ODDITIES
22 Stories
Lisa Mason
Here You Enter
Yesterday
Tomorrow
& Fantasy
Coming November 17, 2020 in Print and Ebook
Archives for category: Far Future
I’m so thrilled this book is back in print! And as timely as ever! Bast Books has reported that the print book and the ebook sold in the U.S., the U.K., France, and Germany last month.
What readers say:
5.0 out of 5 stars I dig this book!
Reviewed in the United States on March 11, 2020
Summer of Love is a beautiful work of literature encapsulated within the science-fiction genre. It invites you on an emotionally jostling roller coaster ride.
Lisa Mason is a prolific author who weaves a time-travel story that delves into many underlying themes at a micro and macro level during the famous “Summer of Love” pandemic in Haight Ashbury, San Francisco, in 1967.
The author also descends underneath the epidermis of the street’s kaleidoscopic and “groovy” ambiance to reveal what is and what is not through each character’s eyes — and whether or not we can rely on hope to wake us up the next morning.
I felt the characters (even the secondary ones), the moments, the sights, the sounds and the smells of the time. As if I myself was time traveling. I found myself not only reading but tasting each word; sometimes going back to read a sentence, a paragraph or a page again.
This is a novel I will not hesitate to recommend. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1548106119
“This book was so true to life that I felt like I was there. I recommend it to anyone.”
“More than a great science-fiction, a great novel as well.”
“My favourite SF book of all time, beautiful, cynical and completely involving….Unmissable!”
Brand-new 2018 review of SUMMER OF LOVE at http://sfbookreview.blogspot.com/2018/02/summer-of-love-by-lisa-mason.html
”Ever since the Save Betty project completed there has been degradation in the archives. The Luxon Institute for Superluminal Applications (LISA, still love that acronym) has determined that San Francisco in 1967 is a hot dim spot. They commission the Summer of Love project. Twenty-one year old Chiron Cat’s Eye in Draco will t-port from 2467 to the summer of love where he is to find the Axis, a teenage girl from the Midwest will have important descendants, and protect her through the summer. This Susan Stein takes an alias, so Chiron has only probabilities to know if he finds the right girl.
In 1967 Susan receives a postcard from Nance, aka Penny Lane, who is in San Francisco. Her parents find the postcard, tear it up and burn it. She runs away that night and takes the name Starbright. She arrives hoping to see Penny Lane, but instead meets up with Stan the Man, manager of the Double Boogie band. She is invited to live with them in a house that is a constant party. She loves it, but a week later Stan hooks up with someone new. She meets Ruby again and Ruby takes her in. That first night Chiron saw an eye symbol by Ruby’s shop, decided to hang around there and Ruby let him sleep on the couch. He’s not sure that Starbright is the Axis, but there is a high probability.
Without being preachy major themes in the book include the environment, population control, women’s rights, and addiction. These were put into the setting of real life 1967. Street names referenced in the book exist and the Grateful Dead did have a concert there on August 22. I enjoyed the story without any nostalgic feeling, other than references to old Star Trek episodes and other SF works.
I really enjoyed the book. It was excellent and the first chapter or two set up encounters throughout the rest of the book. I loved all three of the main characters, Starbright, Chiron and Ruby.” By John Loyd
Book Description: The year is 1967 and something new is sweeping across America: good vibes, bad vibes, psychedelic music, psychedelic drugs, anti-war protests, racial tension, free love, bikers, dropouts, flower children. An age of innocence, a time of danger. The Summer of Love.
San Francisco is the Summer of Love, where runaway flower children flock to join the hip elite and squares cruise the streets to view the human zoo.
Lost in these strange and wondrous days, teenager Susan Bell, alias Starbright, has run away from the straight suburbs of Cleveland to find her troubled best friend. Her path will cross with Chiron Cat’s Eye in Draco, a strange and beautiful young man who has journeyed farther than she could ever imagine.
With the help of Ruby A. Maverick, a wise and feisty half-black, half-white hip entrepreneur, Susan and Chi discover a love that spans five centuries. But can they save the world from demons threatening to destroy all space and time?
A harrowing coming of age. A friendship ending in tragedy. A terrifying far future. A love spanning five centuries. And a gritty portrait of a unique time in American history.
The cover, hand-drawn by Tom Robinson, is styled to look like a 1960s psychedelic poster.
What the professional book reviewers say:
“Captures the moment perfectly and offers a tantalizing glimpse of its wonderful and terrible consequences.” The San Francisco Chronicle
“A fine novel packed with vivid detail, colorful characters, and genuine insight.” The Washington Post Book World
“Remarkable. . . .the intellect on display within these psychedelically packaged pages is clear-sighted, witty, and wise.” Locus Magazine
“Mason has an astonishing gift. Her chief characters almost walk off the page. And the story is as significant as anyone could wish. This book will surely be on the prize ballots.” Analog
“A priority purchase.” Library Journal
5 stars From the Readers
Calling All Fans
Amazon Verified Purchase
‘Summer of Love is an important American literary contribution that may very well have a strong and viable fan base. Where are you? Join us!
This novel is loads of fun to read. The majority of the characters are hippies from the 1960s who meet a stranger from the future who’s looking to save his world. This fellow, Chiron, needs to find a troubled adolescent teen named Susan (a.k.a. Starbright) for a very compelling reason. The book has a great deal to offer: swift action, lovable characters, spiritual insight, and well-chosen primary documents such as essays, poems, and news articles which round out the reader’s understanding of the worldview of the novel.
