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Grainger had aquired a second mind - he didn't want it and it had never asked for permission. But the disembodied mentalism had invaded his brain during the crack space pilot's castaway months on the edge of the Halcyon Drift.

The Halcyon Drift was a dark nebula within whose electronic chaos the laws of physics were so distorted that space ships could not explore within its vast borders without near-certain catastrophe.

But somewhere within the cosmic darkness was the steady distress signal of a vessel lost many years before - a vessel laden with a treasure cargo that could make its finders powerful and wealthy.

And it could be that Grainger's mental parasite might be the means by which he alone could penetrate the impenetrable.

Cover art by Jack Gaughan

Published in 1972 by Daw.

Dedicated to Val & Maureen

'That's what it feels like too,' I told her. 'Fingers always plucking at your skin, poking into your shields. It fumbles spaceships to pieces like a child pulling apart a fly.'

But somewhere within the dark nebula called the Halcyon Drift was a ship, lost many years before, whose steady distress signal could still be heard. Rumour said that her cargo was worth a fortune.

Grainger, crack space pilot, is rescued from a bleak world on the edge of the Drift after two years with only the wind for company. The wind comes home with him-an alien mind-parasite which grows steadily more human as it infiltrates his personality. It wants to make Grainger more than human, and it wants to help him survive the perils of a race through chaos to discover the secret of the Halcyon Drift.

In Grainger Brian Stableford has created a great new character in space fiction. And in Halcyon Drift we have the first of six exciting novels about Grainger and the Hooded Swan, his unique spaceship.

Cover by Bob Marchant

Published in 1974 by Dent.
ISBN:0-460-04208-4

Starships were his life and the Hooded Swan was on her maiden voyage, a jointed, musculated bird with feathers of shining metal.

Together they were hired for a lethal race through cosmic storms in the dark nebula of the Halcyon Drift to find a legendary treasure laden wreck.

With a makeshift crew and an alien mind-parasite for company, it looked a fashionable way to commit suicide ...

'A breezily cynical hero and a planet with a creepy metamorphic life system. What makes the tale is the fun the author has with its telling and the beautiful articulated spaceship he Invents' -- BRIAN ALDISS, THE NEW REVIEW

Cover by Angus McKie.

Published in 1976 by Pan.
ISBN:0-330-24649-6

In omnibus Swan Songs.
Translated into French as: Le Courant d'Alcyon.
Translated into German as: Das Wrack im Halcyon; also in omnibus Die Saga vom Raumpiloten Grainger.
Translated into Hebrew.
Translated into Italian as: Dark Nebula; also as: Nel Vortice di Alcione.
Translated into Japanese.

Review by Ian Braidwood

Cast of Characters:
Gainger, Titus Charlot, Johnny Socorro, Eve Lapthorn, Cpt Nick delArco, Alachakh, Rothgar and a rather interesting mind parasite/symbiont.

The first time I read this - about twenty years ago - I found it slow to start. This time I read it in one sitting and was so engrossed that I went straight on to read Rhapsody in Black.

This is the opening Hooded Swan story; a series of lightweight, entertaining yarns featuring Brian's most famous character: Grainger, an isolated and wary man, who is sucked into piloting The Hooded Swan by a combination of bad luck and connivance.

Stylistically, this is quite a departure from Brian's earlier novels in that he uses Grainger as the narrator, which makes the action seem more immediate. In addition, Brian has rejected violence of novels like Days of Glory, making Grainger reluctant to scrap; so while he's as cynical as Mark Chaos ever was, his indifference is feigned.

The story picks Grainger up on Lapthorne's Grave, where his eponymous engine man perished in a crash landing.

Once rescued, he is taken on as pilot and his first mission is to risk the perilous Halcyon Drift - a dark nebula - in search of The Lost Star, a legendary starship reputed to be carrying a fabulous cargo.

Although it would be a bit much to say Brian has developed memory as a theme; it's obvious that he'd been thinking about the subject. He presents the Khor-monsa, an alien race who have an eidetic memory and the flora/fauna of the destination planet as different examples.

Halcyon Drift is very easy to read, entertaining and dare I say it, marks the beginning of Brian's second phase as a novelist.

The Brian Stableford Website