Alien Minds

George Hanlon has a gift: he can read human minds. Too bad the planet Estrella is full of aliens. Sent by the Inter-Stellar Corps to uncover who or what is sabotaging Estrella's bid to join the Federation, Hanlon poses as a native, navigating markets, criminalsyndicates, and political intrigue on a world where his telepathic abilities suddenly mean nothing. He can read the dog-like roches perfectly, but the semi-human inhabitants remain infuriatingly opaque, their thoughts locked behind an alien architecture of consciousness he cannot pierce. When you're the only spy who can't listen to the enemy, survival depends on becoming someone else entirely, perhaps someone more human than he's willing to admit. Evans builds genuine tension from this premise: a mind-reader rendered deaf, an infiltrator who must out-think opponents he cannot sense. The 1955 science fiction field manual backdrop gives it period texture, but the psychological hook remains timeless.