I think Summer of Love has excellent potential for a wider audience. I hope it continues to enjoy a healthy amount of sales in the used books market on this site. I wish even more for it to be in wider circulation. Some books talk about the sixties. This novel IS the sixties, thanks to the spirit and scholarship of its author. And, as one reader aptly put it, ‘the sci-fi stuff is just plain off the hook.’ Get a copy. Most people who have read it seem to respect it and enjoy it every bit as much as I do.”
New Reader Review! “Just checked to see if this book was on Kindle. It has been many years since I’ve read it but I remember it as one of my very favorite books. Time to go back and re-read it!”
New Reader Review
Kent Peterson
5.0 out of 5 stars A Fine Story
10 February 2015 – Published on Amazon.com
Verified Purchase
Summer of Love, A Time Travel is a fine story. Lisa Mason takes three interesting characters, a time traveller from a future 500 years hence, a 14-year-old midwestern runaway flower child, and hip shopkeeper and places them all in the fascinating place and time that was San Francisco’s Summer of Love, 1967.
Mason has certainly done her homework. You can almost smell the pot and patchouli, see the painted faces and hear the sounds of Janis and the Grateful Dead as Chi, Starbright and Ruby fight to hold on to what really matters at a time when everything seems possible and even the smallest things can have huge consequences.
The time travel plot is nicely (if a bit predictably) done and the glimpses from Chi’s future world are fascinating, frightening and ultimately hopeful. Starbright is 100 percent convincing as a confused, loyal, idealistic, moody teenager who really could hold the key to what is to come. And Ruby Maverick, the shopkeeper who reluctantly gives the two young strangers shelter and strength in a strange and wondrous time is strong and smart and the kind of friend you’d want holding your hand or watching your back when the trip starts going strange.
Summer of Love, A Time Travel is not a rose-colored look backwards. It’s is a kaleidoscopic look at a time of both darkness and light, of confusion and clarity. It’s scary and beautiful, a strange trip where maybe all you need is a little love and some flowers in your hair.
New Reader Review
Eos
5.0 out of 5 starsTime travel done right
20 August 2017 – Published on Amazon.com
Verified Purchase
This is a longtime favorite novel. Mason’s time travel tale is fascinating as both a tale of the future and of the past. I am delighted it is now available as a Kindle edition as my paperback copy is long past its prime.
New Reader Review
paula ferre
5.0 out of 5 stars… the last 20 years – it is such a great story.
26 September 2016
Verified Purchase
I’ve read this book 3 or 4 times in the last 20 years – it is such a great story.
Find the PRINT BOOK in the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Japan.
The ebook is on US Kindle, Canada Kindle, UK Kindle, BarnesandNoble, Smashwords, Apple, and Kobo. On Kindle worldwide in Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Japan, India, Mexico, and Netherlands.
So there you have it, my friends. Whether you’re a longtime reader or new to the book, I hope you enjoy this classic.
Join my other patrons on my Patreon page at https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=23011206. I’m offering brand-new and previously published delightful stories, book excerpts, writing tips, movie reviews, and more!
Visit me at www.lisamason.com for all my books, ebooks, stories, and screenplays, beautiful covers, reviews, interviews, blogs, roundtables, adorable cat pictures, forthcoming works, fine art and bespoke jewelry by my husband Tom Robinson, worldwide links, and more!
In the February 2020 Writing Tip on Patreon, I discussed the importance of the three-act structure for your screenplay, novel, or story as a means for maintaining narrative momentum and viewer/reader interest.
In the January 2020 Movie Review on Patreon, I gave a detailed analysis of the film Captain Marvel, which earned worldwide box office of over a billion dollars and made the screenwriter the hottest property in Hollywood. I watched the film twice, the second time with a stop watch and a notepad and pencil. The writer hit all the right marks.
And so should you. After you’ve finished a complete first draft (or second draft or tenth) and you’re still struggling to make the story move, consider analyzing the story with a three-act structure in mind.
In this post, I’m going to analyze my novel, Summer of Love, which remains my bestselling book (both in ebook format and as a trade paperback) after I first published it in the 1990s with Bantam Books (a division of Random House). The book was a Finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award and a San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book of the Year.
Note: For the Bast Books edition, I edited out some 20,000 words of youthful excess and the book is still 100,000+ words.
Some fans, the kind of reader who rereads the book every year (seriously) didn’t like the edits and complained about the deletions (which this kind of fan notices).
Some fans appreciated and loved the edits and sent me emails saying “Thank you for doing this.”
You can’t please everyone, as the Ricky Nelson song goes, so you as a writer must do what you know is right. Editing out the excess verbiage made the three-act structure become clear to me and also clarified the relationships between the three main characters. Editing was definitely the right thing to do, and the book is much better.
Now then.
Summer of Love has its own internal complex structure. I found seven key days over the historical summer of 1967 during which some notable celebration occurred. Within those seven days, three point-of-view characters tell their personal stories and perspectives on the events.
So there are twenty-one chapters. The trade paperback is 404 pages long.
Susan Bell (a.k.a. Starbright) is a fourteen-year-old runaway to San Francisco, to the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood where the Summer of Love took place.
Chiron Cat’s in Draco is a twenty-one-year-old time traveler from five hundred years in the future who has journeyed to 1967 on a vital mission to save the Universe.
