Here are 62 books that The Earthlings fans have personally recommended if you like
The Earthlings.
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When I was on holiday in Borneo with my daughter, we met an inspirational conservationist who was basically single-handedly saving sun bears from extinction. I asked what I could do to help. “Do what you do best,” he said. Those five powerful words shaped my last decade, most recently prompting the growing series of Wildlife Wong nonfiction children’s books based on his true adventures with rainforest creatures. I feel strongly about the importance of connecting kids to nature. Not only is it good for their physical and mental health, but my generation hasn’t done a particularly good job of environmental stewardship, and we need all the help we can get.
Learning about nature and loving it through the narrative is the first step toward stewardship. If we want to grow young conservationists, the next step is translating that love into action. This book encourages kids (from five up) to put down their gadgets, get outside and discover the natural world in their own backyard. Each page includes 10 things to find in leaf litter with clever illustrations and hidden flaps that figuratively and emotionally open up a whole new minuscule world. Just like the experiments in my own books, Leaf Litter engages kinetic learners and harnesses the power of action.
In this exquisitely illustrated book, award-winning author/illustrator Rachel Tonkin explores a small patch of leaf litter beneath one tree, which contains a hidden world that changes day by day. The more you look, the you will find. Ages 5+ Put simply, Leaf Litter is Stephen Beisty's Cross-Sections meets Where's Wally with lift-the-flaps - from an ecological point of view! In a time when respect for and understanding of our environment are paramount, Leaf Litter is an excellent introduction to the intricate and complex relationships that exist in our natural world. Leaves, twigs, branches and bark collect on the ground in…
Some people like realism in their stories, but I prefer something more out there. I enjoy it when a story takes place in a fictional world, be it in a fantasy land like Lord of the Rings or something sci-fi. So, it’s not surprising that when I started writing my own series, The Cyborg Crusade, I decided to invent a new world. This required a ton of work and gave me a further appreciation for the effort it takes to come up with a strange new setting. This is why I decided to make this list of books featuring either a unique world or a twist on the existing one.
I rarely read young adult books, but Pure’s cover intrigued me. That’s good because it was a fun read.
Well-developed characters and a clever setting play a large part in the book’s charm. Pure takes place after a nuclear war. There are plenty of survivors, but the radiation left behind has a secret side effect never disclosed to the public: It causes flesh to merge with objects.
For instance, the main character has a doll for a hand. Her grampa has a fan stuck in his throat. Some people are fused with the ground. A group of mothers merged with their children. Adding to this, a giant dome hosts the last “pure” humans. While Pure relies on common young adult tropes, the result feels fresh and unique.
We know you are here, our brothers and sisters. We will, one day, emerge from the Dome to join you in peace. For now, we watch from afar, benevolently.
Pressia Belze has lived outside of the Dome ever since the detonations. Struggling for survival she dreams of life inside the safety of the Dome with the 'Pure'.
Partridge, himself a Pure, knows that life inside the Dome, under the strict control of the leaders' regime, isn't as perfect as others think.
Bound by a history that neither can clearly remember, Pressia and Partridge are destined to forge a new world.
Balakrishna Kamath has to his credit a 39-year-long service in one of India’s premier Intelligence agencies. His long service has taken him to many places and enabled him to gain considerable experience in handling challenging operations. The coveted national-level honors - The Indian Police Medal and President's Police Medal, he had received during his service, would indicate the distinction he has earned in his career. After his retirement, he has written two novels – The Velvet Gloves (November 2018) and The Ace of Shadows (March 2022). These novels dwelling on intelligence operations have been recently signed for adaptation into web series.
Published in the 1960s, Chariots of the Gods is a book forever! Mysteries do not limit to fiction works alone. There are stunning mysteries remaining shrouded in the limitless cosmos. What is there in the space? Are we the only intelligent beings in the universe? Thousands of years ago, how were the pyramids in Egypt and South America built, without the help of developed tools and technology? What do the magnificent cave drawings, and huge carved granite temples in India and elsewhere, tell us? A well-researched book Chariots of the Gods takes the readers on an exploratory trip to the fascinating cosmos and beyond. The possibilities are countless and life proves to be different from what we knew. The lucid narration could keep even ordinary readers glued to the book.
The groundbreaking classic that introduced the theory that ancient Earth established contact with aliens.
Immediately recognized as a work of monumental importance, Chariots of the Gods endures as proof that Earth has been visited repeatedly by advanced aliens from other worlds. Here, Erich von Daniken examines ancient ruins, lost cities, spaceports, and a myriad of hard scientific facts that point to extraterrestrial intervention in human history. Most incredible of all, however, is von Daniken's theory that we are the descendants of these galactic pioneers-and he reveals the archeological discoveries that prove it...
When I was growing up in a small town in Pennsylvania, my father and I watched Star Trek reruns together. He was so busy traveling all over the world with his job that our time watching Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock was precious to me. I loved it so much that I built my own Enterprise models and sewed a boxful of tribbles. More importantly, that show led me to reading tons of science fiction - everything from Isaac Asimov to Douglas Adams - and, of course, watching every Star Trek sequel ever made. Live long and prosper.
