38
This is probably the Outer Limits episode "Trial By Fire"
From the Wikipedia synopsis:
En route to his Inauguration Ball, newly sworn-in President Charles Halsey, his campaign slogan "Let me be your friend", is diverted to a nuclear bunker and is greeted by his predecessor's staff including Junior Science Advisor Janet Preston; National Security Advisor ...
14
Alien World: The Complete Illustrated Guide by Steven Eisler
This was an art book of sci-fi aliens illustrated by various authors, with lurid descriptions invented by Mr. Eisler.
Disembodied eye on the cover:
Hand holding several eyeballs:
11
If the "exploring youth" is a young medical doctor hiking in the Rockies, you could be describing The Winds of Time, a 1956 novel by Chad Oliver. Quoting from P. Schuyler Miller's review in Astounding Science Fiction, October 1957 (available at the Internet Archive):
The book starts as an adventure. Wes Chase, vacationing M.D., is caught in a storm high ...
8
Hunter's Moon by Poul Anderson.
The flyers are the Ouranids and the land dwelling species the Dromids. The trace element that the Ouranids accumulate in their bodies is manganese. The new tao is:
"Oh…they’ve acquired a new—no, not a new religion. That implies a special compartment of life, doesn’t it? And ouranids don’t compartmentalize their lives. Call ...
7
This is Stanley G Weinbaum's "A Martian Odyssey".
There was a line of little pyramids - tiny ones, not more than six
inches high, stretching across Xanthus as far as I could see.
Also the answer to this old question: Story about a man and an alien exploring an alien world
7
Searching for novel alien spacecraft "disguised as a van" got me Children's sci-fi book with an alien named Yacob looking for a kid with technology, which references the spaceship disguised as a van, a teenager, and an alien. The answer there was Hard Drive by Graham Marks, first book of the Strange Hiding Place trilogy/fix-up.
‘Eleven years ago the ...
7
The likeliest answer is "Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials".
I can't vouch for the hand holding the eyeballs but maybe that was a different cover.
https://www.amazon.com/Barlowes-Guide-Extraterrestrials-Science-Literature/dp/0894803247
6
This is the story "The Brotherhood of Keepers" by Dean McLaughlin, as I see was noted in one of the comments. I read it in the 6th Annual Edition: The Year's Best S-F edited by Judith Merril. It was previously published in Astounding; I found a scan of it online at the Internet Archive.
Humans are on a planet that they are colonizing.
It's not a colony, ...
5
1929: "Venus Liberated", a novella by Harl Vincent in Amazing Stories Quarterly, Summer 1929, available at the Internet Archive. This issue is dated July 20,1929, on the contents page. The excerpt below is from page 302, column 2.
"However, I shall not trouble you for ten of your earth days. I shall give you my message now and allow you sufficient time to ...
5
The book is called Rebel Fleet and is the the first in a series called Rebel Fleet by BV Larson.
The protagonist is a soldier that dives off the coast to find a glowing rock that fell from the sky. Only a few survive this I believe, then aliens take them to fight in their navy.
All the aliens are of humanoid descent, but from a different base animal than ...
4
This is The War against the Chtorr series, by David Gerrold.
The Earth has been seeded, by means unknown, and there are several Chtorran infestation all over it. Not enough to completely alienform the planet, but enough that the military saw the writing on the wall, while far from the "front lines", life goes on more or less as usual, while soldiers fight ...
4
Liquid Sky
Space aliens develop a taste for a chemical that's secreted in human brains only at the moment of orgasm.
At one point the lead character actually says "This pussy has teeth."
Forum: Great Vagina Dentata Moments In Cinema...
4
The Outer Limits (1995 TV series)
"Double Helix" (episode 3x12; 1997) is about a professor in the 20th Century who activates a dormant part of his genetic code which leads him and a group of young adults to a spaceship that has been buried for 60 million years. The ship, though not self-repairing, is so durable that it has not taken damage in all its time ...
3
Since the OP seems to have already accepted this, I'm going to post it as an answer so it's officially recorded.
The work seems to be Stranger In a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein, specifically this passage where Valentine Michael Smith first encounters a lawn:
Smith wiggled his toes in the cool grass, then said timidly, "But these live?"
"Sure, ...
2
Is it possible you're thinking of L. Sprague de Camp's Galton Whistle?
Surveyor Adrian Frome, one of a three-member survey team working in the jungles of the planet Vishnu, is captured by the centaur-like Dzlieri natives after his supervisor is killed and the third member deserts. Taken to their base, he finds them taking orders from Sirat Mongkut, a ...
1
This isn't a perfect match, but you may be thinking of Anasazi by Dean Ing.
In Anasazi, an alien spacecraft containing a species of parasites crashes in the prehistoric US southwest, in the region now known for the Anasazi, a.k.a. the Ancestral Pueblo culture. The aliens lack the means to fix their spacecraft or communicate offworld. They can't leave the ...
1
The short story "Youth" by Asimov has exactly the same twist at the end, the story is told from the point of view of (children) "tentacled" characters, but we learn that only at the very last sentence, and the "aliens" they capture are really humans. But if the final twist is the same, the story is entirely different. Nobody dies. And it is very short, ...
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