Lisa Mason's Blog, page 146
October 31, 2012
An Odd Mix Of Guests
A domed ceiling soars higher than the gambrel roof could have possibly allowed, a deep sumptuous blue punctuated with gleaming stars. Thousands of tapers in thousands of candelabra light the living room with an exquisite glimmer.
A silver curtain drawn across an entire wall would have looked right at home in a nineteen-twenties movie palace. The lustrous folds are so luminous, so reflective, the fabric seems to double the sights in the room.
Where is Lastor? Lastor, the cipher, the enigma, the riddle.
Where is Lastor?
As I stride across polished parquetry, my nose leads me irresistibly in another direction. I’m led–almost against my will–to a tremendous formal dining room. A buffet to confound the most ravenous gourmand beckons with tempting scents and sights. Great wheels of cheese, overflowing platters of meat and fish, heaps and heaps of assorted caviars, exotic fruits, fanciful candies. Sculpted cakes and ice creams so beautiful to look at, who could bear to eat them?
Sleek pony-tailed servers in white jackets and black slacks rush forward to assemble a plate for me.
With fork, heaped plate, and napkin, I sally forth to the fabulous bar. Bottles of every wine and champagne I’ve ever heard of–and thousands I haven’t–cluster on backlit shelves, gleaming scarlet and amber. Absinthes, gins, vodkas, whiskeys, and exotic liquors of cerulean or chartreuse beckon like intoxicating jewels.
I ask the bartender for a champagne I know to be outrageously expensive–why not?–and take the brimming goblet of bubbly.
But where is Lastor?
Richly provisioned, I make my way to the living room. High-backed chairs roam about on carved-wood feet shaped like horses’ hooves or lions’ paws. A chair trots up and politely presents me with a seat of scarlet velvet.
I sit and quaff champagne and devour every cube of cheese, egg of caviar, slice of smoked salmon, exotic grape, and chocolate bonbon on my plate.
And am hungrier and thirstier than before.
Seconds, anyone? How about thirds?
Hundreds of people gather in living room deep in conversation, chatting in the shrill, over-animated way people do at an Event. Everyone is coifed, bejeweled, dressed, and shod oh so beautifully, I’m glad I took special care with my own attire. I spy mobs of famous faces. Actors from the movies and television, willowy gals and devastating guys who must be fashion models, a mayor of a great city, a senator lately in the news over a tax evasion scandal, a billionaire author of fantasy novels, a world-renowned artist of rare jewel-like paintings.
Who is Lastor to attract such a crowd?
The candlelight flickers, and then I glimpse other people, too, faces I recognize from my first day around Berkeley. Ordinary faces of the quotidian world. Street merchants from the Av and street people in rags. Weary aging professors with their cell phones and shoulder bags and fresh-faced students with their backpacks and UGG boots.
Such an odd mix of guests, I have to blink again, unsure of my own eyes. Who is who? Who is really here, and who is not?
–From THE GARDEN OF ABRACADABRA
Copyright 2012 by Lisa Mason. All rights reserved.
Buy the book for your Nook, Kindle, phone, or laptop!
Read the whole book!
THE GARDEN OF ABRACADABRA, the Omnibus Edition of all three books of my urban fantasy is on Nook and on Kindle. The publisher’s print edition is planned for late 2013.
At her mother’s urgent deathbed plea, Abby Teller enrolls at the Berkeley College of Magical Arts and Crafts to learn Real Magic. To support herself through school, she signs on as the superintendent of the Garden of Abracadabra, a mysterious, magical apartment building on campus. She discovers that her tenants are witches, shapeshifters, vampires, and wizards and each apartment is a fairyland or hell. On her first day in Berkeley, she stumbles upon a supernatural multiple murder scene. One of the victims is a man she picked up hitchhiking the day before. Compelled into a dangerous murder investigation, Abby will discover the first secrets of an ancient and ongoing war between good and evil, uncover mysteries of her own troubled past, and learn that the lessons of Real Magic may spell the difference between her own life or death.
“So refreshing. . . .This is Stephanie Plum in the world of Harry Potter.”
Whether you’re a fantasy fan or someone who simply enjoys an entertaining read, please give this book a try! On Nook and on Kindle.
New! Also available as The Garden of Abracadabra Trilogy.
In Book I, Life’s Journey, Abby arrives in Berkeley, filled with hope and promise, hoping to land a new job and start magic college, when she stumbles upon a supernatural multiple murder scene. On Nook and Kindle.
In Book 2, In Dark Woods, Abby is drawn into a dangerous murder investigation and torn between three men, Daniel Stern, her ex-fiance, Jack Kovac, an enigmatic FBI agent, and Prince Lastor, a potent supernatural man who lives in the penthouse. On Nook and Kindle.
In Book 3: The Right Road,Abby uncovers ancient supernatural secrets behind the murders and faces dangers and challenges ahead. On Nook and Kindle.
Fun and Enjoyable Urban Fantasy January 12, 2012
By D. Pflaster
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a very entertaining novel- sort of a down-to-earth Harry Potter with a modern adult woman in the lead. Even as Abby has to deal with mundane concerns like college and running the apartment complex she works at, she is surrounded by supernatural elements and mysteries that she is more than capable of taking on. Although this book is just the first in a series, it ties up the first “episode” while still leaving some story threads for upcoming books. I’m looking forward to finding out more.
The Bantam classic is back! SUMMER OF LOVE, A TIME TRAVEL was a Philip K. Dick Award finalist and San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book. On Nook and on Kindle.
Nineteen five-star Amazon reviews
“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.”
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 feisty half-black, half-white hip merchant, 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?
SUMMER OF LOVE, A TIME TRAVEL is on Nook and on Kindle. Here’s the gorgeous Summer cover.
The Bantam sequel to Summer, THE GILDED AGE, A TIME TRAVEL, aNew York Times Notable Book and New York Public Library Recommended book, is on Nook and on Kindle.
“Dazzling. . . .rollicking.” Locus Magazine
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.
THE GILDED AGE, A TIME TRAVEL is on Nook and on Kindle. Here’s the lovely Gilded cover. It looks like an 1890s handbill!
The Story That Sold To The Movies. TOMORROW’S CHILD began as a medical documentary, then got published in Omni Magazine, and finally sold to Universal Pictures, where the project is in development. On Nook and on Kindle.
A high-powered executive is about to lose his estranged teenage daughter to critical burn wounds and only desperate measures may save her life.
The ebook includes my month-long blog, The Story Behind The Story That Sold To The Movies, describing the twists and turns this story took over the years. TOMORROW’S CHILD, on Nook and on Kindle. Here’s the fantastic Child cover.
New! HUMMERS was published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, chosen for Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror 5th Annual Collection (St. Martin’s Press), and nominated for the Nebula Award.
Laurel, in the terminal stages of cancer, is obsessed with the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Jerry, her homecare nurse whose lover is dying of AIDS, gives her a surprising gift. A hummingbird feeder. As Laurel comes to grips with her own death, she learns powerful and redeeming lessons about Egyptian Magic from the hummingbirds that visit her. On Nook and on Kindle for 99 cents. Here’s the Hummers cover.
New! My thriller, SHAKEN, is an ebook adaptation of Deus Ex Machina published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, republished in Transcendental Tales from Asimov’s (Donning Press), and translated and republished in Europe and South America.
Emma “J” for Joy Pearce is at her editorial offices on the twenty-second floor of Three Embarcadero in downtown San Francisco when the long-dreaded next Great Earthquake devastates the Bay area. Amid horrific destruction, she rescues a man trapped in the rubble. In the heat of survival, she swiftly bonds with him, causing her to question her possible marriage to her long-time boyfriend.
But Jason Gibb is not the charming photojournalist he pretends to be. As Emma discovers his true identity, his mission in the city, and the dark secrets behind the catastrophe, she finds the choices she makes may mean the difference between her own life or death. A list of Sources follows this short novel.
SHAKEN is on Nook and on Kindle. Here’s the Shaken cover.
THE SIXTY-THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF HYSTERIA, published in the acclaimed anthology, Full Spectrum 5 (Bantam), which also included stories by Neal Stephenson, Karen Joy Fowler, and Jonathan Lethem, is on Nook and Kindle.
The year is 1941, and Hitler’s armies have swept across Europe. Nora, a budding young Surrealist artist, has fled to Mexico with B.B., a much older and acclaimed Surrealist playwright down on his luck. Hundreds of European artists and writers have formed a colony in Mexico City, and Nora befriends Valencia, a fellow Surrealist artist and refugee. Together the friends explore Jungian psychology and the power of symbols in their Art. But Nora is plagued by an abusive relationship with B.B. She embarks on a harrowing journey deep into her own troubled psyche.
The novelette was inspired by my favorite Surrealist artists, Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo. I include in the ebook an Afterword describing Carrington and Varo’s actual lives and a List of Sources. THE SIXTY-THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF HYSTERIA, on Nook and Kindle. Here’s the Hysteria cover.
EVERY MYSTERY UNEXPLAINED, published in David Copperfield’s Tales of the Impossible (HarperPrism), an anthology that also included stories by Ray Bradbury, Joyce Carol Oates, and Kevin J. Anderson, is on Nook and on Kindle.
The year is 1895, and Danny Flint is a young man living in the shadow of his father, a famous stage magician whose fortunes are fading. Danny is grieving over his mother’s recent accidental death, for which he feels he is to blame. He learns to reconcile himself with his grief and guilt and to assume his place at center stage as a magician in his own right with the help of a mysterious beautiful lady. EVERY MYSTERY UNEXPLAINED, on Nook and on Kindle. Here’s the Mystery cover.
DAUGHTER OF THE TAO, published in Peter S. Beagle’s Immortal Unicorn (HarperPrism), which included stories by Charles de Lint, Karen Joy Fowler, Robert Sheckley, and Ellen Kushner, is on Nook and Kindle. Five-star Amazon reviews.
Sing Lin is a mooie jai, a girl sold into slavery at the age of five to a wealthy merchant in Tangrenbu, the ghetto of her people in the new country across the sea. One lucky day, while she is out shopping by herself, she meets another mooie jai, Kwai Yin, a bossy, beautiful girl two years older. Kwai has a secret. Before she was sold into slavery, she had a Teacher who taught her about Tao Magic.
But Sing watches Kwai succumb to the terrifying fate of all slave girls in Tangrenbu.