I loved the humor of this novel: Prot – who claims to be an alien from the planet K-PAX – is charming and funny and absolutely wins over everyone he meets. You can’t not want him to be who he says he is. Is K-Pax a real planet? Is Prot a real alien or does he suffer from a mental illness? If you’ve seen the movie, that’s a start, but the book is better and there are sequels. It’s told from his psychiatrist’s point of view so we get a lot of background on him and how he relates to Prot. In many ways, the book tells us more about what it’s like for us to be humans than for Prot to be an alien.
When a man who claims to be from outer space is brought into the Manhattan Institute, the mental ward seems to be just the place for him. However this patient is unlike anyone psychiatrist Dr. Gene Brewer has had under his care before. Calling himself 'prot', he has no traceable background but says that he is an inhabitant of the planet K-PAX, a perfect world without wars, government or religion, and where every being coexists in harmony. Setting a departure date - August 17th at 3.31am - on which he plans to return home on a beam of light, 'prot'…
I have prosopagnosia, Face Blindness. I can’t recognize my face, let alone anyone else. Not being able to remember people makes for a lonely existence. Ever since I was little, I created worlds inside my head. These were places where I could control what happened when the real world felt lonely and out of control. Discovering books that created worlds I could immerse myself in was life-changing for me. It was like finding my lost tribe. Science fiction became a comfortable home, becoming a science fiction writer was a natural progression. I still get excited when I find a book that sucks me into its world.
This book made me ask myself how far I would go for someone I loved. Would time, distance, and beliefs change me, too?
I like the classic hardcore science fiction setting of this story mixed with a culture based on a mystical belief—science meets faith. Which would I choose if I were living in that world? Or can I have both? The answer is bittersweet because there is no perfect solution.
This reissue of a modern classic of science fiction, the Hugo and Locus Award-winning and Nebula-nominated The Snow Queen, marks the first time the book has been reprinted in fifteen years.
The imperious Winter colonists have ruled the planet Tiamat for 150 years, deriving wealth from the slaughter of the sea mers. But soon the galactic stargate will close, isolating Tiamat, and the 150-year reign of the Summer primitives will begin. Their only chance at surviving the change is if Arienrhod, the ageless, corrupt Snow Queen, can destroy destiny with an act of genocide. Arienrhod is not without competition as…
Of all the intelligent species (both real and fictional), humans fascinate me the most. For me, it’s the creativity and diversity of humans that both divide and unite us. Our eternal struggle to understand one another and overcome our differences fascinates me. I love first-contact science fiction that lets us view the values and behavior of our own species through the lens of true outsiders. I find great value in these parables when they increase self-awareness of our identities and our effect on others.
Honestly, I could recommend any of Peter Cawdron’s first contact science fiction books–and there are many of them! Peter is one of the most prolific indie authors on Amazon, and I appreciate that most of his books are available on Kindle Unlimited.
The Simulacrum appealed to the side of me that craves stories with tension, drama, and a fast pace. At the same time, as a science-minded reader, I want the stories I read to be plausible. The author clearly did his research by producing a first-contact story that fits within the known laws of physics and interstellar travel.
As a bonus, this book includes an afterword with detailed explanations of the ideas, concepts, and hard science that went into the book–something I really appreciate.
Someone is altering old astronomical images. In one small patch of the sky, the digital versions don't match the original prints and photographic plates taken by observatories from around the world over the past century.
Dawn McAllister is a PhD student tasked with figuring out why Przybylski’s Star is attracting unwanted attention from a malicious hacker... Her high-achieving brother, Ryan, is an astronaut on the backup crew for NASA's Ample mission to the asteroid Psyche in orbit between Mars and Jupiter... At the same time, NSA analyst Gabriel Rodrigez stumbles upon a collaboration between Russia and China to interfere with…
I am an author, editor, lecturer, and sometime broadcaster on astronomy and space. My early interest in the possibilities of extraterrestrial life and interstellar communication led me to write my first books, Worlds Beyond (1975) and Messages from the Stars (1978). This interest also led me to investigate UFO sightings, but I soon realized that their explanation lies in human misperception and not ETs. My investigation and explanation of the famous Rendlesham Forest UFO case of December 1980, widely regarded as one of the top-ten cases worldwide and sometimes known as Britain's Roswell, can be found here. In conjunction with the outstanding Dutch celestial cartographer Wil Tirion, I have produced two standard observing guides for amateur astronomers.
Carl Sagan was that most unusual of creatures: a top scientist who was also a lyrical writer. In an era when scientists were still wary of dealing with the press – an aversion that he helped overturn – his books were particularly influential in promoting the search for extraterrestrial life, both on the planets of our own Solar System (notably Mars) and on planets of other stars. In nearly 40 short, varied essays, The Cosmic Connection outlines our links with the cosmos around us, raises the possibility that we are not alone, and discusses what we might do if an extraterrestrial contact were to be received.