And Ruby A. Maverick is a thirty-year-old, half-black half-white shop owner, a successful “hip proprietor,” who is a long-time resident of the neighborhood and the moral center of the story.
Act One is the setup of your main characters—where they start out in the story, a physical description of them, their motivations and goals, the initial obstacles set out for them, their initial physical actions.
Also, you should set up the location where the action takes place—but don’t get too hung up on this, you’ll have plenty of room to develop further location details as you go along. Also don’t get too hung up on physical descriptions of the characters—this too can be further developed.
In Act One, that’s a lot of material and complications to cover. Because an effective Act One should only be about 25 or 30 percent of the total length of the project. Act One should end with the plot spinning off in a new surprising different direction for your characters.
In Summer of Love, Act One is comprised of the first five chapters, ending at page 121, 29% exactly of the total length. (I’ll attempt to put as few plot spoilers in this analysis as possible!)
In Chapters One and Four, Susan arrives in San Francisco at dawn. She’s seeking her former estranged best friend, Nance, who ran away to the Haight-Ashbury a month earlier and sent her a postcard. Susan knows no one, has a limited amount of money. She meets a rock-n-roll band she idolizes and is seduced by their manager. She goes to live in the band’s communal house, works for free for them, and is sucked into the Haight-Ashbury life. She briefly meets Ruby, with whom she has a contentious meeting.
In Chapters Two and Five—(Note the book is internally structured on a round-robin between the three characters) Chiron also arrives in San Francisco via a time machine from the far future. He sets out on his vital mission, why he’s been sent here, and compares and contrasts 1967 with his own future time. Using a guideline, he seeks and finds Ruby at her shop, and is taken in by her. He works for a wage at the shop, lives in a room in her quarters above the shop, and sets about the investigative work he needs to do to accomplish his mission.
In Chapter Three, Ruby gives her personal view of the 1960s, her former relationship with the band’s manager, the idealism of the counterculture and also the corruption already beginning. She is suspicious of Chi and perhaps starting a new relationship with Leo Gorgon, a radical anarchist.
Chapter Six begins with a brief POV by Susan as she is betrayed by the band’s manager and wants to leave the band’s communal house, then switches to Ruby’s POV, as she encounters Susan again.
The plot spins in a new direction when the contentious meeting between Ruby and Susan becomes sympathetic. Ruby insists that Susan come to stay with her and Susan first meets Chiron, who wonders if she is the breakthrough he’s searching for to accomplish his mission.
Act Two, Chapters 6 through 16, involves mounting complications and difficulties for all the characters, and complications between them too, over that fateful summer. Also the community’s historical escalating violence and corruption. (No plot spoilers!)
Act Two ends when, again, you spin the plot and the characters off in a surprising new direction, which begins Act Three.
Act Three should only comprise 20% or 25% of the total project, during which you must accelerate the action and the fulfillment of the characters’ goals until you reach the denouement and conclusion.
Note: I read a Booker Prize winning very long novel that dragged out Act Three so much, I no longer cared what happened to the characters at the end and skimmed through too many tedious pages to get to the freakin’ end, already. Don’t be that author.
To read my final analysis of Act Three of Summer of Love and to discover the very important Midpoint, please go to my Patreon page at https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=23011206. Friends, readers, and fans, help me after the Attack. I’ve posted delightful new stories and previously published stories, writing tips, book excerpts, movie reviews, original healthy recipes and health tips, and more exclusively for my heroic patrons! I’m offering a critique of your writing sample per submission.
Visit me at www.lisamason.com for all my books, ebooks, stories, and screenplays, reviews, interviews, blogs, roundtables, adorable cat pictures, forthcoming works, fine art and bespoke jewelry by my husband Tom Robinson, worldwide links, and more!
I wrote this short novel, in my signature tight, bold style, in….well, several years ago, going over the text, editing the story over a few years. Bast Books published ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF ALEXA in 2017. The heroine survives many, many disasters over her long life, including the Godzilla virus in 2071.
From page 187 in the print book: “Two weeks ago a wildly virulent myxovirus—dubbed “Godzilla” by media wags—had slaughtered ten million in China. Godzilla had wended its way over the ocean—no epidemiologist could explain how, other than the virus was airborne—and culled two thousand lives in our own Willow Grove.”
By the way, I named my heroine Alexa after Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who wrote One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich about the horrors of being imprisoned in a Stalinist gulag. Not the AI app.
“Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.” Voltaire said that.
From Goodreads came the first review of One Day in the Life of Alexa:
One Day in the Life of Alexa, by Lisa Mason (Bast Books) incorporates lively prose, past/present time jumps, and the consequences of longevity technology. Kosovo refugee Alexa enrolls in a secret pilot program designed to extend her life span. Her best friend, Marya, is not accepted, but Marya’s infant aka “Little Monster” is. As the decades roll by, Alexa adapts to a life of constant measurement and surveillance. [Plot spoilers omitted] In reflection, the book is as much about the enduring trauma of war as it is about longevity technology, and in this it feels more like mainstream than science fiction. Mason’s skill as a writer sustains a quick, absorbing read with an appealing narrator and subtly powerful emotional rhythms (like the repeated refrain, “No matter how long I live, I will always remember this”)
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35200314-one-day-in-the-life-of-alexa#other_reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Lisa Mason doesn’t disappoint us on that issue and gives us a look …
By R Bruce Miller on October 1, 2017
Format: Kindle Edition
“Scifi is nominally about the future and the impact of technology on society. Lisa Mason doesn’t disappoint us on that issue and gives us a look at a desirable biotechnology with some serious long-term and unforeseen consequences. However, like all the truly great scifi writers, what she really writes about is you and me and today and what is really important in life. Alexa lives an improbable life and yet, somehow, is a very real everywoman. Solzhenitsyn would have appreciated the homage. Cats! Grow your own organic food! Yes, there is much fun to be had on this journey, but the message nonetheless is solid and important. I enjoyed every word even though this book spoiled my day because I had no choice but to read it in one sitting while drinking too much coffee.”