Soon Sing is destined to go to the same fate. But will her invocation of Tao Magic save her? DAUGHTER OF THE TAO is on Nook and Kindle. Here’s the Tao cover.
For something fast and fun, U F uh-O, A SCI FI COMEDY, my script for a producer looking for the next Galaxy Quest or Men in Black that evolved into a novella, is on Nook and Kindle. Here’s the UFO cover.
Nikki and Josh really want a child but have infertility issues. Gretchen and Mike have the same problem. When Nikki meets Gretchen at the Happy Daze Family Clinic in Pasadena, they discover that they share a love of music and have asked for a donor with musical talent. Nine months later, they give birth to very unusual babies and, seeking an answer to why the kids are so special, they meet again at a pediatrician’s office. And the search is on: who—and what—is Donor Number 333?
For something very different: TESLA, A WORTHY OF HIS TIME, A SCREENPLAY, which was read by the producer of “Aliens” and “The Abyss” and is currently under consideration at another L.A. producer, is on Nook and on Kindle. I’ve included a List of Sources with this title. Since I’m a novelist, the screenplay has a bit more description than you’ll find in other scripts. Tesla’s story is fascinating, sort of a secret history of corporate America. Give it a try!
Genius. Visionary. Madman.
Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) was the pioneering genius who invented the AC electrical system that powers our world to this day, as well as radio, remote control, the automobile speedometer, X-ray photography, the AND logic gate that drives all our computer systems, and countless other devices and precursors to devices such as cell phones, television, and the Internet that we so effortlessly use today.
Strikingly handsome and charismatic, fluent in half a dozen languages, mathematics savant and master machinist, a reed-thin perfectionist who quoted poetry like a Victorian rapper, Tesla became one of the most famous men of his day. Friend of tycoons like John Jacob Astor and Stanford White and celebrities like Mark Twain and Sarah Bernhardt.
Yet Tesla was an intensely driven and lonely man, beset by inner demons, and cursed with a protean inventive imagination a century ahead of his time. He died in obscurity and poverty and, to this day, his name is not widely known. How did that happen?
Blending historical fact with speculative imagination, Lisa Mason explores the secrets of the Inventor’s inner life and his obsession with Goethe’s Faust set against the backdrop of sweeping technological changes at the turn of the twentieth century that have forever changed the world.
TESLA, on Nook and Kindle. Here’s the Tesla cover.
For a short erotic novel, you should try Eon’s Kiss by Suzanna Moore on Nook and Kindle. This has a paranormal hero who is not a vampire or a werewolf. If you’re looking for something sweet and erotic to read, check it out! Here’s the Kiss cover.
On the eve of what Jenna Coltrane believes will be Brett Becker’s marriage proposal, tragedy strikes her life—not just once, but twice. In the midst of trouble, she encounters Eon, a regal young man unlike anyone she’s ever met before.
With him, she enters the magical world of the Arbor, discovering love, passion, and beauty beyond her wildest dreams.
Jenna is swept up in a struggle for survival between human greed and the Arbor, a struggle in which her love for Eon and her very life are at stake
Coming soon! Celestial Girl, A Lily Modjeska Mystery, Books I through IV. Also forthcoming is The Quester Trilogy, an ebook adaptation improving upon my early cyberpunk classics, Arachne and Cyberweb, and much more.
For all my science fiction and fantasy books, stories, screenplays, and forthcoming news about print books and ebooks, visit me at Lisa Mason’s Official Web Site. I thank you for your readership!
If you enjoy a work, please “Like” it, add some stars, write a review on Amazon or Barnes & Noble, and spread the word to your reader friends. Your response really matters!
My Head Spins
31
I’m right about a doorman.
At my knock on the door to Number Sixty, a little old gnome greets me, resplendent in a powdered wig, indigo livery trimmed in silver, white stockings, and black patent leather pumps with silver buckles.
The doorman formally bows. “Your name, miss?”
“Teller. Abby Teller.”
He inspects a guest list and eyes, but does not search, my Dooney & Bourke handbag. Still, I’m glad I didn’t bring the Beretta. What if the doorman can see through solid leather? I no longer presume to know what the inhabitants of the Garden of Abracadabra can and cannot do. I’m glad I didn’t ruin my one night out in the middle of a school week by packing a pistol to a party.
Take your pleasures when you can.
The doorman waves me past a chest the size of a sarcophagus parked in a corner of the foyer. The chest–of joined weathered wood carved and painted with fantastical creatures and arcane writing resembling hieroglyphs–has the look of such extreme antiquity, the piece really ought to be in a museum. A massive hasp and padlock of some dark gold metal ensure that no one and nothing can get in. Or get out?
Fumes overwhelm me, the scent of vanilla and some sort of sweet spice. Dizzying and congestive, like the smoke of incense I so dislike. Lastor’s fragrance times ten. After a choking moment, the smokiness disperses, leaving only a candied scent like the odor of ether.
I can breathe again, and breathe I do, so deeply my head spins. I have to wait for the vertigo to stop before I can focus my eyes and look around. And when I focus–wow.
–From THE GARDEN OF ABRACADABRA
Copyright 2012 by Lisa Mason. All rights reserved.
Buy the book for your Nook, Kindle, phone, or laptop!
Read the whole book!
THE GARDEN OF ABRACADABRA, the Omnibus Edition of all three books of my urban fantasy is on Nook and on Kindle. The publisher’s print edition is planned for late 2013.
At her mother’s urgent deathbed plea, Abby Teller enrolls at the Berkeley College of Magical Arts and Crafts to learn Real Magic. To support herself through school, she signs on as the superintendent of the Garden of Abracadabra, a mysterious, magical apartment building on campus. She discovers that her tenants are witches, shapeshifters, vampires, and wizards and each apartment is a fairyland or hell. On her first day in Berkeley, she stumbles upon a supernatural multiple murder scene. One of the victims is a man she picked up hitchhiking the day before. Compelled into a dangerous murder investigation, Abby will discover the first secrets of an ancient and ongoing war between good and evil, uncover mysteries of her own troubled past, and learn that the lessons of Real Magic may spell the difference between her own life or death.
“So refreshing. . . .This is Stephanie Plum in the world of Harry Potter.”
Whether you’re a fantasy fan or someone who simply enjoys an entertaining read, please give this book a try! On Nook and on Kindle.
New! Also available as The Garden of Abracadabra Trilogy.
In Book I, Life’s Journey, Abby arrives in Berkeley, filled with hope and promise, hoping to land a new job and start magic college, when she stumbles upon a supernatural multiple murder scene. On Nook and Kindle.
In Book 2, In Dark Woods, Abby is drawn into a dangerous murder investigation and torn between three men, Daniel Stern, her ex-fiance, Jack Kovac, an enigmatic FBI agent, and Prince Lastor, a potent supernatural man who lives in the penthouse. On Nook and Kindle.
In Book 3: The Right Road,Abby uncovers ancient supernatural secrets behind the murders and faces dangers and challenges ahead. On Nook and Kindle.
Fun and Enjoyable Urban Fantasy January 12, 2012
By D. Pflaster
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a very entertaining novel- sort of a down-to-earth Harry Potter with a modern adult woman in the lead. Even as Abby has to deal with mundane concerns like college and running the apartment complex she works at, she is surrounded by supernatural elements and mysteries that she is more than capable of taking on. Although this book is just the first in a series, it ties up the first “episode” while still leaving some story threads for upcoming books. I’m looking forward to finding out more.
The Bantam classic is back! SUMMER OF LOVE, A TIME TRAVEL was a Philip K. Dick Award finalist and San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book. On Nook and on Kindle.
Nineteen five-star Amazon reviews
“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.”
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 feisty half-black, half-white hip merchant, 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?
SUMMER OF LOVE, A TIME TRAVEL is on Nook and on Kindle. Here’s the gorgeous Summer cover.
The Bantam sequel to Summer, THE GILDED AGE, A TIME TRAVEL, aNew York Times Notable Book and New York Public Library Recommended book, is on Nook and on Kindle.
“Dazzling. . . .rollicking.” Locus Magazine
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.
THE GILDED AGE, A TIME TRAVEL is on Nook and on Kindle. Here’s the lovely Gilded cover. It looks like an 1890s handbill!
The Story That Sold To The Movies. TOMORROW’S CHILD began as a medical documentary, then got published in Omni Magazine, and finally sold to Universal Pictures, where the project is in development. On Nook and on Kindle.
A high-powered executive is about to lose his estranged teenage daughter to critical burn wounds and only desperate measures may save her life.
The ebook includes my month-long blog, The Story Behind The Story That Sold To The Movies, describing the twists and turns this story took over the years. TOMORROW’S CHILD, on Nook and on Kindle. Here’s the fantastic Child cover.
New! HUMMERS was published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, chosen for Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror 5th Annual Collection (St. Martin’s Press), and nominated for the Nebula Award.
Laurel, in the terminal stages of cancer, is obsessed with the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Jerry, her homecare nurse whose lover is dying of AIDS, gives her a surprising gift. A hummingbird feeder. As Laurel comes to grips with her own death, she learns powerful and redeeming lessons about Egyptian Magic from the hummingbirds that visit her. On Nook and on Kindle for 99 cents. Here’s the Hummers cover.
New! My thriller, SHAKEN, is an ebook adaptation of Deus Ex Machina published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, republished in Transcendental Tales from Asimov’s (Donning Press), and translated and republished in Europe and South America.
Emma “J” for Joy Pearce is at her editorial offices on the twenty-second floor of Three Embarcadero in downtown San Francisco when the long-dreaded next Great Earthquake devastates the Bay area. Amid horrific destruction, she rescues a man trapped in the rubble. In the heat of survival, she swiftly bonds with him, causing her to question her possible marriage to her long-time boyfriend.
But Jason Gibb is not the charming photojournalist he pretends to be. As Emma discovers his true identity, his mission in the city, and the dark secrets behind the catastrophe, she finds the choices she makes may mean the difference between her own life or death. A list of Sources follows this short novel.
SHAKEN is on Nook and on Kindle. Here’s the Shaken cover.
THE SIXTY-THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF HYSTERIA, published in the acclaimed anthology, Full Spectrum 5 (Bantam), which also included stories by Neal Stephenson, Karen Joy Fowler, and Jonathan Lethem, is on Nook and Kindle.
