To discuss the supernatural in China is “to talk of foxes and speak of ghosts.” Ming and Qing China were well populated with foxes, shape-changing creatures who transgressed the boundaries of species, gender, and the metaphysical realm. In human form, foxes were both immoral succubi and good wives/good mothers, both tricksters and Confucian paragons. They were the most alien yet the most common of the strange creatures a human might encounter. Rania Huntington investigates a conception of one kind of alien and attempts to establish the boundaries of the human. As the most ambiguous alien in the late imperial Chinese imagination, the fox reveals which boundaries around the human and the ordinary were most frequently violated and, therefore, most jealously guarded. Each section of this book traces a particular boundary violated by the fox and examines how maneuvers across that boundary change over time: the narrative boundaries of genre and texts; domesticity and the outside world; chaos and order; the human and the non-human; class; gender; sexual relations; and the progression from animal to monster to transcendent. As “middle creatures,” foxes were morally ambivalent, endowed with superhuman but not quite divine powers; like humans, they occupied a middle space between the infernal and the celestial.

The China of the Ming and Qing dynasties was well populated with foxes, shape-changing creatures who transgressed the boundaries of species, gender and the metaphysical realm. Each section of this book traces a particular boundary violated by the fox and examines how manoeuvres across that boundary change over time.

A Reporter's Notebook on Alien Abduction, UFOS, and the Conference at MIT Alien abduction is hardly the usual topic for a scientific conference, yet in 1992 just such a conference was held at MIT. Respected journalist C D B Bryan had serious doubts about UFO encounters , but decided to attend with an open mind. This startling and thought-provoking book is the result. Fascinating - compelling, terrifying, haunting, yet entirely rational' - The Baltimore Sun'

Biological invasions by alien (non-native) species are widely recognized as a significant component of human-caused global environmental change and the second most important cause of biodiversity decline. Alien species threaten many European ecosystems and have serious environmental, economic and health impacts. The DAISIE (Delivering Alien Invasive Species Inventories for Europe) project has now brought together all available information on alien species in Europe (terrestrial, aquatic and marine) and from all taxa (fungi, plants, animals). Thus for the first time, an overview and assessment of biological invasions in the Pan-European region is finally possible. The Handbook of Alien Species in Europe summarises the major findings of this groundbreaking research and addresses the invasion trends, pathways, and both economic as well as ecological impact for eight major taxonomic groups. Approximately 11.000 alien species recorded in Europe are listed, and fact sheets for 100 of the most invasive alien species are included, each with a distribution map and colour illustration. The book is complemented by a regularly updated internet database providing free additional information. With its highly interdisciplinary approach, DAISIE and its Handbook will be the basis for future scientific investigations as well as management and control of alien invasive species in Europe.

Sometimes, when you can't find your mate, it's because you haven't looked far enough. Alpha Prince Kagin longs to find his rupling, his mate. He searches his planet, Thulnara, to no avail, but he can feel him out there. As a last resort, he breaks the laws of his kind and finds Idda, a soothsayer. She sees his mate, but there is a problem: His mate is on Earth, a primitive planet once visited by his grandparents. Not that Kagin plans to let that stop him. Veterinarian omega Hanson loves his job, the animals he cares for, and his community at the ocean's shore. It's everything he's ever dreamed of until his dreams change. Night after night, Hanson falls asleep to visions of himself holding a beautiful baby-his baby. Only the baby is blue, and when he wakes up each morning, he mourns the loss. Until one night, a woman appears and tells him not to worry, he is coming, and for the first time since he glimpsed the image of his child, he feels hope. Hope he almost runs over with his car. Oops. The Alien Prince's Omega is the first book in the Close Encounters of the Mating Kind series by the popular co-writing duo of Lorelei M Hart and Colbie Dunbar. It is a sweet with knotty heat alien romance set in the world of Dates of Our Lives. The Alien Prince's Omega features an alien prince and future King of Thulnara who is longing for his true mate, a human vet who thinks the strangest beings out there are shifters, an intergalactic meeting of the in-laws, an extra-long appendage that allows for double the fun, true fated mates, and an adorable baby. If you like your sci-fi light, your royalty smexy, your alphas a bit blue around the edges, and your mpreg with heart, download your copy today.

