Barry Halliday

In 1940, the Royal Air Force fights a desperate battle against the might of the Luftwaffe for control of the skies over Britain, thus preventing an attempted Nazi invasion.

Dark Ages wizard Merlin, weary of the barbarism around him, creates a new order of enlightenment and justice with a youthful Arthur at its head. Merlin gifts Arthur with the magic legendary sword Excalibur to help him defeat the nobles who oppose his rule. But Arthur must also beware his half-sister Morgan, a sorceress who has sworn to kill him to avenge her father's death. As Morgan intensifies her plans for revenge, she uses magic to draw Lancelot and Guinevere into a passionate affair. However, it is the still more traitorous Mordred who will ultimately determine the fate of Arthur's rule.

While mainland Britain shivers in deepest winter, the northern island of Fara bakes in the nineties, and the boys at the Met station have no more idea what is going on than the regulars at the Swan. Only a stand-offish visting scientist realizes space aliens are to blame.

Freddie, a motor mechanic, rescues a baby, and twenty years later he offers to become responsible for him - Tony - when he is put on probation for petty theft. Tony abuses his kindness by involving Freddie's two adolescent children in a bank robbery, in which he panics and kills the cashier. With his associate, Spud, and the children, Harry and Monica, he makes for London.