[GuB-42]

It looks like the paper focuses exclusively on visual media, mostly film and TV, rather than things left to your imagination, like in books.

Most emphasis is on the little details like the pipes on the hull and how they contribute to the general idea, for example small windows make the ship appear bigger, bigger thrusters will evoke a fast ship. The opposite as with books where the attributes tend to be given first and it is up to you to imagine the details.

A kind of ship that I found interesting was from "étoiles mourantes", a weird (the "Dune" kind of weird) french novel. In the novel you have animal-cities, huge extraterrestrial beings living in deep space, hosting other life forms inside them, including humans. They allow for hyperspace-like travel.

I liked the idea of living creatures as spaceships, but the book doesn't give much detail about how they look, therefore being out of scope of the paper. Organic looking spaceships are mentioned though, as a sure-fire way of making them look alien.