The gimmick is a parallel-worlds portal. The wonder is California made new again. What would it take to successfully tame that world, and keep it safe from ours? Steve likes men and women who face challenges and temptations, and portrays the many ways they succeed and fail, retain their moral and ethical codes or don't, and what the consequences might be.

Instead of a preface, Steve says something like, "Writers have a term for readers who believe a novel expresses the writer's opinions. That term is 'idiot'."