Psychopathology has offered possible answers to why, from time to time, people in large quantities "see" strange things in the sky which manage to evade trained scientific observers, or conform to what is known about the behavior of falling or flying bodies. And mass hysteria is by no means a product of the present century. But--what if these human foibles were deliberately being exploited?
This brand-new series of short stories takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where humanity lives in one of many compounds. One of these is experimenting with Time Travel using captured convicts as their guinea pigs. Owen was sent to 1983, given a gun, and instructed to kill a murderer before the killing can take place, but when all doesn't go as planned, he believes the man may be innocent.
Len Mattern is a space merchant, seasoned from decades of meandering from star to star in a tramp freighter. His obsession is the high-class prostitute, Lyddy, and Len has spent his entire adult life amassing sufficient wealth to wed her, which he does at the story's beginning. The rest of the tale is told mostly in flashback.
Lieutenant Commander Frank Jacklin is blown up in a thorium bomb explosion while on the battleship Alaska. He awakens in the body of Winnie Tompkins who had perpetrated the explosion. As Tompkins, he learns of a plot by German agents to poison Franklin D. Roosevelt and he tries to warn the authorities. He continues to become involved in intrigue until another accident restores Tompkins to his body, leaving Jacklin in the body of a dog.