The year is 1941, and Hitler’s armies have swept across Europe. Nora, a budding young Surrealist artist, has fled to Mexico with B.B., a much older and acclaimed Surrealist playwright down on his luck. Hundreds of European artists and writers have formed a colony in Mexico City, and Nora befriends Valencia, a fellow Surrealist artist and refugee. Together the friends explore Jungian psychology and the power of symbols in their Art. But Nora is plagued by an abusive relationship with B.B. She embarks on a harrowing journey deep into her own troubled psyche.
The novelette was inspired by my favorite Surrealist artists, Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo. I include in the ebook an Afterword describing Carrington and Varo’s actual lives and a List of Sources. THE SIXTY-THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF HYSTERIA, on Nook and Kindle. Here’s the Hysteria cover.
EVERY MYSTERY UNEXPLAINED, published in David Copperfield’s Tales of the Impossible (HarperPrism), an anthology that also included stories by Ray Bradbury, Joyce Carol Oates, and Kevin J. Anderson, is on Nook and on Kindle.
The year is 1895, and Danny Flint is a young man living in the shadow of his father, a famous stage magician whose fortunes are fading. Danny is grieving over his mother’s recent accidental death, for which he feels he is to blame. He learns to reconcile himself with his grief and guilt and to assume his place at center stage as a magician in his own right with the help of a mysterious beautiful lady. EVERY MYSTERY UNEXPLAINED, on Nook and on Kindle. Here’s the Mystery cover.
DAUGHTER OF THE TAO, published in Peter S. Beagle’s Immortal Unicorn (HarperPrism), which included stories by Charles de Lint, Karen Joy Fowler, Robert Sheckley, and Ellen Kushner, is on Nook and Kindle. Five-star Amazon reviews.
Sing Lin is a mooie jai, a girl sold into slavery at the age of five to a wealthy merchant in Tangrenbu, the ghetto of her people in the new country across the sea. One lucky day, while she is out shopping by herself, she meets another mooie jai, Kwai Yin, a bossy, beautiful girl two years older. Kwai has a secret. Before she was sold into slavery, she had a Teacher who taught her about Tao Magic.
But Sing watches Kwai succumb to the terrifying fate of all slave girls in Tangrenbu.
Soon Sing is destined to go to the same fate. But will her invocation of Tao Magic save her? DAUGHTER OF THE TAO is on Nook and Kindle. Here’s the Tao cover.
For something fast and fun, U F uh-O, A SCI FI COMEDY, my script for a producer looking for the next Galaxy Quest or Men in Black that evolved into a novella, is on Nook and Kindle. Here’s the UFO cover.
Nikki and Josh really want a child but have infertility issues. Gretchen and Mike have the same problem. When Nikki meets Gretchen at the Happy Daze Family Clinic in Pasadena, they discover that they share a love of music and have asked for a donor with musical talent. Nine months later, they give birth to very unusual babies and, seeking an answer to why the kids are so special, they meet again at a pediatrician’s office. And the search is on: who—and what—is Donor Number 333?
For something very different: TESLA, A WORTHY OF HIS TIME, A SCREENPLAY, which was read by the producer of “Aliens” and “The Abyss” and is currently under consideration at another L.A. producer, is on Nook and on Kindle. I’ve included a List of Sources with this title. Since I’m a novelist, the screenplay has a bit more description than you’ll find in other scripts. Tesla’s story is fascinating, sort of a secret history of corporate America. Give it a try!
Genius. Visionary. Madman.
Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) was the pioneering genius who invented the AC electrical system that powers our world to this day, as well as radio, remote control, the automobile speedometer, X-ray photography, the AND logic gate that drives all our computer systems, and countless other devices and precursors to devices such as cell phones, television, and the Internet that we so effortlessly use today.
Strikingly handsome and charismatic, fluent in half a dozen languages, mathematics savant and master machinist, a reed-thin perfectionist who quoted poetry like a Victorian rapper, Tesla became one of the most famous men of his day. Friend of tycoons like John Jacob Astor and Stanford White and celebrities like Mark Twain and Sarah Bernhardt.
Yet Tesla was an intensely driven and lonely man, beset by inner demons, and cursed with a protean inventive imagination a century ahead of his time. He died in obscurity and poverty and, to this day, his name is not widely known. How did that happen?
Blending historical fact with speculative imagination, Lisa Mason explores the secrets of the Inventor’s inner life and his obsession with Goethe’s Faust set against the backdrop of sweeping technological changes at the turn of the twentieth century that have forever changed the world.
TESLA, on Nook and Kindle. Here’s the Tesla cover.
For a short erotic novel, you should try Eon’s Kiss by Suzanna Moore on Nook and Kindle. This has a paranormal hero who is not a vampire or a werewolf. If you’re looking for something sweet and erotic to read, check it out! Here’s the Kiss cover.
On the eve of what Jenna Coltrane believes will be Brett Becker’s marriage proposal, tragedy strikes her life—not just once, but twice. In the midst of trouble, she encounters Eon, a regal young man unlike anyone she’s ever met before.
With him, she enters the magical world of the Arbor, discovering love, passion, and beauty beyond her wildest dreams.
Jenna is swept up in a struggle for survival between human greed and the Arbor, a struggle in which her love for Eon and her very life are at stake
Coming soon! Celestial Girl, A Lily Modjeska Mystery, Books I through IV. Also forthcoming is The Quester Trilogy, an ebook adaptation improving upon my early cyberpunk classics, Arachne and Cyberweb, and much more.
For all my science fiction and fantasy books, stories, screenplays, and forthcoming news about print books and ebooks, visit me at Lisa Mason’s Official Web Site. I thank you for your readership!
If you enjoy a work, please “Like” it, add some stars, write a review on Amazon or Barnes & Noble, and spread the word to your reader friends. Your response really matters!
October 30, 2012
The Gilded Age, A Time Travel
The Gilded Age, A Time Travel is on Nook and Kindle.
A New York Times Notable Book. A New York Public Library Recommended Book. The sequel to Summer of Love, A Time Travel, A Philip K. Dick Award Finalist and San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book.
“Rollicking. . . .Dazzling.” Locus
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
On Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005QUIWDQ
On Nook: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/books/e/2940013350977
From the author of The Garden of Abracadabra and Summer of Love, A Time Travel (a Philip K. Dick Award finalist and San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book).
Visit me at http://www.lisamason.com for books, ebooks, stories, and screenplays, forthcoming projects and more.
One Day You Too Will Be Invited
I climb the stairs to the third floor and catch my breath. How about a little prowl past Number Twenty-seven? See what I can see?
Harassment of the vampires? Hell, no. I’m the super. It’s my job.
I wind my way through the labyrinthine halls. Voices babble just around a corner, and there they are: a crowd queuing up outside the door to Twenty-seven.
I sidle up and look them over.
Forget the black leather, the piercings, the pastel hair, the crude tattoos, the sneers, the famous-for-nothing poses. These tender teens can’t fool me. They wear their innocence so obviously, they might as well be naked. If I can see through their veneer of cool to the exploitation waiting to happen, so can the vampires.
And then I see her slouching in the queue.
Becky.
No longer your classic virgin peasant girl in one of the old stories, but an It-Girl nymphet laughing knowingly, eager for excitement. She’s traded her denim shift for jeans riding on the lowest angle of her kiddie-skinny hips. She’s pushed the neckline of her shirt down around her shoulders and tied the tails up beneath her washboard of a chest.
Easy fodder for a feeding.
The door flips open and a deafening wall of sound pounds out. The addictively obnoxious beat and falsetto vocals of “Disco Divin’”, what else.
“Darlings,” the Odd Person shouts over the din, “come in, come in! Welcome to our party.”
The teens stampede inside. I join the stampede, but the Odd Person catches sight of me at the back of the queue.
When I reach the threshold, the Odd Person blocks my path and brandishes his/her hands, pushing little air pushes against my chest.
I flash my driver’s license. “I’m over twenty-one.”
The Odd Person shuts the door with a decisive click and looms over me. “Sorry, you’re not invited.”
“Sorry, as your super I need to see if you’re illegally operating a commercial dance floor.”
“Darling, we’re having a party.”
“Uh huh. You’re not carding the kids tonight. Serving booze?”
“Ginger ale and apple juice.”
“I really doubt it. I’m coming in to see what I can see. Then I’m calling Nine One One.” I pull out my cell.
“Have we asked you to fix something in our apartment?”
“No, you haven’t.”
“Have you scheduled an appointment to repair a malfunction in our apartment that affects the common areas of the building?”
“You know I haven’t.”
“Has another tenant filed a complaint against us?”
“Strangely, no.”
“Are you collecting rent or past-due rent?”
“Not till next month or when Becky’s Mom’s check bounces, whichever comes first.”
“Then you’ve got no right to just barge in, uninvited.”
“Says who?”
“Says our lease.” The Odd Person whips out the lease from some pocket hidden in his/her black leather jumpsuit and shakes the document in my face. “Tenants have privacy rights, too.”
The Odd Person is right, of course. Landlord-tenant laws in Berkeley are way on the side of the tenant.
“What about the water bed?”
“We recycled the water bed. I hated the old slosher. Gave me a backache.”
“Huh. I thought that’s why water beds were invented. For people with back problems.”
“And credit cards were invented for people with plenty of cash. And super?”
“Yes?”
“Call me Arnold.” The Odd Person winks. “Don’t be downhearted, darling. Maybe one day you too will be invited.”
–From THE GARDEN OF ABRACADABRA
Copyright 2012 by Lisa Mason. All rights reserved.
Buy the book for your Nook, Kindle, phone, or laptop!
Read the whole book!
THE GARDEN OF ABRACADABRA, the Omnibus Edition of all three books of my urban fantasy is on Nook and on Kindle. The publisher’s print edition is planned for late 2013.
At her mother’s urgent deathbed plea, Abby Teller enrolls at the Berkeley College of Magical Arts and Crafts to learn Real Magic. To support herself through school, she signs on as the superintendent of the Garden of Abracadabra, a mysterious, magical apartment building on campus. She discovers that her tenants are witches, shapeshifters, vampires, and wizards and each apartment is a fairyland or hell. On her first day in Berkeley, she stumbles upon a supernatural multiple murder scene. One of the victims is a man she picked up hitchhiking the day before. Compelled into a dangerous murder investigation, Abby will discover the first secrets of an ancient and ongoing war between good and evil, uncover mysteries of her own troubled past, and learn that the lessons of Real Magic may spell the difference between her own life or death.
