Alex R. Stuart (1947–2009)

The first of the "Watchers" trilogy, this is an excellent fantasy, taking in modern (and near future) Britain, an ancient pre-historic setting, and Medieval Languedoc at the height of the Cathar movement.

Stuart Gordon weaves a fantastic story with all these elements, centred around a family whose daughter is drawn back in time to the time of the Cathars. She becomes the embodiment of an ancient alien being (one of the Archons) who took physical form to teach primitive humans. Their original show more purpose became warped when they were seduced by their physical forms (which reflects some of the principles of Dualism).

Gordon crams ideas from mythology, religion and science into these books and you have to reread them several times to absorb it all (a great excuse to read a fabulous series of books). show less

A complete and fascinating catalogue of a big subject in a very readable style. Gordon often shows that the Christian bible has 'borrowed' extensively from earlier religions and mythology

I really wanted to like this book. The ideas are almost there, but it just doesn't get executed in the writing. The writing is forced, and the characters are too blocky. Still, there's a lot to explore.

This is my first book by the Scottish SF writer Stuart Gordon. It was written in 1971. He only wrote a few novels and had a few stories in the UK pulp magazines of the 1960s. This story involved time travel but was more fantasy then I can tolerate. Good effort but I will not be looking for more books by this author.