The Left Hand Of Darkness By Ursula Le Guin
Another piece of classic science-fiction literature, the language in The Left Hand of Darkness is contemplative and thorough. This story is about an ambassador from the council of humanity who travels to a planet called Winter populated by beings that change between male and female. The ambassador, Genly Ai, puts his safety at risk to bring that nation of Karhide into the light of technology and information, only to be betrayed. His only option is to team up with an exiled traitor while they both seek refuge.
Rock House Built Into The Hills In Yucca Valley California
Sleeps: 4 guests/1 bedroom
Rating: 4.92
This stone villa sits on five acres of land and was built using boulders gathered from nearby mountains during the ’60s and ’70s. It features floor-to-ceiling windows, slanted wooden ceilings, dramatic stone archways, and carved rock walls.
But the architecture isn’t all that sets this listing apart. The hosts describe this house as a living breathing sculpture, with everything built by hand. Unique interior design features include wood-burning stoves, an Egyptian-esque tiled mural in the bathroom, and a fireplace carved into the rock steps.
This three-bed villa can comfortably accommodate four guests, and any additional guests can stay in an on-site airstream .
There is also a hot tub, target range, wading pool, and the option to book a facial or in-room massage. Because of the sensitivity of certain architectural elements in this Airbnb, the host requests that all guests be 18 and over, so this is not ideal for families with young children.
Sleeps: 2 guests/1 bedroom
Rating: 4.82
This magical earth house will transport you straight from Washington to the set of “The Lord of the Rings.”
Located next to the Columbia River Gorge, it offers incredible views of the mountains, river, and on-site hiking trails from round windows. The charming indoor area comes with a cozy stone fireplace, an oversized iron chandelier, a wooden bathtub, and a barrel of drinking water attached to the wall.
Jeff Vandermeer Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy
Jeff Vandermeers Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy merges alien invasion with genetic mutations gone haywire. The Southern Reach is a government agency set to monitor Area X, a mysterious ecological anomaly of extraterrestrial origin. The Southern Reach Trilogy contains the three novels Annihilation,, and Acceptance. The novels are science fiction that borders on horror. To avoid nightmares, read these books in the daytime or leave the light on when you go to sleep. This piece of advice is particularly relevant if you live in Florida, whose wetlands served as Vandermeers inspiration for Area X.
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Death Valley Desert Hideaway In Beatty Nevada
Sleeps: 6 guests/3 bedrooms
Rating: 4.81
This 1,200 square-foot house deep in the high desert of Death Valley, Nevada beautifully incorporates the surrounding vistas and landscapes that abound. Set on 80-acres of land with unobstructed views over the desert and mountains, this tiny home packs a lot of punch between its office, large open kitchen, dining room, and three bedrooms.
Extra hangout space is available thanks to a 900-square-foot furnished deck with a sunken hot tub. Sliding glass doors can be completely opened for seamless indoor/outdoor living and interiors have a minimalist theme, but are still cheerful thanks to plenty of colorful and bright red dining chairs and a green-tiled bathroom.
Sleeps: 6 guests/3 bedrooms
Rating: 4.95
While a shipping container may not sound ultra-luxe, this one is especially posh. Sleeping up to six guests in three bedrooms, this home is made up of a shipping container with two levels, including a cabin on top connected via a narrow, spiraling staircase.
The expertly styled interiors include a wooden bench-style dining table, a buttery leather couch, a spa-like bathroom with a deep soaking tub, and floor-to-ceiling bedroom windows for dramatic views of the surrounding forest. Some of the windows even act like garage doors and can be lifted up for an indoor-outdoor experience.
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Van Ditthavong/ Redux
What explains the growth? asked James Finckenenaur, who co-authored the 2010 Rutgers study, which addresses Chinas influence on the commercial sex trade, with fellow professor Ko-lin Chin. Erotic massage does get ignored. Its relatively safe. Its exotic. And setting up a low-level massage parlor doesnt take a lot of capital. Plus theres a general interest in society at large in getting legitimate massages. So crossing over into something more? It doesnt take a lot to bridge that gap.
As Claires story demonstrates, the industry features rewards as well as a dark undercurrent. She never intended to become a sex worker. The divorced single mom left her country for a better life in the U.S. but ended up in a Manhattan nail salon until she could no longer stand the noxious fumes. A friend offered a crash course in deep-tissue therapy, which led to her new position as an unlicensed masseuse.
The job requires her to be ever pleasant and supplicating to customers, including the day a year ago when her mother passed away in a Shanghai hospital. Claire never got to say good-bye. Instead, she went to work.
This is a difficult story, she said.
Claire had attempted to return home but couldnt because of a visa problem, and her anguish mounted as family members sent photos of her ailing mothers final days. I wanted to kill myself, she said. There was no one in New York to console her.