“So refreshing. . . .This is Stephanie Plum in the world of Harry Potter.”
Whether you’re a fantasy fan or someone who simply enjoys an entertaining read, please give this book a try! On Nook and on Kindle.
New! Also available as The Garden of Abracadabra Trilogy.
In Book I, Life’s Journey, Abby arrives in Berkeley, filled with hope and promise, hoping to land a new job and start magic college, when she stumbles upon a supernatural multiple murder scene. On Nook and Kindle.
In Book 2, In Dark Woods, Abby is drawn into a dangerous murder investigation and torn between three men, Daniel Stern, her ex-fiance, Jack Kovac, an enigmatic FBI agent, and Prince Lastor, a potent supernatural man who lives in the penthouse. On Nook and Kindle.
In Book 3: The Right Road,Abby uncovers ancient supernatural secrets behind the murders and faces dangers and challenges ahead. On Nook and Kindle.
Fun and Enjoyable Urban Fantasy January 12, 2012
By D. Pflaster
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a very entertaining novel- sort of a down-to-earth Harry Potter with a modern adult woman in the lead. Even as Abby has to deal with mundane concerns like college and running the apartment complex she works at, she is surrounded by supernatural elements and mysteries that she is more than capable of taking on. Although this book is just the first in a series, it ties up the first “episode” while still leaving some story threads for upcoming books. I’m looking forward to finding out more.
The Bantam classic is back! SUMMER OF LOVE, A TIME TRAVEL was a Philip K. Dick Award finalist and San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book. On Nook and on Kindle.
Nineteen five-star Amazon reviews
“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.”
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 feisty half-black, half-white hip merchant, 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?
SUMMER OF LOVE, A TIME TRAVEL is on Nook and on Kindle. Here’s the gorgeous Summer cover.
The Bantam sequel to Summer, THE GILDED AGE, A TIME TRAVEL, aNew York Times Notable Book and New York Public Library Recommended book, is on Nook and on Kindle.
“Dazzling. . . .rollicking.” Locus Magazine
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.
THE GILDED AGE, A TIME TRAVEL is on Nook and on Kindle. Here’s the lovely Gilded cover. It looks like an 1890s handbill!
The Story That Sold To The Movies. TOMORROW’S CHILD began as a medical documentary, then got published in Omni Magazine, and finally sold to Universal Pictures, where the project is in development. On Nook and on Kindle.
A high-powered executive is about to lose his estranged teenage daughter to critical burn wounds and only desperate measures may save her life.
The ebook includes my month-long blog, The Story Behind The Story That Sold To The Movies, describing the twists and turns this story took over the years. TOMORROW’S CHILD, on Nook and on Kindle. Here’s the fantastic Child cover.
New! HUMMERS was published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, chosen for Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror 5th Annual Collection (St. Martin’s Press), and nominated for the Nebula Award.
Laurel, in the terminal stages of cancer, is obsessed with the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Jerry, her homecare nurse whose lover is dying of AIDS, gives her a surprising gift. A hummingbird feeder. As Laurel comes to grips with her own death, she learns powerful and redeeming lessons about Egyptian Magic from the hummingbirds that visit her. On Nook and on Kindle for 99 cents. Here’s the Hummers cover.
New! My thriller, SHAKEN, is an ebook adaptation of Deus Ex Machina published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, republished in Transcendental Tales from Asimov’s (Donning Press), and translated and republished in Europe and South America.
Emma “J” for Joy Pearce is at her editorial offices on the twenty-second floor of Three Embarcadero in downtown San Francisco when the long-dreaded next Great Earthquake devastates the Bay area. Amid horrific destruction, she rescues a man trapped in the rubble. In the heat of survival, she swiftly bonds with him, causing her to question her possible marriage to her long-time boyfriend.
But Jason Gibb is not the charming photojournalist he pretends to be. As Emma discovers his true identity, his mission in the city, and the dark secrets behind the catastrophe, she finds the choices she makes may mean the difference between her own life or death. A list of Sources follows this short novel.
SHAKEN is on Nook and on Kindle. Here’s the Shaken cover.
THE SIXTY-THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF HYSTERIA, published in the acclaimed anthology, Full Spectrum 5 (Bantam), which also included stories by Neal Stephenson, Karen Joy Fowler, and Jonathan Lethem, is on Nook and Kindle.
The year is 1941, and Hitler’s armies have swept across Europe. Nora, a budding young Surrealist artist, has fled to Mexico with B.B., a much older and acclaimed Surrealist playwright down on his luck. Hundreds of European artists and writers have formed a colony in Mexico City, and Nora befriends Valencia, a fellow Surrealist artist and refugee. Together the friends explore Jungian psychology and the power of symbols in their Art. But Nora is plagued by an abusive relationship with B.B. She embarks on a harrowing journey deep into her own troubled psyche.
The novelette was inspired by my favorite Surrealist artists, Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo. I include in the ebook an Afterword describing Carrington and Varo’s actual lives and a List of Sources. THE SIXTY-THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF HYSTERIA, on Nook and Kindle. Here’s the Hysteria cover.
EVERY MYSTERY UNEXPLAINED, published in David Copperfield’s Tales of the Impossible (HarperPrism), an anthology that also included stories by Ray Bradbury, Joyce Carol Oates, and Kevin J. Anderson, is on Nook and on Kindle.
The year is 1895, and Danny Flint is a young man living in the shadow of his father, a famous stage magician whose fortunes are fading. Danny is grieving over his mother’s recent accidental death, for which he feels he is to blame. He learns to reconcile himself with his grief and guilt and to assume his place at center stage as a magician in his own right with the help of a mysterious beautiful lady. EVERY MYSTERY UNEXPLAINED, on Nook and on Kindle. Here’s the Mystery cover.
DAUGHTER OF THE TAO, published in Peter S. Beagle’s Immortal Unicorn (HarperPrism), which included stories by Charles de Lint, Karen Joy Fowler, Robert Sheckley, and Ellen Kushner, is on Nook and Kindle. Five-star Amazon reviews.
Sing Lin is a mooie jai, a girl sold into slavery at the age of five to a wealthy merchant in Tangrenbu, the ghetto of her people in the new country across the sea. One lucky day, while she is out shopping by herself, she meets another mooie jai, Kwai Yin, a bossy, beautiful girl two years older. Kwai has a secret. Before she was sold into slavery, she had a Teacher who taught her about Tao Magic.
But Sing watches Kwai succumb to the terrifying fate of all slave girls in Tangrenbu.
Soon Sing is destined to go to the same fate. But will her invocation of Tao Magic save her? DAUGHTER OF THE TAO is on Nook and Kindle. Here’s the Tao cover.
For something fast and fun, U F uh-O, A SCI FI COMEDY, my script for a producer looking for the next Galaxy Quest or Men in Black that evolved into a novella, is on Nook and Kindle. Here’s the UFO cover.
Nikki and Josh really want a child but have infertility issues. Gretchen and Mike have the same problem. When Nikki meets Gretchen at the Happy Daze Family Clinic in Pasadena, they discover that they share a love of music and have asked for a donor with musical talent. Nine months later, they give birth to very unusual babies and, seeking an answer to why the kids are so special, they meet again at a pediatrician’s office. And the search is on: who—and what—is Donor Number 333?
For something very different: TESLA, A WORTHY OF HIS TIME, A SCREENPLAY, which was read by the producer of “Aliens” and “The Abyss” and is currently under consideration at another L.A. producer, is on Nook and on Kindle. I’ve included a List of Sources with this title. Since I’m a novelist, the screenplay has a bit more description than you’ll find in other scripts. Tesla’s story is fascinating, sort of a secret history of corporate America. Give it a try!
Genius. Visionary. Madman.
Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) was the pioneering genius who invented the AC electrical system that powers our world to this day, as well as radio, remote control, the automobile speedometer, X-ray photography, the AND logic gate that drives all our computer systems, and countless other devices and precursors to devices such as cell phones, television, and the Internet that we so effortlessly use today.
Strikingly handsome and charismatic, fluent in half a dozen languages, mathematics savant and master machinist, a reed-thin perfectionist who quoted poetry like a Victorian rapper, Tesla became one of the most famous men of his day. Friend of tycoons like John Jacob Astor and Stanford White and celebrities like Mark Twain and Sarah Bernhardt.
Yet Tesla was an intensely driven and lonely man, beset by inner demons, and cursed with a protean inventive imagination a century ahead of his time. He died in obscurity and poverty and, to this day, his name is not widely known. How did that happen?
Blending historical fact with speculative imagination, Lisa Mason explores the secrets of the Inventor’s inner life and his obsession with Goethe’s Faust set against the backdrop of sweeping technological changes at the turn of the twentieth century that have forever changed the world.
TESLA, on Nook and Kindle. Here’s the Tesla cover.
For a short erotic novel, you should try Eon’s Kiss by Suzanna Moore on Nook and Kindle. This has a paranormal hero who is not a vampire or a werewolf. If you’re looking for something sweet and erotic to read, check it out! Here’s the Kiss cover.
On the eve of what Jenna Coltrane believes will be Brett Becker’s marriage proposal, tragedy strikes her life—not just once, but twice. In the midst of trouble, she encounters Eon, a regal young man unlike anyone she’s ever met before.
With him, she enters the magical world of the Arbor, discovering love, passion, and beauty beyond her wildest dreams.
Jenna is swept up in a struggle for survival between human greed and the Arbor, a struggle in which her love for Eon and her very life are at stake
Coming soon! Celestial Girl, A Lily Modjeska Mystery, Books I through IV. Also forthcoming is The Quester Trilogy, an ebook adaptation improving upon my early cyberpunk classics, Arachne and Cyberweb, and much more.
For all my science fiction and fantasy books, stories, screenplays, and forthcoming news about print books and ebooks, visit me at Lisa Mason’s Official Web Site. I thank you for your readership!
If you enjoy a work, please “Like” it, add some stars, write a review on Amazon or Barnes & Noble, and spread the word to your reader friends. Your response really matters!
Hope I Survive
Lastor told me the Revel isn’t formal, but my churchgoing white linen dress is too proper, my black silk mourning dress too plain. From the moving box I couldn’t wait to tear open, I take out a favorite dress, turquoise silk with a V neck, and step into Petra heels three shades of turquoise suede. I slide on my silver rings and bangles and arrange the Eye and the Cross at my throat.