And here’s another five-star review, and then I’ll let you decide.
“[Alexa] finds her internal resource that allows her to survive many more days in a much more uplifting manner than poor Ivan Denisovich. Discovering where her strengths [lie] is not depressing but uplifting for this reader.” https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0711PP65J
“I truly loved Alexa. The homage to Solzhenitsyn was wonderfully well done. Your concept and characters were on the mark and very timely. Bravo!”
Book Description:
Alexa Denisovitch, a refugee from Kosovo during the 1999 war, is just seventeen when she is accepted by GenGineer Laboratories as a Tester for Longeva, a revolutionary additive that may significantly extend her longevity.
But becoming a Tester has unintended consequences and Longeva causes devastating unforeseen side effects.
Confronting environmental, political, and personal perils of the future, Alexa must grapple with the tough questions of life, love, and death.
So there you have it, my friends. The novel is short, but I took a long time researching and writing.
One Day in the Life of Alexa is in Print in the U.S., the U.K., Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and Japan.
Now an ebook on BarnesandNoble, Kobo, Apple, and Smashwords!
One Day in the Life of Alexa is also offered as a Kindle ebook at US Kindle, UK Kindle, Canada Kindle, Australia Kindle, France Kindle, Germany Kindle, Italy Kindle, Netherlands Kindle, Spain Kindle, Brazil Kindle, Mexico Kindle, India Kindle, and Japan Kindle.
Join my Patreon page at https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=23011206 help me while I recover from the Attack. I’ve posted brand-new stories and previously published stories, book excerpts, writing tips, an offer to edit your writing sample per submission, and more exclusively for my patrons. You can also make a one-time pledge.
Visit me at www.lisamason.com for all my books, ebooks, stories, and screenplays, worldwide links, beautiful covers, reviews, interviews, blogs, round-tables, adorable cat pictures, forthcoming works, fine art and bespoke jewelry by my husband Tom Robinson, and more!
Summary: From the extinguished HomeWorld, the Settlers traveled across the stars to NewWorld with hopes of starting over again. In the war-torn nation of Illyria, Maya just wants to grow vegetables and live in peace. But she has a dark secret she can never reveal, especially to her beloved Yuri.
Introduction: For my novella, “One Day in the Life of Alexa,” I studied the horrific 1990s wars in the Balkans, as well as the history leading up to those conflicts. I was struck by the adage, “The more things change, the more they remain the same,” and the tragic effects on the lives of ordinary people.
The story’s title, “Illyria, My Love” was inspired by Hiroshima, Mon Amour, an hallucinogenic 1959 film directed by Alain Resnais that flips through (and mixes up) two characters’ pasts, presents, and futures. Interesting, though at times very slow-going.
Regarding print fiction, “Illyria, My Love” is in the vein of Martin Amis’s Time’s Arrow and the classic story by Fritz Leiber, “The Man Who Never Grew Young”. Both of those stories are told from the viewpoint of a man.
I wanted a woman’s viewpoint, so this is one woman’s tragedy, told through the ironic lens of backwards-in-time.
Please join my Patreon page at https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=23011206. Friends, readers, and fans, help me after the Attack. I’ve posted delightful new stories and previously published stories, writing tips, book excerpts, movie reviews, original healthy recipes and health tips, and more exclusively for my heroic patrons! I’m also offering a critique of your writing sample per submission.
Visit me at www.lisamason.com for all my books, ebooks, stories, and screenplays, reviews, interviews, blogs, roundtables, adorable cat pictures, forthcoming works, fine art and bespoke jewelry by my husband Tom Robinson, worldwide links, and more!
New Review of The Gilded Age at http://sfbookreview.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-gilded-age-by-lisa-mason.html:
“The world of 2495 is at an unsustainable twelve billion population. Zhu Wong is a Daughter of Compassion, a group working to enforce the birth restriction laws. She is in jail awaiting trial when she is recruited by the Luxon Institute for Superluminal Applications (LISA, I love the acronym) to t-port back to 1895 San Francisco. She accepts the deal. Her mission is to find Wing Sing, take her and the aurelia to the mission run by Donaldina Cameron. In 1967 Wing Sing’s daughter will eventually give the brooch to Chiron at the end of his stay in the Summer of Love project.
Zhu finds Wing Sing, but she doesn’t have the aurelia. They are captured by a Chinese gang. Zhu is bought away from them by Jessie, a madam, Wing Sing stuck with the Tong. Zhu does work for Jessie, but is more valuable as a bookkeeper so avoids becoming a prostitute. Daniel Watkins is the son of a real estate magnate coming to San Francisco to collect on debts. He is low on funds and is referred to lodging at Jessie’s where his life becomes entwined with Zhu’s. Somehow Zhu is attracted to this heavy drinking smoker who has distinct views of women. Despite herself and her mission, Zhu cares about Jessie and Daniel.