Yet happy-ending hubs mostly avoid official scrutiny.
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Ark In Springfield Tennessee
Sleeps: 4 guests/1 bedroom
Rating: 4.95
This wooden ark, nicknamed Kellysjubilee, is located next to a picturesque pond on a peaceful, 50-acre property. The ark features multiple wooden decks, cabin-style octagonal windows, and touches of flowers throughout.
Inside the ark, you’ll find appropriately all-wood interiors, as well as a small stocked kitchen, and previous guests have mentioned being greeted by fresh flowers, comfortable robes, chocolates, and snacks.
On the property, you can take a walk to the creek, through various hiking trails, and even a labyrinth, or you can spend your day fishing in the pond. End your day by soaking in the private hot tub on the deck of the ark, roasting marshmallows by the fire pit, or stargazing on clear nights. Though the ark is located in a quiet, secluded location, it is only a 30-minute drive to Nashville.
The Search For Aliens Goes Mainstream
After the late 1990s, the field we now call astrobiology roared back to life. First, Mars suddenly got interesting again as a series of landers showed conclusively that the Red Planet was once blue. There had been water on Mars billions of years ago a lot of water. Maybe Mars formed life back then, as well. Maybe life is still there. Just as important, in 1995 we discovered for the first time an exoplanetorbiting a distant sun-like star. This was the beginning of what I like to call the exoplanet revolution, and we now know that every star in the sky hosts a family of alien worlds. With all those alien worlds, the chance that there is alien life and perhaps alien civilizations got much higher.
Finally, over the last few years, UFOs and UAPs have suddenly become mainstream news. Three videos released by the U.S. Navy, along with a government report released last year, brought the subject out from the tin-hat shadows and left everyone wondering, Should I take this seriously?
So why is all this a problem? Simply put, it is a lot to take in.
The issue is the same with UAPs. Is it time to carry out a true scientific study of UAPs? Well, what would that look like? What issues need to be addressed? How do we think about technologies that aliens might have, if the UAPs have anything to do with aliens?
That is not hyperbole.
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Bubble Dome With Hot Tub In Todd North Carolina
Sleeps: 2 guests/1 bedroom
Rating: 4.97
For a remote nature experience with all the perks of staying in town, this glamping bubble tucked among the trees is just a five-minute walk from downtown Todd in North Carolina. It’s an idyllic place for a weekend getaway, complete with a furnished gazebo, grilling area, and a full outdoor kitchen.
Spend evenings roasting marshmallows over the two firepits, or soak in the hot tub. Then kick back and take advantage of the fact that this Airbnb comes with a Bose Bluetooth speaker and an iPad for streaming.
If you can tear yourself away from the views, there’s plenty to do nearby. It’s just a 20-minute drive into Boone and numerous hiking trails are close to the home.
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Creekside Kingsley Gristmill In Clarendon Vermont
Sleeps: 4 guests/3 bedrooms
Rating: 4.98
Located in the charming Vermont countryside, this Airbnb is the United States’ only original gristmill and covered bridge that’s also a residence. Although it’s a national historic site, you won’t have to worry about daytrippers wandering across your vacation because it’s off-limits to the public and exclusively for guests. As an added perk, a gourmet breakfast is included in your stay.
The house itself is four stories and a massive 3,000 square feet. The interior is old-fashioned in keeping with the historic nature of the surrounds, with quilt-bedecked beds and timbered ceilings. The river outside is Vermont’s warmest, which is good news for swimmers wishing to take advantage of the lodging’s private breach or two floating tubes.
Sleeps: 2 guests/1 bedroom
Rating: 4.92
For a memorable city stay, it’s tough to beat this eclectic and art-filled New York City loft in the heart of Gramercy. With exposed brick walls, a wood-carved four-poster bed, and plants strewn throughout, this spot has a frenetic though welcoming vibe.
Set one flight up in a vine-covered brownstone, you’ll feel like you’re in your private museum as you peruse the myriad paintings, sculptures, and antiques. At night, soak in the clawfoot tub set right next to the wood-burning fireplace, or curl up with a good read from the numerous bookcases.
Of course, exploring all New York City has to offer is also easy from this home base.
Sleeps: 3 guests/1 bedroom
Rating: 4.95
Of The Best Alien Books: Invasion Stories Encounters And Beyond
Are we alone? Human beings have been searching for this answer arguably from the very beginning of our species. When science fiction came into its own as a genre around the turn of the 20th century, books about aliens and space exploration became an immediate genre staple. With the dawn of the Space Age in the 1950s, the urgency of the question of whether we are the only ones inhabiting this vast space only increased. The more we learn about our universe, the less we seem to know.
