In the second volume of this epic six part series telling the story of Vietnam, the alien surveillance continues. The Marragh/Riken sanction the third mind-melt with Vu Phan Quang, the corrupt politician first encountered by Phat Sang in a Hanoi refugee camp. Quang escapes from the horrors of the communist victory in the north to reach the dubious safety of Saigon and immediately becomes embroiled in the battles of the three rival groups who fought for political control before the USA threw its support behind the South Vietnamese government headed by Ngo Dinh Diem. The bloodshed and suffering...

From high above Vietnam the Marregh/Riken continue to observe the Buddhist Rebellion which finally brings down the government of President Ngo Dinh Diem. Two new mind-melts are sanctioned for the second tri-mind in the observation capsule, with the gentle monk Huong Lin Van, and with Mary Francis, the idealistic young volunteer nurse. The English girl and the monk are drawn together in what can only be a purely platonic friendship. Then Lin Van is injured in a bloody riot, rescued by Mary, and inadvertently breaks his vows by spending the night unconscious in her apartment. He sees fire...

With two Timeships hidden in fixed orbit behind Pluto in the farthest reaches of the solar system, the extinction of the human race is imminent. It is only the watchers in the Earth observation capsule who are now pleading for more time and a longer study before the final decision is made. Reluctantly three more mind melts are sanctioned. The first new contact is with Nguyan Nam Kim who is taken as a boy from his home village and indoctrinated in the guerrilla camps in the jungles. Nam Kim grows from a hit and run fighter engaging in ambush and night attacks, to a seasoned veteran of the Viet...

The alien surveillance of Vietnam has revealed only contradictions and madness. The Marregh/Riken have watched the war with the Americans through the eyes of the Viet Cong Guerrilla Nguyan Nam Kim, and now watch a mirror version of those war years through the mind melt with the US Marine Irvin Jones. In a desperate effort to stop an out of control massacre of helpless Vietnamese villagers Jones accidentally fires a shot that kills his commanding officer. His platoon sergeant is determined to cover the incident up and kill Jones before his tour of duty ends. The death of a tri-mind host will...

THE FALL OF SAIGON The long years of surveillance are drawing to a close, and in the last days the focus is on three women. Mary Francis has returned to a second volunteer year in the hospital in Saigon. Phat Sang has grown up to become a bar girl in a Saigon bar, and she is Irvin Jones's "Number One Girl." Suzanne Chauvel and Vu Phan Quang are lovers and Rene Chauvel is ambushed in the street by assassins hired by Quang. Their concluding stories are played out against the background of the Great Tet Offensive and the Fall of Saigon. The Marregh/Riken observe and agonize from their hidden...

The Fifth Planet has been destroyed in the Holocaust War, and now the fate of Earth, The Third Planet, rests with Raven, the last Sword Lord of Ghedda. A gigantic fragment has broken away from the new asteroid belt formed by the destruction of the fifth planet and is on a collision course with Earth's moon. The impact will push the moon into a decaying orbit which will destroy the last life-bearing planet in the solar system. Raven's space ship can be repaired by cannibalizing parts of Zela's crashed space ship, but it will take Raven and Zela together to fly it on one last mission to deflect...

SEASCREAM It came from the depths of the sea and from beyond the prehistoric mists of time. It was out there somewhere offshore in the thick swirling mist which filled the pitch black night. It was a diffused sound which could have come from any direction, or from all directions AS THOUGH THE SEA ITSELF WAS SCREAMING The sea creatures were not unknown. They were frequently sighted and recorded in the days of sail when ships moved silently under wind power, or lay becalmed in remote parts of the world's vast oceans. The sightings stopped when the ships were fitted with noisy thudding engines...

WITCHFIRE The vengeance of the witch had to wait, until two of her lovers were reincarnated in the same time. The sensational press called it the Breckland Triangle, the three cornered area of Breckland where in the short space of a few weeks the outbreak of serious fire incidents soared out of all normal proportions. Houses, factories and crashed vehicles burst into infernos of flame. The toll mounted, often from what seemed to be some inexplicable form of internal human combustion. In the skies above the jet fighters from the nearby USAF Air Base pose the constant threat of a major...

PERSONS REPORTED BY ROBERT LEADER "Persons Reported Trapped," is the cryptic fire service message that accompanies every call to an incident where life is at risk. However, despite every effort of the Fire Brigade, and of Detective Sergeant Judy Kane who had been first on the scene, Helen Douglas had died. But it was not the fire that had killed her, Helen had been murdered. Helen was the wife of Mike Douglas, an Assistant Divisional Officer at Granchester Fire Station. Judy is married to Granchester's Station Officer, Ben Kane. The four had become close friends, and so for Judy the police...

ANCIENT SINS The sudden appearance of a fifty year old human skull in a lorry load of sugar beet could hardly have come at a more inconvenient time. The top ranks of the Breckland CID were focussing on the final stages of a combined, three-county police operation that was coming to fruition after six months of dedicated, pains-taking work. The targets for Operation Longship were in their sights and any distraction was unwanted. However, the old wartime mystery could not be ignored and it was left to DS Judy Kane to unravel a tangled skein of ancient sins. It was a tortuous trail of lost loves...