The Taklamakan, China's Death Desert, crusted huge snowmelt water reservoirs. Out of the blue, a powerful earthquake transforms its mounds to marshland. Suddenly, flattened sand dunes lip divergent swamps rimmed by woven mangrove thickets. What dunes had long dominated has become a haven for animal life soon, to appear. Dormant for three hundred million years, Triassic life begins to emerge. And with it a macabre deadly disease. In the Taklamakan palaeontology and medical science team up to fight the scourge. Triassic creatures mysteriously appear. For the first time, homo sapiens sees living Triassican amphibians; leaping giant frogs to lumbering pre-Jurassic reptiles while 'tendrilosis', the ghoulish disease, takes its toll. There is no cure. The disease spreads globally. Because the scourge cannot be scientifically figured, it cannot be stopped. Have four billion years also mutated earth's fundamental laws? Have the scientific links between past and present been transformed? There are no answers. Until human intuition intervenes ......

Architect and engineer Joab Tzur develops an innovative building system that is quicker and faster than traditional processes. Beginning to market his work, the aesthetic of his Foldapod system is criticised and Jab appeals to the Establishment to allow his work to develop, to allow it to stand or fall on its own recognisances. Jab presents his work to DAIR Aeronautics who seek a new assenbly facility and meets beautiful Dawn Tremiont, a vice-president who is impressed by his work and his person. Architecture and engineering while symbiotic, are often 'opposing' disciplines, and she is astounded by his achievements and his mental capacity. DAIR invites Jab's former professor of architecture to the presentation and words are exchange. When a ruthless building contractor loses desperately needed contracts to Jab, he tries sabotage to prove that Foldapod is not safe. The novel takes the reader onto building sites into consultants' offices and the courtroom and ends with the main characters defing their understanding of success, achievement and truth and describes the author's own attitude to professional morality and truth as his 5th dimension after space-time.

Standing for his second term, President of the United States Palmer 'Pace' Rawden hears that El Jibril, respected Bedouin and Osama bin Ladan devotee, also OPEC's senior strategist is launching a new protocol granting China favoured oil status over the United States. Rawden isn't aware this is the first of a series of Jibril US 'paybacks' for the 'murder' of bin Ladan and other US 'atrocities'. Another 'raid' involves constitutionally accessing the White House. Collaterally, US oil supplies will be linked to Chinese immigration. El Jibril is moving towards the impeachment of the president. But Jibril hasn't reckoned on Rawden's tenacity. Approaching Chinese immigrants are denied landing rights, China reacts and a breathless world watches a superpower crisis loom. Angered by US 'vested interests', Rawden seeks change. By adding one word to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address he introduces a new political concept. Americans want politicians removed from government. Threatened, the politicians fight back until the US Supreme Court rules ...

Rocklands Beach is in Cape Town, South Africa, the southernmost city in Africa where the Atlantic and Indian oceans supposedly meet. Some claim you can see it happen from the top of Table Mountain The south Atlantic water is COLD Which doesn't stop a hardy group of guys and gals swimming at least once a day all year round. They swim and shower then gather at "The Wall" while they enjoy a glass of 'lemonade' and swop their yarns. Here's a taste of them.

There is no more fascinating saga than that of the Jews. Uninterrupted for four thousand years, it describes how a people 'diasporised' from their 'promised land' still survive a pernicious world, outliving all civilisations despite constant persecution and a Holocaust killing frenzy more malevolent than the Dark Ages' Barbarian freaks who pillaged Europe after the Romans. But there were heroics as well. At Masada, a few Jews held off more Roman Legions than any other Roman challenger in that empire's military history. A few Jews had the Nazis pulling out all stops in to raze the Warsaw Ghetto. No, contrary to Holocaust belief, the Jews are not a meek people. Small numbers of concentration camp survivors defeated the collective power of seven Arab armies five times in five separate wars. The 'Six Day War' lasted that long because their God, it was said, rested on the seventh day Most Jews see the hand of God in their epic struggles for survival. With foresight, their God had equipped them with something more powerful than weaponry. Mental flexibility linked to a Jungian 'collective unconscious' is more effective. By far. Victor Hugo said. "There is no greater power than an idea whose time has come." "Tribes: Israel" demonstrates just that.

Archaeology, architecture and mythology merge after architect Adam Penn agrees to help dig for the Oracle of Dodona. Problems in Greece Albania and Bulgaria spell trouble when Adam finds a body and becomes a murder suspect. Together with virgin goddess lookalike Theia and outrageous Liz, he faces a liberation movement and flocks of birds only Heracles once tamed.

In Vienna, decades after the Holocaust Adam Penn finds a photo of a young SS officer with his arm around a pious Jew. With Anna, they discover the officer is a WWII criminal. Following a vague spoor to Villach, Venice, to Jerusalem then to a kibbutz, they find the Nazi. But he has been honoured for saving death camp lives. Something is terribly wrong

A frightening look at democratic craziness based on fact. DemocraZy illustrates how government can be uplifted beyond the principles ennobled by Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address. By removing politicians from the equation the author shifts power back to the People. He also offers startling new proposals. Worthwhile alternatives to Governance and Trade Unionism. He describes how poor mineral rich countries can become industrial giants and he explains the difference between intelligence, intellect, intuition, instinct and their effects on education. What about the democraZies? Presidents refusing to leave office after losing elections. Illegal land grabs. The inefficacy of constitutions. Poltical assassinations that are rewarded. Exaggerated HIV/AIDs treatments that don't work? Parole for jailed political felons diagnosed terminallly ill yet still vigourous years later? Heard of a minor political fraud that decimates a country and why xenophobia kills. DemocraZy is all that and more.

A true experience, this is a "what to do" manual for victims of depression and cancer. Not a medical book, it was written by an architect who designed a way through the pitfalls of depression, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. To stay alive he had to pay the bills. To pay the bills he had to keep practicing.