Here are books that we here at Book Riot consider to be the 15 best alien books.
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Sleeping Giants By Sylvain Neuvel
Sleeping Giants is a sci-fi thriller about a little girl named Rose who falls through the ground and into the hand of a giant robot. Nearly two decades go by and Rose becomes a top physicist piecing together chunks of the giant robot, scattered around the globe. Shes trying to figure out just what it is and what it was made for. The story is in the style of documentaries, interviews, and journal entries. This book is the first in The Themis Files. The idea for the novel, Neuvel says, came from creating a backstory with his son for the model robot they were building together.
A Question Asked For 20 Centuries
People have been asking, Are we alone? forever. You can read Aristotle and Democritus slugging it out over the issue 2,000 years ago. Over the 20 centuries to follow, the subject was never settled, and the arguments never died down.
But then in the 1950s, the first steps were taken toward making alien life a topic for scientific study. The decade started with Enrico Fermi framing his famous paradox over lunch at Los Alamos in 1950, wondering why aliens from more ancient parts of the Universe had not already visited us. In the middle of the decade, the Miller-Urey experiment gave us insight on how lifes basic molecules are created, mimicking a young Earth in a test tube. Finally, at the end of the decade, Frank Drake carried out the first true search for alien life, using the giant radio telescope at Green Bank, West Virginia.
Over the next 20 years, the science of searching for life in the Cosmos pushed forward. We sent probes to all the planets, and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence continued with a range of new and important ideas.
Then things went a bit dark. SETI starved for funding as a bunch of politicians used it to score points, beating on NASA for wasting taxpayer dollars. And after the Viking missions in the 1970s, it looked Mars was just a dead rock. Folks stopped thinking of the solar system as a place to hunt for life. It was a depressing time in the search for cosmic life a time that luckily did not last.
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Stanislaw Lem Solaris Translators Joanna Kilmartin And Steve Cox
Psychologist Kris Kelvin arrives at a space station above the planet Solaris to study the ocean that covers its entire surface. Soon, Kris has an encounter with a lover he knows has passed away. It is revealed that the rest of the crew have had similar experiences. Is it Solaris that manipulates the crews minds? If so, to what end?
Boxcar Bunkhouse In Canyon Texas
Sleeps: 2 guests/studio
Rating: 4.93
This 111-year old rustic boxcar located on a Texan ranch went through an extensive restoration and remodel and now serves as a unique stay for history buffs.
As you might expect, the boxcar’s layout is long and narrow and essentially one room. However, the home is highly functional, with one Queen bed, a pullout sofa, a tall glass dining table, and a small bathroom. Other noteworthy features include the shower, which is located in a former ice chute. There is also a private hot tub built into the ground at the end of the patio.
The boxcar is conveniently located near Palo Duro Canyon State Park and Cadillac Ranch. After a day of hiking and exploring, return to the boxcar and enjoy free Wi-Fi and a meal on the gas grill.
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Octavia Butler Liliths Brood
Previously known as The Xenogenesis Trilogy, Octavia Butlers Liliths Brood consists of the novels Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago. Telling stories of alien abduction, alien invasion, and the creation of a human-alien hybrid species, Liliths Brood includes all the cornerstones of extraterrestrial science fiction. Butler was a game changer in the genre, and Liliths Brood is an excellent example of this.
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Elizabeth Moon Remnant Population
At the age of 70, space colonist Ofelia is content to live out her final years alone after the colony where she has spent her adult life is disbanded. While all the other colonists leave, she remains behind, ready to start over as a colony of one. But when a ship returns to the colony and she finds the crew murdered, she realizes that perhaps she is not the only one living on this planet after all. Remnant Population takes a closer look at aging, starting over, and how the perception of monstrosity changes based on who is looking.
Zen Soaking Oasis In Arcata California
Sleeps: 2 guests/studio
Rating: 4.82
If you’re looking to soak the days away in your own little oasis, this cozy studio in Humboldt County, California is one of a kind. The studio is comfortable, with purple velvet decor and quilts adorning the walls, but the real appeal happens outside.
Two red bathtubs were turned into soaking tubs in a private moss-covered area, with another copper soaking tub filled via a waterfall. There’s also a luxurious cedar sauna with a beautiful riverstone exterior, plus a patio for relishing garden and pond views.
For breakfast, enjoy two farm-fresh eggs, steel-cut oats, and coffee or tea as part of your stay. The host even invites you to harvest kale from the living wall just across from the bike shed in the courtyard.
The home is within walking distance to the nearby town of Arcata where the local plaza offers plenty of shops, restaurants, and microbreweries. The Arcata Community Redwood Forest is also a few minutes away, as is the Arcata Marsh and Wildlife Sanctuary.
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