to have too small a skull.

{{quote|''the alloy of humanity that softened the godliness of the youth was lacking in the features of the stranger, awful and immobile in their beauty.''}}

* Ford Prefect from ''[[Hitch Hikers Guide to The Galaxy]]'' is described as unsettling because he doesn't blink nearly enough and his skin seems stretched too tight on his face.

** The pretties from the books series ''[[Uglies]]''; they're literally perfect with symmetrical faces and all, and they all look very nearly the same. Then there's the specials who add a whole new level of creepy with their "cold beauty".

* An interesting variation presents itself with Quasimodo in ''[[The Hunchback of Notre Dame (novel)|The Hunchback of Notre Dame]]'':

* [[Dashiell Hammett]] describes it quite well in ''The Dain Curse'' (1928):

{{quote|"There was warmth and there was beauty in her olive-skinned face, but except for the eyes, it was warmth and beauty that didn't seem to have anything to do with reality. It was as if her face were not a face, but a mask that she had worn until it had almost become a face. Even her mouth, which was a mouth to talk about, looked not so much like flesh as like a too perfect imitation of flesh, softer and redder and maybe warmer than genuine flesh, but not genuine flesh."}}

* Some of the pictures from ''[[Man After Man: An Anthropology of the Future]]'' have disturbingly human faces. The Aquatics are particularly disturbing, because the rest of their bodies look more like cartoon manatees despite their realistic human face.