I loved the character of Zhu. Somehow I wasn’t repulsed by Daniel and Jessie. They are more a product of their environment doing what they can with their sense of right and wrong. Very enjoyable, I read the last two hundred pages straight through. This is definitely a stand alone novel, though Summer of Love is mentioned several times. I’ll have to read that one as a prequel rather than book one.”
And this is from Library Journal:
“The discovery of a golden brooch that should not exist in the 25th century prompts the Luxon Institute to send a young Chinese woman 600 years back in time. She arrives in San Francisco in 1895 to prevent the future from altering the past. This sequel to Summer of Love (LJ 6/15/94), seen through the eyes of an observer from the future, juxtaposes the tempestuous, sprawling milieu of boomtown San Francisco with its shadowy underside of prostitution and decadence. Mason’s graceful prose and her skill in orchestrating a complex and satisfying plot make this a solid purchase for sf collections.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
This is from a reader:
https://www.amazon.ca/Golden-Nineties-Lisa-Mason/dp/0553373315
5.0 out of 5 stars Hypnotic Read
By,Robin Booneon Published on Amazon.com|Verified Purchase
“Lisa Mason’s Summer of Love and The Golden Nineties both have this quality – you want to reread them as soon as you’ve read them. Her writing conveys an abiding love of San Francisco, and interesting bits of California history are woven into the storylines. The writing is so compelling that you feel as though time travel were a possibility. I hope she writes more of these San Francisco fantasies!”
And this is from Publisher’s Weekly
https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-553-37331-8
“Mason’s sequel to Summer of Love is a delightful expansion of that work and a major step forward for her. The tale centers on Zhu Wong, a Chinese national whose lawyer plea-bargains her release from prison so that Chiron and his companions from the previous novel’s Luxon Institute for Superluminal Applications can transport her 600 years into the past to find a macguffin called the aurelia. Once in San Francisco, 1895, Mason brings the environment and the times to life with her rendering of the city’s activities, especially its corruption. The several historic personages who appear–including Frank Norris, Jack London and Susan B. Anthony–are all given dimensions that reflect the rigor of Mason’s research without leaving the reader overburdened by minutiae. Zhu Wong finds herself embroiled in a world of decadence and prostitution; she sees friends and companions abuse themselves with such things as alcohol, cocaine and corsets. As with Karen Joy Fowler’s Sarah Canary, Mason uses the novel partially to explore the role of women in society. As Zhu grows to understand the hypocrisies of the 1890s, she becomes even less comfortable with the presumptions of her own time. She creates several “closed time loops,” apparent paradoxes that impede her mission–and, perhaps more important, thwart her own desires. Eventually she finds her way out of the time loops and in the process teaches everyone–including herself–a few lessons about life. Her bravura performance with this book should both leave the reader wanting more and solidify her position as one of the most interesting writers in science fiction.”
And this just in from an Amazon.com reader
Buy It
By Uke Enthusiast
Format: Kindle Edition|Verified Purchase
“One of my favorite books. I am delighted it is back in print. A thoroughly entertaining time travel story supported by vivid characterizations and settings.”
Book Description: The year is 1895 and immigrants the world over are flocking to California on the transcontinental railroad and on transoceanic steamships. The Zoetrope demonstrates the persistence of vision, patent medicines addict children to morphine, and women are rallying for the vote. In San Francisco, saloons are the booming business, followed by brothels, and the Barbary Coast is a dangerous sink of iniquity. Atop Telegraph Hill bloody jousting tournaments are held and in Chinatown the tongs deal in opium, murder-for-hire, and slave girls.
Zhu Wong, a prisoner in twenty-fifth century China, is given a choice–stand trial for murder or go on a risky time-travel project to the San Francisco of 1895 to rescue a slave girl and take her to safety. Charmed by the city’s opulent glamour, Zhu will discover the city’s darkest secrets. A fervent population control activist in a world of twelve billion people, she will become an indentured servant to the city’s most notorious madam. Fiercely disciplined, she will fall desperately in love with the troubled self-destructive heir to a fading fortune.
And when the careful plans of the Gilded Age Project start unraveling, Zhu will discover that her choices not only affect the future but mean the difference between her own life or death.
“A winning mixture of intelligence and passion.” The New York Times Book Review
“Graceful prose. . . .A complex and satisfying plot.” Library Journal
“Rollicking. . . .Dazzling.” Locus Magazine
“Should both leave the reader wanting more and solidify Mason’s position as one of the most interesting writers in science fiction.” Publisher’s Weekly
The cover, by San Francisco artist Tom Robinson, is styled to look like an 1890s billboard.
The Gilded Age is BACK IN PRINT! Order the beautiful trade paperback in the U.S., in the U.K., in France, in Germany, in Italy, in Spain, and in Japan.
The ebook is at BarnesandNoble, Apple, Kobo, and Smashwords and on Kindle worldwide at US Kindle, Canada Kindle, UK Kindle, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Japan, India, Mexico, and Netherlands.
So there you have it, my friends. Bantam Books, a division of Random House, published this as The Golden Nineties. Yes, I changed the title. I think the new title is better. (Wish I’d thought of it in the first place) This is the Author’s Preferred Print Edition.