I strap on my dressy black Oris wristwatch. I need to keep track of the time tonight. I intend to party till ten in the P.M., then make my farewells like a good little Cinderella. But, wait. Didn’t Cinderella get to stay at the ball till midnight? She did, but I can’t. I’ve got a gun-toting tryst with Jack Kovac tomorrow morning, a magic class at three, and a job too good to be true every hour of the night and day.
I jog to the living room and seize my handbag heavy with the deadweight of the Beretta. I dodge around the battalion of unopened moving boxes, head for the door–and stop right there.
What if Prince Lastor has a doorman who pats guests down and searches handbags? Royalty must always worry about assassins and gate-crashers mooching for a free drink. Would His Highness refuse to receive me? Never invite me again? Call the cops? Would I have to call Jack Kovac to bail me out of jail?
Anyway, I don’t know how to shoot the devilish thing. Not till Kovac teaches me tomorrow. Misgivings brood in my heart as I tuck the Beretta in the bottom left-hand drawer of my home-office desk. Sweet dreams, Beretta. Hope I survive the night without you.
–From THE GARDEN OF ABRACADABRA
Copyright 2012 by Lisa Mason. All rights reserved.
Buy the book for your Nook, Kindle, phone, or laptop!
Read the whole book!
THE GARDEN OF ABRACADABRA, the Omnibus Edition of all three books of my urban fantasy is on Nook and on Kindle. The publisher’s print edition is planned for late 2013.
At her mother’s urgent deathbed plea, Abby Teller enrolls at the Berkeley College of Magical Arts and Crafts to learn Real Magic. To support herself through school, she signs on as the superintendent of the Garden of Abracadabra, a mysterious, magical apartment building on campus. She discovers that her tenants are witches, shapeshifters, vampires, and wizards and each apartment is a fairyland or hell. On her first day in Berkeley, she stumbles upon a supernatural multiple murder scene. One of the victims is a man she picked up hitchhiking the day before. Compelled into a dangerous murder investigation, Abby will discover the first secrets of an ancient and ongoing war between good and evil, uncover mysteries of her own troubled past, and learn that the lessons of Real Magic may spell the difference between her own life or death.
“So refreshing. . . .This is Stephanie Plum in the world of Harry Potter.”
Whether you’re a fantasy fan or someone who simply enjoys an entertaining read, please give this book a try! On Nook and on Kindle.
New! Also available as The Garden of Abracadabra Trilogy.
In Book I, Life’s Journey, Abby arrives in Berkeley, filled with hope and promise, hoping to land a new job and start magic college, when she stumbles upon a supernatural multiple murder scene. On Nook and Kindle.
In Book 2, In Dark Woods, Abby is drawn into a dangerous murder investigation and torn between three men, Daniel Stern, her ex-fiance, Jack Kovac, an enigmatic FBI agent, and Prince Lastor, a potent supernatural man who lives in the penthouse. On Nook and Kindle.
In Book 3: The Right Road,Abby uncovers ancient supernatural secrets behind the murders and faces dangers and challenges ahead. On Nook and Kindle.
Fun and Enjoyable Urban Fantasy January 12, 2012
By D. Pflaster
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a very entertaining novel- sort of a down-to-earth Harry Potter with a modern adult woman in the lead. Even as Abby has to deal with mundane concerns like college and running the apartment complex she works at, she is surrounded by supernatural elements and mysteries that she is more than capable of taking on. Although this book is just the first in a series, it ties up the first “episode” while still leaving some story threads for upcoming books. I’m looking forward to finding out more.
The Bantam classic is back! SUMMER OF LOVE, A TIME TRAVEL was a Philip K. Dick Award finalist and San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book. On Nook and on Kindle.
Nineteen five-star Amazon reviews
“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.”
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 feisty half-black, half-white hip merchant, 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?
SUMMER OF LOVE, A TIME TRAVEL is on Nook and on Kindle. Here’s the gorgeous Summer cover.
The Bantam sequel to Summer, THE GILDED AGE, A TIME TRAVEL, aNew York Times Notable Book and New York Public Library Recommended book, is on Nook and on Kindle.
“Dazzling. . . .rollicking.” Locus Magazine
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.
THE GILDED AGE, A TIME TRAVEL is on Nook and on Kindle. Here’s the lovely Gilded cover. It looks like an 1890s handbill!
The Story That Sold To The Movies. TOMORROW’S CHILD began as a medical documentary, then got published in Omni Magazine, and finally sold to Universal Pictures, where the project is in development. On Nook and on Kindle.
A high-powered executive is about to lose his estranged teenage daughter to critical burn wounds and only desperate measures may save her life.
The ebook includes my month-long blog, The Story Behind The Story That Sold To The Movies, describing the twists and turns this story took over the years. TOMORROW’S CHILD, on Nook and on Kindle. Here’s the fantastic Child cover.
New! HUMMERS was published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, chosen for Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror 5th Annual Collection (St. Martin’s Press), and nominated for the Nebula Award.
Laurel, in the terminal stages of cancer, is obsessed with the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Jerry, her homecare nurse whose lover is dying of AIDS, gives her a surprising gift. A hummingbird feeder. As Laurel comes to grips with her own death, she learns powerful and redeeming lessons about Egyptian Magic from the hummingbirds that visit her. On Nook and on Kindle for 99 cents. Here’s the Hummers cover.
New! My thriller, SHAKEN, is an ebook adaptation of Deus Ex Machina published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, republished in Transcendental Tales from Asimov’s (Donning Press), and translated and republished in Europe and South America.
Emma “J” for Joy Pearce is at her editorial offices on the twenty-second floor of Three Embarcadero in downtown San Francisco when the long-dreaded next Great Earthquake devastates the Bay area. Amid horrific destruction, she rescues a man trapped in the rubble. In the heat of survival, she swiftly bonds with him, causing her to question her possible marriage to her long-time boyfriend.
But Jason Gibb is not the charming photojournalist he pretends to be. As Emma discovers his true identity, his mission in the city, and the dark secrets behind the catastrophe, she finds the choices she makes may mean the difference between her own life or death. A list of Sources follows this short novel.
SHAKEN is on Nook and on Kindle. Here’s the Shaken cover.
THE SIXTY-THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF HYSTERIA, published in the acclaimed anthology, Full Spectrum 5 (Bantam), which also included stories by Neal Stephenson, Karen Joy Fowler, and Jonathan Lethem, is on Nook and Kindle.
The year is 1941, and Hitler’s armies have swept across Europe. Nora, a budding young Surrealist artist, has fled to Mexico with B.B., a much older and acclaimed Surrealist playwright down on his luck. Hundreds of European artists and writers have formed a colony in Mexico City, and Nora befriends Valencia, a fellow Surrealist artist and refugee. Together the friends explore Jungian psychology and the power of symbols in their Art. But Nora is plagued by an abusive relationship with B.B. She embarks on a harrowing journey deep into her own troubled psyche.
The novelette was inspired by my favorite Surrealist artists, Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo. I include in the ebook an Afterword describing Carrington and Varo’s actual lives and a List of Sources. THE SIXTY-THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF HYSTERIA, on Nook and Kindle. Here’s the Hysteria cover.
EVERY MYSTERY UNEXPLAINED, published in David Copperfield’s Tales of the Impossible (HarperPrism), an anthology that also included stories by Ray Bradbury, Joyce Carol Oates, and Kevin J. Anderson, is on Nook and on Kindle.
The year is 1895, and Danny Flint is a young man living in the shadow of his father, a famous stage magician whose fortunes are fading. Danny is grieving over his mother’s recent accidental death, for which he feels he is to blame. He learns to reconcile himself with his grief and guilt and to assume his place at center stage as a magician in his own right with the help of a mysterious beautiful lady. EVERY MYSTERY UNEXPLAINED, on Nook and on Kindle. Here’s the Mystery cover.
DAUGHTER OF THE TAO, published in Peter S. Beagle’s Immortal Unicorn (HarperPrism), which included stories by Charles de Lint, Karen Joy Fowler, Robert Sheckley, and Ellen Kushner, is on Nook and Kindle. Five-star Amazon reviews.
Sing Lin is a mooie jai, a girl sold into slavery at the age of five to a wealthy merchant in Tangrenbu, the ghetto of her people in the new country across the sea. One lucky day, while she is out shopping by herself, she meets another mooie jai, Kwai Yin, a bossy, beautiful girl two years older. Kwai has a secret. Before she was sold into slavery, she had a Teacher who taught her about Tao Magic.
But Sing watches Kwai succumb to the terrifying fate of all slave girls in Tangrenbu.
Soon Sing is destined to go to the same fate. But will her invocation of Tao Magic save her? DAUGHTER OF THE TAO is on Nook and Kindle. Here’s the Tao cover.
For something fast and fun, U F uh-O, A SCI FI COMEDY, my script for a producer looking for the next Galaxy Quest or Men in Black that evolved into a novella, is on Nook and Kindle. Here’s the UFO cover.
Nikki and Josh really want a child but have infertility issues. Gretchen and Mike have the same problem. When Nikki meets Gretchen at the Happy Daze Family Clinic in Pasadena, they discover that they share a love of music and have asked for a donor with musical talent. Nine months later, they give birth to very unusual babies and, seeking an answer to why the kids are so special, they meet again at a pediatrician’s office. And the search is on: who—and what—is Donor Number 333?
For something very different: TESLA, A WORTHY OF HIS TIME, A SCREENPLAY, which was read by the producer of “Aliens” and “The Abyss” and is currently under consideration at another L.A. producer, is on Nook and on Kindle. I’ve included a List of Sources with this title. Since I’m a novelist, the screenplay has a bit more description than you’ll find in other scripts. Tesla’s story is fascinating, sort of a secret history of corporate America. Give it a try!
Genius. Visionary. Madman.
Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) was the pioneering genius who invented the AC electrical system that powers our world to this day, as well as radio, remote control, the automobile speedometer, X-ray photography, the AND logic gate that drives all our computer systems, and countless other devices and precursors to devices such as cell phones, television, and the Internet that we so effortlessly use today.
Strikingly handsome and charismatic, fluent in half a dozen languages, mathematics savant and master machinist, a reed-thin perfectionist who quoted poetry like a Victorian rapper, Tesla became one of the most famous men of his day. Friend of tycoons like John Jacob Astor and Stanford White and celebrities like Mark Twain and Sarah Bernhardt.
