The World for World is Forest as Science Fiction

In The Word for World is Forest, the concept of the uncanny valley is relevant in the interaction between the Yumen and the Athsheans. “And finally there was the inevitable Freak Reaction, the flinching away from what is human but does not quite look so”(114).  An aspect of science fiction is the uncanny valley applied to a more broad range.  In science fiction there is always as aspect of a reality, being, or concept that is in relation to our human ideology that is taken and placed into a questioning position that creates this feeling of discomfort.  When something appears so separate from human life; however, in actuality it may be extremely similar that causes the uncanny valley in science fiction.  It is the transplanting of an idea that seems so out of reach; yet, it is actually a possibility which makes us question what being human is.  In this novel the idea that the Athsheans can be so similar to the Yumens or humans causes the hostility and discomfort because the Athsheans seem so foreign. In actuality, the Athsheans are closer to being human than many of the Yumens and may have surpassed them in humanity by subsisting with a pacifist nature. The Athsheans are more human than the humans causing them to be remote and unidentifiable to the Yumens placing them in the uncanny valley.