Definitely not want to be stuck there, you're right. (Typoed You're tight, but don't know if that is so...)
Thread creep, but you asked:
Larry Niven wrote several novels and a bunch of short stories in a consistent future universe with lots of interesting aliens who are really alien, not like Star Trek aliens who are usually not only humanoid (except the Gorn and the Horta, I guess) but also have very human motivations and, except for the metaphor people, very human language. In the Tales of Known Space, as the stories are collectively known, there is an herbivorous three-legged two-headed race whose entire ethos and world view, as befits an herbivore, is based on what humans call cowardice; there is a cat-like carnivorous race who are formidable warriors; there is a three-eyed race of gamblers who can see out of all sides of their heads; the humans have colonized various planets and are changed thereby, being tall and usually albino on one low-gravity planet, wide and punsters on a heavier planet, and there is an entire bunch that live in their ships and have colonized the asteroid belt who are very independent and often have a phobia of being on a planet. You should read them all, starting with a collection of short stories called Neutron Star, which introduces a lot of stuff. Also read The Mote in God's Eye, not in the Known Space series but the aliens are really, really alien and it percolates through their thinking and their language and everything. Very thorough, is Larry Niven, in thinking things through.