Yet Tesla was an intensely driven and lonely man, beset by inner demons, and cursed with a protean inventive imagination a century ahead of his time. He died in obscurity and poverty and, to this day, his name is not widely known. How did that happen?
Blending historical fact with speculative imagination, Lisa Mason explores the secrets of the Inventor’s inner life and his obsession with Goethe’s Faust set against the backdrop of sweeping technological changes at the turn of the twentieth century that have forever changed the world.
TESLA, on Nook and Kindle. Here’s the Tesla cover.
For a short erotic novel, you should try Eon’s Kiss by Suzanna Moore on Nook and Kindle. This has a paranormal hero who is not a vampire or a werewolf. If you’re looking for something sweet and erotic to read, check it out! Here’s the Kiss cover.
On the eve of what Jenna Coltrane believes will be Brett Becker’s marriage proposal, tragedy strikes her life—not just once, but twice. In the midst of trouble, she encounters Eon, a regal young man unlike anyone she’s ever met before.
With him, she enters the magical world of the Arbor, discovering love, passion, and beauty beyond her wildest dreams.
Jenna is swept up in a struggle for survival between human greed and the Arbor, a struggle in which her love for Eon and her very life are at stake
Coming soon! Celestial Girl, A Lily Modjeska Mystery, Books I through IV. Also forthcoming is The Quester Trilogy, an ebook adaptation improving upon my early cyberpunk classics, Arachne and Cyberweb, and much more.
For all my science fiction and fantasy books, stories, screenplays, and forthcoming news about print books and ebooks, visit me at Lisa Mason’s Official Web Site. I thank you for your readership!
If you enjoy a work, please “Like” it, add some stars, write a review on Amazon or Barnes & Noble, and spread the word to your reader friends. Your response really matters!
October 29, 2012
Summer Of Love, A Time Travel
Summer Of Love, A Time Travel on Nook and Kindle!
The Bantam classic is back! A Philip K. Dick Award finalist. A San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book of the Year. Prequel to The Gilded Age, A Time Travel.
Nineteen five-star Amazon reviews
“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.”
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 feisty half-black, half-white hip merchant, 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?
On Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003OIBGLC
On Nook: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/books/e/2940012826749
From the author of The Garden of Abracadabra and The Gilded Age, A Time Travel (a New York Times Notable Book and New York Public Library Recommended Book).
Visit me at http://www.lisamason.com for books, ebooks, stories, and screenplays, forthcoming projects and more.
A Cipher, An Enigma, A Riddle
I bite my lip. Damn Kovac, telling me what I should and shouldn’t do. And he isn’t even here in person to say it. But he’s right. He said some records have strange powers of their own, and Professor Bonwitch will know what to do. I need a magus like Isaac Bonwitch to guide me to that terrible day.
I slump in the chair, emptied of enthusiasm.
I am, after all, going to Prince Lastor’s Revel tonight. I want to work myself up into a festive mood, not dwell on misery and pain and death. Mine or anyone else’s.
That rules out Jorge Teller. And Jack Kovac.
I sit up, eager to try again. Who, then?
My host for the Revel looms large. He’s got no motive I can see, Kovac said in connection with the Tilden Park murders, and seems harmless enough. Hah. Lastor hasn’t exactly been harmless to me. Bodybuilder or gymnast? Football player or ballet dancer? Enchanting or intimidating?
“Yonder,” I say, “summon Lastor.”
The slice of lambent light hovers, swirling with worlds but revealing nothing.
“Summon His Royal Highness Prince Lastor.”
Still nothing.
What did I do wrong? Mispronounce his name? Maybe he’s got other names–middle names, surnames–and other titles, and I need to speak them all before a summoning will work. I know enough about Real Magic to know you’ve got to speak a true name and speak an exact command to initiate a magical operation. In this exactitude, magic and technology have a lot in common.
Or maybe I don’t possess enough power, and my schooling at Magical Arts and Crafts will amount to nothing.
“Yonder, Off.”
The slice of light vanishes.
Lastor is a cipher, an enigma, a riddle.
And what else? What else?
The Revel is going to be a blast.
–From THE GARDEN OF ABRACADABRA
Copyright 2012 by Lisa Mason. All rights reserved.
Buy the book for your Nook, Kindle, phone, or laptop!
Read the whole book!
THE GARDEN OF ABRACADABRA, the Omnibus Edition of all three books of my urban fantasy is on Nook and on Kindle. The publisher’s print edition is planned for late 2013.
At her mother’s urgent deathbed plea, Abby Teller enrolls at the Berkeley College of Magical Arts and Crafts to learn Real Magic. To support herself through school, she signs on as the superintendent of the Garden of Abracadabra, a mysterious, magical apartment building on campus. She discovers that her tenants are witches, shapeshifters, vampires, and wizards and each apartment is a fairyland or hell. On her first day in Berkeley, she stumbles upon a supernatural multiple murder scene. One of the victims is a man she picked up hitchhiking the day before. Compelled into a dangerous murder investigation, Abby will discover the first secrets of an ancient and ongoing war between good and evil, uncover mysteries of her own troubled past, and learn that the lessons of Real Magic may spell the difference between her own life or death.
“So refreshing. . . .This is Stephanie Plum in the world of Harry Potter.”
Whether you’re a fantasy fan or someone who simply enjoys an entertaining read, please give this book a try! On Nook and on Kindle.
New! Also available as The Garden of Abracadabra Trilogy.
In Book I, Life’s Journey, Abby arrives in Berkeley, filled with hope and promise, hoping to land a new job and start magic college, when she stumbles upon a supernatural multiple murder scene. On Nook and Kindle.
In Book 2, In Dark Woods, Abby is drawn into a dangerous murder investigation and torn between three men, Daniel Stern, her ex-fiance, Jack Kovac, an enigmatic FBI agent, and Prince Lastor, a potent supernatural man who lives in the penthouse. On Nook and Kindle.
In Book 3: The Right Road,Abby uncovers ancient supernatural secrets behind the murders and faces dangers and challenges ahead. On Nook and Kindle.
Fun and Enjoyable Urban Fantasy January 12, 2012
By D. Pflaster
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a very entertaining novel- sort of a down-to-earth Harry Potter with a modern adult woman in the lead. Even as Abby has to deal with mundane concerns like college and running the apartment complex she works at, she is surrounded by supernatural elements and mysteries that she is more than capable of taking on. Although this book is just the first in a series, it ties up the first “episode” while still leaving some story threads for upcoming books. I’m looking forward to finding out more.
The Bantam classic is back! SUMMER OF LOVE, A TIME TRAVEL was a Philip K. Dick Award finalist and San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book. On Nook and on Kindle.
Nineteen five-star Amazon reviews
“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.”
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 feisty half-black, half-white hip merchant, 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?
SUMMER OF LOVE, A TIME TRAVEL is on Nook and on Kindle. Here’s the gorgeous Summer cover.
The Bantam sequel to Summer, THE GILDED AGE, A TIME TRAVEL, aNew York Times Notable Book and New York Public Library Recommended book, is on Nook and on Kindle.
“Dazzling. . . .rollicking.” Locus Magazine
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.
THE GILDED AGE, A TIME TRAVEL is on Nook and on Kindle. Here’s the lovely Gilded cover. It looks like an 1890s handbill!
The Story That Sold To The Movies. TOMORROW’S CHILD began as a medical documentary, then got published in Omni Magazine, and finally sold to Universal Pictures, where the project is in development. On Nook and on Kindle.
A high-powered executive is about to lose his estranged teenage daughter to critical burn wounds and only desperate measures may save her life.
The ebook includes my month-long blog, The Story Behind The Story That Sold To The Movies, describing the twists and turns this story took over the years. TOMORROW’S CHILD, on Nook and on Kindle. Here’s the fantastic Child cover.
New! HUMMERS was published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, chosen for Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror 5th Annual Collection (St. Martin’s Press), and nominated for the Nebula Award.
Laurel, in the terminal stages of cancer, is obsessed with the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Jerry, her homecare nurse whose lover is dying of AIDS, gives her a surprising gift. A hummingbird feeder. As Laurel comes to grips with her own death, she learns powerful and redeeming lessons about Egyptian Magic from the hummingbirds that visit her. On Nook and on Kindlefor 99 cents. Here’s the Hummers cover.
New! My thriller, SHAKEN, is an ebook adaptation of Deus Ex Machina published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, republished in Transcendental Tales from Asimov’s (Donning Press), and translated and republished in Europe and South America.
Emma “J” for Joy Pearce is at her editorial offices on the twenty-second floor of Three Embarcadero in downtown San Francisco when the long-dreaded next Great Earthquake devastates the Bay area. Amid horrific destruction, she rescues a man trapped in the rubble. In the heat of survival, she swiftly bonds with him, causing her to question her possible marriage to her long-time boyfriend.
But Jason Gibb is not the charming photojournalist he pretends to be. As Emma discovers his true identity, his mission in the city, and the dark secrets behind the catastrophe, she finds the choices she makes may mean the difference between her own life or death. A list of Sources follows this short novel.
SHAKEN is on Nook and on Kindle. Here’s the Shaken cover.
THE SIXTY-THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF HYSTERIA, published in the acclaimed anthology, Full Spectrum 5 (Bantam), which also included stories by Neal Stephenson, Karen Joy Fowler, and Jonathan Lethem, is on Nook and Kindle.
The year is 1941, and Hitler’s armies have swept across Europe. Nora, a budding young Surrealist artist, has fled to Mexico with B.B., a much older and acclaimed Surrealist playwright down on his luck. Hundreds of European artists and writers have formed a colony in Mexico City, and Nora befriends Valencia, a fellow Surrealist artist and refugee. Together the friends explore Jungian psychology and the power of symbols in their Art. But Nora is plagued by an abusive relationship with B.B. She embarks on a harrowing journey deep into her own troubled psyche.
The novelette was inspired by my favorite Surrealist artists, Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo. I include in the ebook an Afterword describing Carrington and Varo’s actual lives and a List of Sources. THE SIXTY-THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF HYSTERIA, on Nook and Kindle. Here’s the Hysteria cover.
EVERY MYSTERY UNEXPLAINED, published in David Copperfield’s Tales of the Impossible (HarperPrism), an anthology that also included stories by Ray Bradbury, Joyce Carol Oates, and Kevin J. Anderson, is on Nook and on Kindle.
