[1] A group of children are kidnapped by a critically ill Flight Lieutenant aboard a top secret spacecraft.
Grinny deals with a normal family in middle England whose lives change when they are visited by aliens.
The alien takes the form of an apparently benign elderly relative who can play mind tricks on the adults in the family but decides not to use this method on the children (although the sequel You Remember Me has the second alias used by these aliens, 'Lisa Treadgold' announcing that this decision was for the purposes of studying human children in what her race deemed to be a natural unaltered state.
This Granny-esque figure is eventually caught out by the children's ingenuity (they realise she is no normal human being when she expects what they describe to her as a "cast-iron conker" to be made of cast iron).
In You Remember Me, the same breed of aliens from the previous book, Grinny, return to Earth and make another attempt to take over the planet, this time by inhabiting an attractive television presenter who can apply her mind tricks to many thousands as she presents her TV shows.
Drone workers on a grim industrial settlement on a distant planet dream of assembling a smuggled motorbike, and taking to the open spaces.
This book was adapted into a 45-minute television special of the same name, directed by Giles Foster and starring Harry Dean Stanton.