Whether you’re a longtime reader or new, I hope you enjoy this classic!
Join my other patrons on my Patreon page and learn the shocking reason I’ve opted for Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/lisamasonfantasyandsciencefictionwriter?alert=2 I’ve got delightful new stories and previously published stories, writing tips, book excerpts, movie reviews, original healthy recipes, and more exclusively for patrons.
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Please disregard any ad you see here. They have been placed without my permission.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright 2019 by Lisa Mason.
Cover, colophon, and art copyright 2019 by Tom Robinson.
All rights reserved.
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Bast Books Ebook Edition published July 9, 2019.
Bast Books Print Edition published August 13, 2019.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval, without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information address:
Bast Books
Bastbooks@aol.com
Thank you for your readership! Visit Lisa Mason at her Official Web Site for her books, ebooks, screenplays, stories, interviews, blogs, cute pet pictures, and more. Enjoy!
February, 2020 Excerpt
6
An Invite to the No-Tell Motel
That last whiskey at Club Namib had not been required. He squints his thin-lidded eyes against dawn’s glimmer. Rubs his high, distinguished forehead with a shapely cold hand. Instead of calming his nerves, that last whiskey had kept him awake all night. Fitful. Jittery.
First sunlight pierces the bedroom curtains, and he lurches up. He’s exhausted from Jamboree. From the terrible confrontation. From the sleepless night. He taps his Tatt and winks Elfie Syrus.
As a high-ranking Servitor, he’s facing a big Blend Day ahead. Meetings with the visiting Emirk corporate executive, responding to her demands, her agenda. A public appearance later at the Quarterly Hearing, which will be viewed on the Instrumentality by everyone on the Earth, the Moon, and Chrome.
Gravely important work to be done.
But he must know. He must find out.
What has she heard?
Elfie Syrus works the five a.m. to noon shift at the Chrome City Police Department. At the Main Station downtown. She fetches coffee for the cops, flirts outrageously. She enters data in the database, sees and hears all kinds of confidential information. She keeps her big eyes and bigger ears wide open. She has to walk through the security wickets going in and out, of course, but like every born gossip she has an extraordinary memory, mostly accurate, for the nitty-gritty.
She opens his wink at once. Giggles when he proposes that she meet him for breakfast at their usual rendezvous, the No-Tell Motel. This charming rent-by-the-hour dive lies ten blocks behind the Capitol Building where the neighborhood turns from grand governmental avenues and destination eateries to seedy bars, massage parlors, and establishments like the No-Tell.
“Oh, I’ve got the inside scoop, honey,” she squeaks in her irritating way, “and plenty of it.”
He may be a cold blood, but the human half of him feels an icy shock.
He widens the wink, preparing himself for the ordeal of having to see her in the flesh. Elfie’s icon stands before him. He would much prefer simply to transfer credits to her bank account in exchange for her chatter.
But Elfie wants more.
An elephant shrew, Elfie is reasonably more attractive than the moles who populate the staff in menial positions at the Chrome City Police Main Station. Chubby little mole women with tiny eyes and shapeless faces. Elfie’s got large pink ears and bright brown oval eyes that blend well with her Polynesian human ancestors, call girls sold to Emirk by a disgruntled pimp back in the day. She’s got a long, narrow nose and silky chestnut hair. She’s got nice legs.
He could do worse for a police informant.
He hisses in exasperation when she whispers the things she wants him to do to her at the No-Tell Motel. Elfie has found herself in an enviable position, demanding an hour of rough sex, together with his credits, in exchange for what comes to her naturally.
But why? She must like the danger and excitement of mating with a manimal like him. A Blend who could grievously harm her, kill her, with one ill-placed kiss.
He closes the wink, taps off his Tatt. Goes to groom and dress. An important Blend Day ahead. A lot of responsibility. A lot of exposure. Exposure on the Instrumentality.
Elfie is a fool. One day, he just may kill her when she squeaks.
7
Witness
Dawnlight streams over Chrome’s stark horizon in streaks of pink and gold as Terralina Rustabrin mourns Blend Day. Chromian life is so unfair. So wicked and mean. And there’s nothing she can do but live her life as a tortoise Blend and die. And she will die no matter how well or poorly she lives. So what’s the point? What’s the point of anything?
She has pulled her head and limbs into her carapace. Barricaded herself inside and .fastened the hinges tight. Her head protrudes from the peach-colored wall of her mobile studio apartment—the wall behind her neck—and each of her stubby arms and legs protrude from the peach-colored side walls.
She’s the original outside-inside girl. Or is it the other way around?
She masticates a breakfast salad. It’s a tasty salad, dressed with olive oil and vinegar. Sprinkled with the twenty-four spice mix she likes. Baby lettuce, cactus pads, corn kernels, dandelion leaves. Tiny white meal worms squirm deliciously over the lettuce. Everything grown in a Vat, well, what food isn’t grown in a Vat on Chrome? What food isn’t a GMO? Chromians themselves are genetically modified organisms, too, so why should they care how engineered their food is?
Chrome-grown, the Blends like to say.
The meal worms should make her happy, but they don’t. They don’t.
Who can care about this tear-stained life? Chromian life is a joke. A cruel joke. Why was Terralina born?
Fifty short years after the creation of Chrome, the Tweakers or the Twitchers had populated the Emirk laboratories with chimeric people embodying the characteristics—physical, mental, and behavioral—of the creatures they were genetically blended with. They were kept in cages, of course, since they were experimental subjects and no longer, strictly speaking, human beings.