The year is 1895, and Danny Flint is a young man living in the shadow of his father, a famous stage magician whose fortunes are fading. Danny is grieving over his mother’s recent accidental death, for which he feels he is to blame. He learns to reconcile himself with his grief and guilt and to assume his place at center stage as a magician in his own right with the help of a mysterious beautiful lady. EVERY MYSTERY UNEXPLAINED, on Nook and on Kindle. Here’s the Mystery cover.
DAUGHTER OF THE TAO, published in Peter S. Beagle’s Immortal Unicorn (HarperPrism), which included stories by Charles de Lint, Karen Joy Fowler, Robert Sheckley, and Ellen Kushner, is on Nook and Kindle. Five-star Amazon reviews.
Sing Lin is a mooie jai, a girl sold into slavery at the age of five to a wealthy merchant in Tangrenbu, the ghetto of her people in the new country across the sea. One lucky day, while she is out shopping by herself, she meets another mooie jai, Kwai Yin, a bossy, beautiful girl two years older. Kwai has a secret. Before she was sold into slavery, she had a Teacher who taught her about Tao Magic.
But Sing watches Kwai succumb to the terrifying fate of all slave girls in Tangrenbu.
Soon Sing is destined to go to the same fate. But will her invocation of Tao Magic save her? DAUGHTER OF THE TAO is on Nook and Kindle. Here’s the Tao cover.
For something fast and fun, U F uh-O, A SCI FI COMEDY, my script for a producer looking for the next Galaxy Quest or Men in Black that evolved into a novella, is on Nookand Kindle. Here’s theUFO cover.
Nikki and Josh really want a child but have infertility issues. Gretchen and Mike have the same problem. When Nikki meets Gretchen at the Happy Daze Family Clinic in Pasadena, they discover that they share a love of music and have asked for a donor with musical talent. Nine months later, they give birth to very unusual babies and, seeking an answer to why the kids are so special, they meet again at a pediatrician’s office. And the search is on: who—and what—is Donor Number 333?
For something very different: TESLA, A WORTHY OF HIS TIME, A SCREENPLAY, which was read by the producer of “Aliens” and “The Abyss” and is currently under consideration at another L.A. producer, is on Nook and on Kindle. I’ve included a List of Sources with this title. Since I’m a novelist, the screenplay has a bit more description than you’ll find in other scripts. Tesla’s story is fascinating, sort of a secret history of corporate America. Give it a try!
Genius. Visionary. Madman.
Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) was the pioneering genius who invented the AC electrical system that powers our world to this day, as well as radio, remote control, the automobile speedometer, X-ray photography, the AND logic gate that drives all our computer systems, and countless other devices and precursors to devices such as cell phones, television, and the Internet that we so effortlessly use today.
Strikingly handsome and charismatic, fluent in half a dozen languages, mathematics savant and master machinist, a reed-thin perfectionist who quoted poetry like a Victorian rapper, Tesla became one of the most famous men of his day. Friend of tycoons like John Jacob Astor and Stanford White and celebrities like Mark Twain and Sarah Bernhardt.
Yet Tesla was an intensely driven and lonely man, beset by inner demons, and cursed with a protean inventive imagination a century ahead of his time. He died in obscurity and poverty and, to this day, his name is not widely known. How did that happen?
Blending historical fact with speculative imagination, Lisa Mason explores the secrets of the Inventor’s inner life and his obsession with Goethe’s Faust set against the backdrop of sweeping technological changes at the turn of the twentieth century that have forever changed the world.
TESLA, on Nook and Kindle. Here’s the Tesla cover.
For a short erotic novel, you should try Eon’s Kiss by Suzanna Moore on Nook and Kindle. This has a paranormal hero who is not a vampire or a werewolf. If you’re looking for something sweet and erotic to read, check it out! Here’s the Kiss cover.
On the eve of what Jenna Coltrane believes will be Brett Becker’s marriage proposal, tragedy strikes her life—not just once, but twice. In the midst of trouble, she encounters Eon, a regal young man unlike anyone she’s ever met before.
With him, she enters the magical world of the Arbor, discovering love, passion, and beauty beyond her wildest dreams.
Jenna is swept up in a struggle for survival between human greed and the Arbor, a struggle in which her love for Eon and her very life are at stake
Coming soon! Celestial Girl, A Lily Modjeska Mystery, Books I through IV. Also forthcoming is The Quester Trilogy, an ebook adaptation improving upon my early cyberpunk classics, Arachne and Cyberweb, and much more.
For all my science fiction and fantasy books, stories, screenplays, and forthcoming news about print books and ebooks, visit me at Lisa Mason’s Official Web Site. I thank you for your readership!
If you enjoy a work, please “Like” it, add some stars, write a review on Amazon or Barnes & Noble, and spread the word to your reader friends. Your response really matters!
His Other Warning Echoes
I stash my Whole Foods goodies in fridge and pantry, hull and pop an organic strawberry in my mouth, then sprint to my home office. I’ve witnessed summonings of the Yonder by two very different magicians. Do I want to summon the Yonder myself?
So badly my fingers itch.
Kovac’s warning echoes in my memory. When you first learn about the Yonder, you’ll be tempted to poke around on your own. But the Yonder isn’t as simple as It appears. Wait till you’ve been properly trained at Magical Arts and Crafts.
Oh, yeah? Neither Kovac nor Bonwitch are here to tell me what I can and cannot do, now are they? I fire up the iMac. Who should I summon?
Abby Teller, of course. Who doesn’t want to peek at your own records in the Yonder?
I tap my left forefinger on the screen the way I saw Kovac tap with his right. I visualize a library in my mind’s eye. A library as vast as the Universe. At the soaring front doors, I picture statuesque marble caryatids bearing a great mansard roof atop their noble heads. I love libraries, and the vision forms effortlessly.
That strange thick slice of lambent light, swirling with blues and purples, lifts up off the screen and floats above the desktop before me.
Victory! Success!
Now I’m racing full speed ahead. “Summon Abby Teller,” I say and a world, my world, pops up in the slice of light. I want to see night rain pelting the woods. I want to see the man, woman, and child running, running, running. I want to see the flash of lightning, hear thunder rumble.
Go to the day Abby Teller died, hovers on my lips.
But fear pierces me, and the words die on my tongue. Kovac’s other warning echoes, too. This isn’t the time or place for you to see that record.
–From THE GARDEN OF ABRACADABRA
Copyright 2012 by Lisa Mason. All rights reserved.
Buy the book for your Nook, Kindle, phone, or laptop!
Read the whole book!
THE GARDEN OF ABRACADABRA, the Omnibus Edition of all three books of my urban fantasy is on Nook and on Kindle. The publisher’s print edition is planned for late 2013.
At her mother’s urgent deathbed plea, Abby Teller enrolls at the Berkeley College of Magical Arts and Crafts to learn Real Magic. To support herself through school, she signs on as the superintendent of the Garden of Abracadabra, a mysterious, magical apartment building on campus. She discovers that her tenants are witches, shapeshifters, vampires, and wizards and each apartment is a fairyland or hell. On her first day in Berkeley, she stumbles upon a supernatural multiple murder scene. One of the victims is a man she picked up hitchhiking the day before. Compelled into a dangerous murder investigation, Abby will discover the first secrets of an ancient and ongoing war between good and evil, uncover mysteries of her own troubled past, and learn that the lessons of Real Magic may spell the difference between her own life or death.
“So refreshing. . . .This is Stephanie Plum in the world of Harry Potter.”
Whether you’re a fantasy fan or someone who simply enjoys an entertaining read, please give this book a try! On Nook and on Kindle.
New! Also available as The Garden of Abracadabra Trilogy.
In Book I, Life’s Journey, Abby arrives in Berkeley, filled with hope and promise, hoping to land a new job and start magic college, when she stumbles upon a supernatural multiple murder scene. On Nook and Kindle.
In Book 2, In Dark Woods, Abby is drawn into a dangerous murder investigation and torn between three men, Daniel Stern, her ex-fiance, Jack Kovac, an enigmatic FBI agent, and Prince Lastor, a potent supernatural man who lives in the penthouse. On Nook and Kindle.
In Book 3: The Right Road,Abby uncovers ancient supernatural secrets behind the murders and faces dangers and challenges ahead. On Nook and Kindle.
Fun and Enjoyable Urban Fantasy January 12, 2012
By D. Pflaster
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a very entertaining novel- sort of a down-to-earth Harry Potter with a modern adult woman in the lead. Even as Abby has to deal with mundane concerns like college and running the apartment complex she works at, she is surrounded by supernatural elements and mysteries that she is more than capable of taking on. Although this book is just the first in a series, it ties up the first “episode” while still leaving some story threads for upcoming books. I’m looking forward to finding out more.
The Bantam classic is back! SUMMER OF LOVE, A TIME TRAVEL was a Philip K. Dick Award finalist and San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book. On Nook and on Kindle.
Nineteen five-star Amazon reviews
“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.”
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 feisty half-black, half-white hip merchant, 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?
SUMMER OF LOVE, A TIME TRAVEL is on Nook and on Kindle. Here’s the gorgeous Summer cover.
The Bantam sequel to Summer, THE GILDED AGE, A TIME TRAVEL, aNew York Times Notable Book and New York Public Library Recommended book, is on Nook and on Kindle.
“Dazzling. . . .rollicking.” Locus Magazine
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.
THE GILDED AGE, A TIME TRAVEL is on Nook and on Kindle. Here’s the lovely Gilded cover. It looks like an 1890s handbill!
The Story That Sold To The Movies. TOMORROW’S CHILD began as a medical documentary, then got published in Omni Magazine, and finally sold to Universal Pictures, where the project is in development. On Nook and on Kindle.
A high-powered executive is about to lose his estranged teenage daughter to critical burn wounds and only desperate measures may save her life.
The ebook includes my month-long blog, The Story Behind The Story That Sold To The Movies, describing the twists and turns this story took over the years. TOMORROW’S CHILD, on Nook and on Kindle. Here’s the fantastic Child cover.
New! HUMMERS was published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, chosen for Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror 5th Annual Collection (St. Martin’s Press), and nominated for the Nebula Award.