Jillian Landay is no queen of an alien planet like her younger sister, Megan, but she has a successful career as an interior designer. Love and relationships? Totally out of the question. She's not about to get burned again. So how the hell did she end up pregnant for an arrogant alien general? Jonnar Dorayan may be the sexiest alien warrior alive with his intense, blue-violet stare and a scorching touch that sets her body afire, but he's not her type. Yeah, he's the father of her unborn child. And yeah, he saved her life. Twice. But falling for him? Never gonna happen in this galaxy or the next! - There are two things Jonnar enjoys in life: fighting and… well, it involves a willing woman beneath him. Fatherhood was definitely not one of his life’s goals. And if he had a choice, he certainly wouldn’t have chosen a prickly, stubborn human female as the mother of his child. Jillian is nothing like what he’s accustomed to, yet her irresistible curves and astounding strength captivate him. He can't fall in love with her. He's no good for her and she's too good for him. But if he ever gets them out of their dangerous situation, he's not sure he'll want to let her go. The Alien General's Baby is a steamy sci-fi alien romance. It features a handsome, powerful alien general falling in love with and risking his life for his luscious human female and their unborn child. This book features these themes: science fiction alien romance, forbidden love between alien and human, enemies to lovers, pregnancy / baby, steamy love scenes, action and adventure, suspense.

Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind: cases in which personal contact between an individual or individuals is initiated by the “occupants” of the spacecraft. Such contact may involve the transportation of the individual from his or her terrestrial surroundings into the spacecraft, where the individual is communicated with and/or subjected to an examination before being returned. One might expect that a “scientific conference” devoted to people who have reported being kidnapped by “little green men” would be dismissed out of hand. But C.D.B. Bryan, the greatly admired journalist and author of Friendly Fire, did not dismiss it: the conference was to be held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and would have as its chairmen a Pulitzer Prize-winning Harvard psychiatry professor and a professor of physics from M.I.T. Bryan attended the conference throughout its five days. He approached the subject with no prior stand, no agenda, and an open (if slightly skeptical) mind. As the conference progressed, he was astonished by the quality of the stories told by the hundreds of men and women who came forward hesitantly and reluctantly with their utterly amazing—and utterly convincing—accounts of having been abducted and then examined aboard extraterrestrial spacecraft by spindly limbed, telepathic gray creatures with outsized foreheads dominated by huge, compelling, tear-shaped black eyes. What most astonished Bryan were the similarities found again and again in these accounts and the consistency of their details. It is here that the heart of the mystery lies: as the Harvard professor John E. Mack asked at the conference, “If what the abductees are saying isn’t happening to them, then what is?” This question—and the possible answers—are at the center of this richly explicit, serious, and riveting book. Bryan recreates the conference. He interviews ufology’s most prominent psychiatrists, psychologists, hypnotherapists, researchers, physicists, physicians, and folklorists. He interweaves throughout the testimony of the abductees themselves, who tell us their stories in chilling detail. He presents, in depth, the Close Encounter experiences of two women whose stories he tells on the basis of both their spontaneous recollections of the events and their memories that were retrieved through sessions of hypnosis of which Bryan himself was a witness. Finally, Bryan examines the current theories—psychological, psychiatric, medical, parapsychological—that have been put forward by the unconvinced to explain the abduction phenomenon. Are the abductees suffering from some sort of false memory syndrome? . . . a multiple or dissociative personality disorder? . . . Are they fantasy-prone? Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind is a detailed, objective exploration—the most concrete to date—of one of the enduring and amazing mysteries of our time. It is a book that will equally fascinate believers and nonbelievers.