To what purpose? Everyone on Earth wanted to know. Why do this?
To improve and enhance Earth’s weary, diseased, pollution-riddled, and resentful workforce with the vitality, natural talents, docility, and diversity of the animal kingdom, came Emirk’s confident reply.
Creating a Better You! became the corporate slogan.
A good purpose?
Noble, even?
The CEO of Emirk Corporation, standing before a gigantic World Eye, had announced the exciting news at a shareholders’ meeting. The Eye displayed an artistic animation of beefy bull boys hauling rocks out of a quarry, hippopotami girls pirouetting on pink ballet toeshoes. Everyone had applauded.
The descendents of the first fifty years’ of experimental populations are now, two hundred years later, heirs to the random genetic chances of good old-fashioned bonking-and-babies.
That’s how Terralina Rustabrin was born.
To read the rest of this excerpt of CHROME and discover what crime Terralina is a witness to, friends, readers, and fans, please join my Patreon page at https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=23011206 and help me after the Attack. I’ve posted delightful new stories and previously published stories, writing tips, book excerpts, movie reviews, original healthy recipes and health tips, and more exclusively for my heroic patrons! I’m offering a critique of your writing sample per each submission.
Visit me at www.lisamason.com for all my books, ebooks, stories, and screenplays, reviews, interviews, blogs, roundtables, adorable cat pictures, forthcoming works, fine art and bespoke jewelry by my husband Tom Robinson, worldwide links, and more!
I cannot tell you how happy I am to have these books back in print, with ebooks for the ebook readers. This represents years—decades—of research and work.
Just nine years ago, this wasn’t possible and, believe me, I looked into it. Nine years ago, you had to invest $ 25,000 per book to produce an independent title.
Now, thanks to Amazon and your own ingenuity, the cost is negligible.
The scheduling freedom, control over your own marketing, and the reaping of the monthly profits is the reason why most traditionally published authors I know publish at least some of their new titles and most of their backlist independently.
First, you need to secure the reversion rights from the original traditional publisher—usually not a problem.
Then you need to master the correct format for a print book (and the correct format for an ebook). You no longer have to know HTML to do this, though; the website these days does the programming for you.
Then you can either go with Amazon’s cover creator function, buy cover art at a website like Dreamstime, or hire a cover artist.
Amazon’s cover creator is useful if you want to be sure your cover meets the specifications—and you don’t care whether your cover is ho-hum.
Buying cover art from a website runs the risk that your book will look exactly like some other author’s. I’ve seen this phenomenon multiple times, including from small publishers who should know better!
Hiring a cover artist may be expensive, but you will be assured of a unique cover for your book.
If you opt for the latter two choices, next you also have to hire a paste-up artist who will know how calculate and lay-out the back cover, the spine, and the front cover.
Fortunately for me, I’m married to an accomplished artist plus an old-fashioned lay-out artist! Hooray for Tom Robinson! (While he was a student at the San Francisco Art Institute, he worked for Francis Ford Coppola’s City Magazine.)
But yes, I pay him. He’s expensive!
Here are the links to the print titles above:
CHROME (“I was enjoying the characters and the story so much that the superb writing simply did its job”) is in U.S. print as a beautiful trade paperback. Also in U.K. print, in German print, in French print, in Spanish print, in Italian print, and in Japanese print.
Summer of Love (a Philip K. Dick Award Finalist and San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book) is in print as a beautiful quality trade paperback in the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Japan.
The Gilded Age (a New York Times Notable Book and New York Public Library Recommended Book) is in print in the U.S., the U.K., in France, in Germany, in Italy, in Spain, and in Japan.
The Garden of Abracadabra (“Fun and enjoyable Urban Fantasy”) is in print in the U.S., the U.K., Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and Japan.
Cyberweb (“Some very deep philosophical questions are posed…a very entertaining and thoughtful story.”) is in print in the U.S., in the U.K., in Germany, in France, in Spain, in Italy, and in Japan.
ARACHNE (“Highly recommended and very memorable.”) is in print in the U.S., in the U.K., in Germany, in France, in Spain, in Italy, and in Japan.
One Day in the Life of Alexa (“[An] absorbing read with an appealing narrator and subtly powerful emotional rhythms.”) is in print in the U.S., the U.K., Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and Japan.
Strange Ladies: 7 Stories (“A must-read collection—The San Francisco Review of Books) is in Print in the U.S., in the U.K., in Germany, in France, in Spain, in Italy, and in Japan.
Join my Patreon page at https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=23011206 and support me while I recover from the Attack. I’ve got lots of goodies there for you with more on the way.
Donate from your PayPal account to lisasmason@aol.com.
Visit me at www.lisamason.com for all my books, ebooks, stories, and screenplays, worldwide links, covers, reviews, interviews, blogs, round-tables, adorable cat pictures, forthcoming works, fine art and bespoke jewelry by my husband Tom Robinson, and more!
CHROME
Lisa Mason
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright 2019 by Lisa Mason.
Cover, colophon, and art copyright 2019 by Tom Robinson.
All rights reserved.
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Bast Books Ebook Edition published July 9, 2019.