In 1973, Carl Sagan published The Cosmic Connection, a daring view of the universe, which rapidly became a classic work of popular science and inspired a generation of scientists and enthusiasts. This seminal work is reproduced here for a whole new generation to enjoy. In Sagan's typically lucid, lyrical style, he discusses many topics from astrophysics and solar system science, to colonization of other worlds, terraforming and the search for extraterrestrials. Sagan conveys his own excitement and wonder, and relates the revelations of astronomy to the most profound human problems and concerns: issues that are just as valid today as…
I discovered science fiction at age nine with Rocketship Galileo and Red Planet and have never lost my love for speculative worlds, even after growing up to follow a career teaching and writing about the history of cities and city planning. In recent years, I’ve also begun to write about the field of SF. So it is one-hundred-percent natural for me to combine the two interests and explore science fiction cities. I try to look beyond the geez-whiz technology of some imagined cities to the ideas of human-scale planning and community that might make them fun places to visit or live in if we could somehow manage to get there.
At the center of the story is Spearpoint, the tallest skyscraping megabuilding that you could imagine. It is so enormous that it is divided into segments from bottom to top with different levels of technology (Horsetown and Steamville at the bottom, cybertowns, and then the fantastic Celestial Levels at the top). But wait, there’s more.
Roaming the rest of the planet is the Swarm, hundreds of giant aircraft that function together as the neighborhoods of a “distributed city” much like the fleet in Battlestar Galactica. The very different cities do not play well together, and you get to choose which one you’d rather live in. I like flying, myself.
Spearpoint, the last human city, is an atmosphere-piercing spire of vast size. Clinging to its skin are the zones, a series of semi-autonomous city-states, each of which enjoys a different - and rigidly enforced - level of technology. Horsetown is pre-industrial; in Neon Heights they have television and electric trains ...Following an infiltration mission that went tragically wrong, Quillon has been living incognito, working as a pathologist in the district morgue. But when a near-dead angel drops onto his dissecting table, Quillon's world is wrenched apart one more time, for the angel is a winged posthuman from Spearpoint's Celestial Levels…
I love people who are totally lost because they are on the brink of their greatest discovery–their true nature. Even as a little boy I remember seeing that everyone has a purpose in life, but that is hidden to them. I have always felt that every step of the way, life seems to be a little off-track. But through authentic stories, I came to an understanding that right now, everyone is doing great things with their lives, even if they can’t see it.
This is the real-life account of a professor who gets caught up in “The Phenomena,” a term used to describe the appearance and interaction with extraterrestrial activity and encounters.
Diana Pasulka is a professor of religious studies who is researching the similarities between encounters with angels and demons, which are very similar in description to encounters with aliens and UFOs. Professor Pasulka is blindfolded and driven by a NASA scientist to a desert in New Mexico, where she is shown a secret “UFO crash site.” She doesn’t believe any of it. She says the ground is covered for miles by deteriorating aluminum cans that the government placed there over fifty years ago to obscure the UFO crash site and hide it. Later, her friend, Dr. Gary Nolan, a Stanford University scientist, verifies the objects from the crash site are not from this “universe.”
More than half of American adults and more than seventy-five percent of young Americans believe in intelligent extraterrestrial life. This level of belief rivals that of belief in God. American Cosmic examines the mechanisms at work behind the thriving belief system in extraterrestrial life, a system that is changing and even supplanting traditional religions.
Over the course of a six-year ethnographic study, D.W. Pasulka interviewed successful and influential scientists, professionals, and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who believe in extraterrestrial intelligence, thereby disproving the common misconception that only fringe members of society believe in UFOs. She argues that widespread belief in aliens…
I’ve been writing for publication since I was a student, crudely the writing has been a way of medicating the fact I’m incurably curious about a range of things and I’ve also suffered from an over-production of ideas my whole life. Wrestling this under control into writing and live speaking where the subjects must fit within a title, word limit, or running time for a talk has been helpful, beyond which the whole writing career has been a trade off between things I’ve chosen to do because they matter a lot to me, and the occasional accepting of an offer I thought too good to refuse.
This is hefty, recent, authoritative, and well written (the author’s CV includes a Pulitzer Prize nomination).
Over a lengthy historic account, he spins the twin stories of the search by scientists for extraterrestrial life and the – usually – amateur search by ufologists for evidence to support their claims that aliens are already visiting us. Garrett Graff explores the contradictions.
He is clear and concise on the strength and weakness each side’s efforts, and insightful in those moments when both sides have briefly collaborated. For a beginner to the subject who wants the shortest route to becoming truly knowledgeable, this is the perfect primer.
From Garrett M. Graff, New York Times bestselling author of Raven Rock, The Only Plane in the Sky, and Pulitzer Prize finalist for history Watergate, comes the first comprehensive and eye-opening exploration of our government's decades-long quest to solve one of humanity's greatest mysteries: Are we alone in the universe?
For as long as we have looked to the skies, the question of whether life on Earth is the only life to exist has been at the core of the human experience, driving scientific debate and discovery, shaping spiritual belief, and prompting existential thought across borders and generations. And yet,…
