Which is a bit of a shame because I'd dearly love to see a Doctor Who story set in Ancient Egypt; the business with the giant weapon-bearing alien maggot thing will have to be left to the imagination.
The images that most likely come to mind when thinking of life-bearing alien moons are those of the forest moon of Endor in the "Star Wars" universe or Pandora in James Cameron's movie "Avatar".
A cop who might be a spoilsport turns out to have held on to his own childhood dreams of UFOs bearing friendly aliens, and he is on the boys' side, wishing them well (a pleasing creative touch).
These young men returned bearing word of an alien technological culture they must have found as marvellous, as disconcerting, as we might find the products of reverse-engineered Roswell space junk.
Perfect Dark is set in the year 2023 against the backdrop of an interstellar war between two races: the Maians, who resemble the stereotypical grey aliens, and the Skedar, reptile-like extraterrestrials who can disguise themselves as humans, bearing similarities to Nordic aliens.
Could the panicky US authorities have deliberately allowed the alien-bearing spacecraft to crash down Mexico way, thus keeping the yucky immigrant aliens well out of American territory?
His best novels, like "The Divide" and "The Harvest," reimagine such standard themes as poor-lonely-superman and aliens-bearing-gifts in narratives that are both literate and suspenseful.
Another alien craft appears, bearing a rival bid from a planet whose sulphurous atmosphere and searing heat brings to mind a certain World Cup-hosting Gulf state – and now things turn nasty.
It peacefully takes its place alongside the rest of her inventory, all bearing a similar brand: "Haunted ALIEN ENTITY CRYSTAL BALL" (a glass orb with a few stray plastic planets inside), "Haunted MAGICAL WISH GRANTING FROG" (a stone toad on a small pedestal), "Haunted MAGICAL HEALING TATTOOS" (a wax-paper sheet bearing 16 press-on Hennas).