Bast Books Print Edition published August 13, 2019.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval, without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information address:
Bast Books
Bastbooks@aol.com
Thank you for your readership! Visit Lisa Mason at her Official Web Site for her books, ebooks, screenplays, stories, interviews, blogs, cute pet pictures, and more. Enjoy!
CHROME
Excerpt 2
2
The Conversation
A hulk in a wolf mask and a full-body wolf costume, reeking of Eau d’ Lycanthrope cologne, stands with his back turned toward Lightfoot, tense against the banister. An ostrich with impossibly long legs towers before him on the terrace. A smirk on her lush lips. Hands planted on her shapely hips.
There is no mistaking Rex Whoever and the lovely, leggy Zena Kinski.
Lightfoot stills her breath until nothing, no sound, no sigh, emerges from her nostrils or mouth. The pupils of her eyes widen. Her sensitive ears prick up.
“I know exactly what’s going on at Hades, Mister Big Shot,” Kinski says in a smug whisper.
“How could you know,” he replies, his whisper poisonous with contempt, “exactly?”
“I’m famous on Chrome. I’ve got fans and friends everywhere. Every kind of Blend. I’m an open-minded sort. What they know, I eventually know.”
“You don’t know a thing,” Rex growls in that forced, affected way. “You have no clue what dangerous business you’re stepping into.”
“Don’t I? Ten thousand free-trade credits a month says I do.”
“I won’t be intimidated by the likes of you.”
“Ten thousand credits. Or else.”
“Or else what?”
“We’ll expose you. For starters, I know you’re not a wolf. Not even a canine or a canid. Not a Feralist, either, hm?” She plucks at his ruff with polished fingernails, her Tatt strobing scarlet on the back of her hand. “I know who you are and what you are.”
He jerks away. “You know nothing.”
“Don’t I? You’ve got a lot to lose, Sir High and Mighty.”
“So do you.”
Like what?”
“Try your life.”
Kinski chuckles. A throaty chirp. “Are you threatening me?”
Rex doesn’t answer that. “What assurances can you give me that your sordid little scheme won’t escalate into higher sums? Or you won’t expose me after you’ve had your fill at the trough?”
“Dear me, I can’t at all assure you the monthly sum won’t go higher if your activities at Hades continue. But I can assure you that as long as I have my fill at the trough, I will never expose you. And I can certainly assure you I will never have my fill. I like luxury too much. A dancer’s career has a limited lifespan. Even a famous dancer like me. In a few years, I’ll require something extra to supplement the lifestyle to which I’ve become so happily accustomed.”
Rex falls silent. Then, “What if I told you you’re interfering with the most important advancement for every Blend on Chrome to come along in two centuries?”
“Oh?” A smirk in her whisper.
“The most important advancement since Liberation Day!”
“What if?” Kinski answers. “Don’t tell me you’re appealing to my conscience. You.”
“Maybe you’re satisfied with yourself, but millions of Blends aren’t.”
“Isn’t that just too bad for them.”
“You have no pity for other Blends who only want to improve their lot in life?”
“Why should I? I’m delighted with mine.”
“You’re selfish and vain and cold.”
“On the contrary, I love all the Blends. I wish every Blend well. And I’m sure they can improve their lot in life without your sordid little scheme.” Kinski executes a perfect pirouette and moves to the terrace door opening onto Bunny’s bedroom. “I’ll expect to see your free-trade credits in my bank account tomorrow morning. And on the first of every month after that. Till death do us part. Kind of like a bond-mate, isn’t it?”
“The most important advancement for every Blend,” Rex repeats, desperation in his voice.
“This conversation is over, sir.”
“Yes, it is.”
* * *
For the rest of Excerpt 2, join my other patrons on my Patreon page at https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=23011206 or https://www.patreon.com/lisamasonfantasyandsciencefictionwriter?alert=2. Thank you for your support while I recover.
Donate from your PayPal account to lisasmason@aol.com.
Visit me at www.lisamason.com for all my books, ebooks, stories, and screenplays, reviews, interviews, blogs, roundtables, adorable cat pictures, forthcoming works, fine art and bespoke jewelry by my husband Tom Robinson, worldwide links, and more!
The ebook of CHROME is on Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, Apple, Kobo.
And on US Kindle, UK Kindle, Canada Kindle, Australia Kindle, India Kindle, Germany Kindle, France Kindle, Spain Kindle, Italy Kindle, Netherlands Kindle, Japan Kindle, Brazil Kindle, and Mexico Kindle.
CHROME is in U.S. print as a beautiful trade paperback. Also in U.K. print, in German print, in French print, in Spanish print, in Italian print, and in Japanese print.
* * *
NOTE: To be continued in October, 2019.
On Tier Three, you’ll receive all of the posts of Tier One, including The Essential Digest with a Tribute to Yoshio Kobayashi, my original vegetarian recipe for Spicy California Rice, and the September movie review of “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”, all of the posts on Tier Two, including a delightful new Lisa Mason urban fantasy story, “Crawl Space,” with a Foreword and an Afterword, and my Monthly Writing Tip. And on Tier Three, CHROME Excerpt 2. After I’m done posting CHROME, I’ll give you the ebook and start excerpting another novel.
If you continue on to Tier Four—and I hope you do—you’ll receive my memoir-in-progress, Sticks & Stones Will Break My Bones, about the violent criminal attack on me and the aftermath.
Added Note: In October 2019 on Tier Three, I’ll be starting blogs about the inspiration, research, and literary and historical influences of CHROME.
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