Laurel, in the terminal stages of cancer, is obsessed with the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Jerry, her homecare nurse whose lover is dying of AIDS, gives her a surprising gift. A hummingbird feeder. As Laurel comes to grips with her own death, she learns powerful and redeeming lessons about Egyptian Magic from the hummingbirds that visit her. On Nook and on Kindlefor 99 cents. Here’s the Hummers cover.
New! My thriller, SHAKEN, is an ebook adaptation of Deus Ex Machina published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, republished in Transcendental Tales from Asimov’s (Donning Press), and translated and republished in Europe and South America.
Emma “J” for Joy Pearce is at her editorial offices on the twenty-second floor of Three Embarcadero in downtown San Francisco when the long-dreaded next Great Earthquake devastates the Bay area. Amid horrific destruction, she rescues a man trapped in the rubble. In the heat of survival, she swiftly bonds with him, causing her to question her possible marriage to her long-time boyfriend.
But Jason Gibb is not the charming photojournalist he pretends to be. As Emma discovers his true identity, his mission in the city, and the dark secrets behind the catastrophe, she finds the choices she makes may mean the difference between her own life or death. A list of Sources follows this short novel.
SHAKEN is on Nook and on Kindle. Here’s the Shaken cover.
THE SIXTY-THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF HYSTERIA, published in the acclaimed anthology, Full Spectrum 5 (Bantam), which also included stories by Neal Stephenson, Karen Joy Fowler, and Jonathan Lethem, is on Nook and Kindle.
The year is 1941, and Hitler’s armies have swept across Europe. Nora, a budding young Surrealist artist, has fled to Mexico with B.B., a much older and acclaimed Surrealist playwright down on his luck. Hundreds of European artists and writers have formed a colony in Mexico City, and Nora befriends Valencia, a fellow Surrealist artist and refugee. Together the friends explore Jungian psychology and the power of symbols in their Art. But Nora is plagued by an abusive relationship with B.B. She embarks on a harrowing journey deep into her own troubled psyche.
The novelette was inspired by my favorite Surrealist artists, Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo. I include in the ebook an Afterword describing Carrington and Varo’s actual lives and a List of Sources. THE SIXTY-THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF HYSTERIA, onNook and Kindle. Here’s the Hysteria cover.
EVERY MYSTERY UNEXPLAINED, published in David Copperfield’s Tales of the Impossible (HarperPrism), an anthology that also included stories by Ray Bradbury, Joyce Carol Oates, and Kevin J. Anderson, is on Nook and on Kindle.
The year is 1895, and Danny Flint is a young man living in the shadow of his father, a famous stage magician whose fortunes are fading. Danny is grieving over his mother’s recent accidental death, for which he feels he is to blame. He learns to reconcile himself with his grief and guilt and to assume his place at center stage as a magician in his own right with the help of a mysterious beautiful lady. EVERY MYSTERY UNEXPLAINED, on Nook and on Kindle. Here’s the Mystery cover.
DAUGHTER OF THE TAO, published in Peter S. Beagle’s Immortal Unicorn (HarperPrism), which included stories by Charles de Lint, Karen Joy Fowler, Robert Sheckley, and Ellen Kushner, is on Nook and Kindle. Five-star Amazon reviews.
Sing Lin is a mooie jai, a girl sold into slavery at the age of five to a wealthy merchant in Tangrenbu, the ghetto of her people in the new country across the sea. One lucky day, while she is out shopping by herself, she meets another mooie jai, Kwai Yin, a bossy, beautiful girl two years older. Kwai has a secret. Before she was sold into slavery, she had a Teacher who taught her about Tao Magic.
But Sing watches Kwai succumb to the terrifying fate of all slave girls in Tangrenbu.
Soon Sing is destined to go to the same fate. But will her invocation of Tao Magic save her? DAUGHTER OF THE TAO is on Nook and Kindle. Here’s the Tao cover.
For something fast and fun, U F uh-O, A SCI FI COMEDY, my script for a producer looking for the next Galaxy Quest or Men in Black that evolved into a novella, is on Nookand Kindle. Here’s theUFO cover.
Nikki and Josh really want a child but have infertility issues. Gretchen and Mike have the same problem. When Nikki meets Gretchen at the Happy Daze Family Clinic in Pasadena, they discover that they share a love of music and have asked for a donor with musical talent. Nine months later, they give birth to very unusual babies and, seeking an answer to why the kids are so special, they meet again at a pediatrician’s office. And the search is on: who—and what—is Donor Number 333?
For something very different: TESLA, A WORTHY OF HIS TIME, A SCREENPLAY, which was read by the producer of “Aliens” and “The Abyss” and is currently under consideration at another L.A. producer, is on Nook and on Kindle. I’ve included a List of Sources with this title. Since I’m a novelist, the screenplay has a bit more description than you’ll find in other scripts. Tesla’s story is fascinating, sort of a secret history of corporate America. Give it a try!
Genius. Visionary. Madman.
Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) was the pioneering genius who invented the AC electrical system that powers our world to this day, as well as radio, remote control, the automobile speedometer, X-ray photography, the AND logic gate that drives all our computer systems, and countless other devices and precursors to devices such as cell phones, television, and the Internet that we so effortlessly use today.
Strikingly handsome and charismatic, fluent in half a dozen languages, mathematics savant and master machinist, a reed-thin perfectionist who quoted poetry like a Victorian rapper, Tesla became one of the most famous men of his day. Friend of tycoons like John Jacob Astor and Stanford White and celebrities like Mark Twain and Sarah Bernhardt.
Yet Tesla was an intensely driven and lonely man, beset by inner demons, and cursed with a protean inventive imagination a century ahead of his time. He died in obscurity and poverty and, to this day, his name is not widely known. How did that happen?
Blending historical fact with speculative imagination, Lisa Mason explores the secrets of the Inventor’s inner life and his obsession with Goethe’s Faust set against the backdrop of sweeping technological changes at the turn of the twentieth century that have forever changed the world.
TESLA, on Nook and Kindle. Here’s the Tesla cover.
For a short erotic novel, you should try Eon’s Kiss by Suzanna Moore on Nook and Kindle. This has a paranormal hero who is not a vampire or a werewolf. If you’re looking for something sweet and erotic to read, check it out! Here’s the Kiss cover.
On the eve of what Jenna Coltrane believes will be Brett Becker’s marriage proposal, tragedy strikes her life—not just once, but twice. In the midst of trouble, she encounters Eon, a regal young man unlike anyone she’s ever met before.
With him, she enters the magical world of the Arbor, discovering love, passion, and beauty beyond her wildest dreams.
Jenna is swept up in a struggle for survival between human greed and the Arbor, a struggle in which her love for Eon and her very life are at stake
Coming soon! Celestial Girl, A Lily Modjeska Mystery, Books I through IV. Also forthcoming is The Quester Trilogy, an ebook adaptation improving upon my early cyberpunk classics, Arachne and Cyberweb, and much more.
For all my science fiction and fantasy books, stories, screenplays, and forthcoming news about print books and ebooks, visit me at Lisa Mason’s Official Web Site. I thank you for your readership!
If you enjoy a work, please “Like” it, add some stars, write a review on Amazon or Barnes & Noble, and spread the word to your reader friends. Your response really matters!
October 27, 2012
The Garden of Abracadabra!
At her mother’s urgent deathbed plea, Abby Teller enrolls at the Berkeley College of Magical Arts and Crafts to learn Real Magic. To support herself through school, she signs on as the superintendent of the Garden of Abracadabra, a mysterious, magical apartment building on campus. She discovers that her tenants are witches, shapeshifters, vampires, and wizards and each apartment is a fairyland or hell. On her first day in Berkeley, she stumbles upon a supernatural multiple murder scene. One of the victims is a man she picked up hitchhiking the day before.
Compelled into a dangerous murder investigation, Abby will discover the first secrets of an ancient and ongoing war between humanity and demonic realms, uncover mysteries of her own troubled past, and learn that the lessons of Real Magic may spell the difference between her own life or death.
“So refreshing. . . .This is Stephanie Plum in the world of Harry Potter”
The Omnibus Edition is on Nook and Kindle with a print edition planned for late 2013.
New! Also available as The Garden of Abracadabra Trilogy.
In Book I, Life’s Journey, Abby arrives in Berkeley, filled with hope and promise, hoping to land a new job and start magic college, when she stumbles upon a supernatural multiple murder scene. On Nook and Kindle.
In Book 2, In Dark Woods, Abby is drawn into a dangerous murder investigation and torn between three men, Daniel Stern, her ex-fiance, Jack Kovac, an enigmatic FBI agent, and Prince Lastor, a potent supernatural man who lives in the penthouse. On Nook and Kindle.
In Book 3: The Right Road,Abby uncovers ancient supernatural secrets behind the murders and faces dangers and challenges ahead. On Nook and Kindle.
From the author of Summer of Love, A Time Travel (a Philip K. Dick Award finalist and San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book) and The Gilded Age, A Time Travel (a New York Times Notable Book and New York Public Library Recommended Book).
Visit me at http://www.lisamason.com for books, ebooks, stories, and screenplays, forthcoming projects and more.
The Sixty-third Anniversary of Hysteria
The Sixty-third Anniversary of Hysteria is on Nook and Kindle!
The year is 1941, and Hitler’s armies have swept across Europe. Nora, a budding young Surrealist artist, has fled to Mexico with B.B., a much older and acclaimed Surrealist playwright down on his luck. Hundreds of European artists and writers have formed a colony in Mexico City, and Nora befriends Valencia, a fellow Surrealist artist and refugee. Together the friends explore Jungian psychology and the power of symbols in their Art.
But Nora is plagued by an abusive relationship with B.B. She embarks on a harrowing journey deep into her own troubled psyche.
Inspired by the lives and friendship of the brilliant visionary Surrealist artists Remedios Varo and Leonora Carrington.
A List of Sources follows the novella.
The Sixty-third Anniversary of Hysteria was published in Full Spectrum 5 (Bantam). Full Spectrum 5 also included stories by Michael Bishop, Karen Joy Fowler, Jonathan Lethem, and Neal Stephenson.
From the author of The Garden of Abracadabra, Summer of Love, A Time Travel (a Philip K. Dick Award finalist and San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book) and The Gilded Age, A Time Travel (a New York Times Notable Book and New York Public Library Recommended Book).
On Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007G72XF0
On Nook: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/books/e/2940013932647
Visit me at http://www.lisamason.com for books, ebooks, stories, and screenplays, forthcoming projects and more.
