Space Opera Fans discussion

There are a lot of space opera books about evil aliens, and humanity fighting them, but what about aliens who are our friends, or become our friends?

Chewbacca, Yoda, and the Ewoks in Star Wars stories.
Multiple aliens in the Star Trek stories.
Family Law by Mackey Chandler has at least one POV character who is a Derf, George. George adopts 12yo human Lee after her parents are killed while they were exploring an inhabitable planet.
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers has a multi species crew - several types of aliens even.

What are some of your favorite books where there are friendly aliens?

The Pride of Chanur, since I'm in the midst of re-reading it.

The Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse has some friendly aliens amongst the not-so-friendly ones.
Terminal Alliance
Terminal Uprising

The aliens of Tran-ky-ky are friendly, eventually.
Icerigger
Mission to Moulokin
The Deluge Drivers

Known Space is full of friendly aliens as well as meanies.
Protector
Ringworld

The Well World is populated by aliens who are friend and foe.
Midnight at the Well of Souls

My favourite books with really friendly aliens:

Project Hail Mary
The City in the Middle of the Night
Semiosis

Earth Fathers Are Weird and Earth Husbands are Odd by
Lyn Gala. Loooove.

E.E. Smith's books, both the Skylark and Lensman series had aliens who were friendly. Not sure about it his other fiction. I recall of the four second-stage Lensmen only Kit Kinnison was human, the other three were aliens.

The Sliver Ships series has friendly aliens and not-friendly ones.

Most of the space opera I read, the characters are humans rather than aliens. Others are genetically modified humans.

Just recalled that David Falkayn’s companions in. Poly Anderson’s series of stories are both aliens

I have written a friendly alien into my storyline, but the only way I could achieve it was by making the alien sufficiently humanlike, and sufficiently good at mimicking human emotions, that I could write about her in a relatable way…. I have benign aliens too - they’re easy - but “friendly” is a whole different level :)

James White Sector General Hospital Station and associated books and short stories have wide variety of friendly aliens.

E.M Foner Union Station and EarthCent Universe series. The latter was what first caught my attention.

Another addition to this list will be Shards of Earth. There are various alien races in it and we have some incredibly friendly alien characters.

Suman wrote: "Another addition to this list will be Shards of Earth. There are various alien races in it and we have some incredibly friendly alien characters."

Having now read this, I can confirm.

I forgot about Year Zero, which is a silly sci-fi comedy, so most of the aliens are friendly. Some are downright fanbois of Earthlings.