RETIRED social worker Laurence Loader has launched himself on a new career, as a writer of science fiction novels.

Mr Loader, 64, of Kingsley Gardens, Devizes, is working on the second volume of a trilogy after the success of his first book, The God Protectors, which was published by Merlin Press in 1999.

The idea for the book came in a dream. He said: "I've always been a scribbler but this dream was so vivid I felt I had to get it down on paper.

"I call it a very nasty little book. It is a criticism of human beings who are so clever they are destroying our planet."

Although the book is science fiction, it has a Christian message underlying it. The aliens who kidnap the hero, an elderly man who finds himself suddenly rejuvenated and given superhuman powers, are agents of the Supreme Being who has sent them to return humanity to the straight and narrow.

Mr Loader worked for 24 years with Hampshire Social Services, especially among elderly and mentally handicapped people.

He said: "It is in something like this you really see human nature for what it is."

The second book, which has not yet got a title, is nearly ready, but Mr Loader said in this volume humanity reaps what it sows.