Lisa Mason's Blog, page 147
October 27, 2012
The Mystery Of Jack
A lanky, goateed guy in a T and jeans kneels at the flame-licked door of the Rolls Royce. He jams a device that looks very much like a high-tech can of spray paint into what I now recognize as a blue plastic evidence kit. He shoves the kit in a scruffy canvas shoulder bag, the kind of bag students like to beat around, and grins sheepishly.
An FBI operative searching for fingerprints? He’s got to be.
The Odd Person stands scowling over him, hands cocked on his whale-sized hips. He/she is striking today in a flowing orange dashiki and matching orange turban, orange Birkenstocks, and a collection of copper rings and bracelets. In the revealing light of day, I still can’t quite reconcile his/her eyeliner and pouty orange lipstick with the hint of stubble beneath the pancake makeup on his/her chin.
In the revealing light of day, the Odd Person is out and about. Which means the Odd Person isn’t a vampire, but a human servant of Scorpio Rising. Which also means the Odd Person is my go-to person when it comes to overdue rent, breaches of leases, city code violations, and selling alcohol to minors. Not to mention if the police come to arrest the vampires for murder.
It’s good to cozy up to go-to people. I smile my best award-winning smile. “What’s the trouble?”
“This person is trying to steal the Master’s car,” the Odd Person sniffs. “Where are the police when I need them?”
“I’m not, I swear,” the guy says, scrambling to his feet. “I’m an art student at Cal. I just wanted a closer look at your paint job. Honest.” He coaxes awe into his eyes. “It’s bitchin’.”
“Darling, you cannot see the parking lot from the street. How could you have seen our paint job?”
The guy hems and haws, and I jump in.
“Everyone’s seen the Rolls around town.” It doesn’t quite follow that the guy would know where the Rolls is parked, but I let Hollywood logic work its magic.
The Odd Person harrumphs, unlocks the door, and wedges his/her hulk behind the steering wheel. I politely close the door. The Odd Person backs the Rolls out of its slot and navigates out of the parking lot, snout held high in righteous indignation.
The guy and I trade looks, then a laugh.
“Wow, is that a DESI?” I say.
“Sure is. The latest and greatest in fingerprint tech.” He pulls the evidence kit from the shoulder bag, the DESI from the kit. “See, we spray an area with an electrically charged mix of methanol and water. The charged droplets contact the surface of the print and form a liquid film. The film is sucked into a spectrometer”–he points to one side of the device–”which chemically IDs the molecules collected. It all happens in less than a second. Like magic.” He snaps his fingers. “Very cool.”
“Very, very cool. You need to invent a magic detector that works on the same principle. Some electrically changed mixture gloms onto bits of residual magic, which can be collected and identified.”
“Kovac said you mentioned that idea to him yesterday afternoon. He was impressed.”
“Then you know I’m Abby Teller?”
“I figured. Kovac described you to a T. I’m Ben Lofland.”
Now I’m intrigued. “How did he describe me, Ben?”
“Nope. I’ll let him do the honors.”
“Oh, go on. I’m having a rough day. Give me a hint.”
“‘The doll in the white dress.’”
I glow with more satisfaction than is strictly necessary. I can still feel Kovac’s lips pressing on my forehead. I want those lips lower. “Kovac sent you? You mean he actually listened to me?”
“Of course. Even if Scorpio Rising didn’t do Tilden Park, he’s hoping to score a cold hit on other unsolved vampire murders. We’ve got more vampire unsolveds than you care to know.” Lofland tucks the DESI in the evidence kit. “Honestly, Abby, I doubt if I lifted anything off the door handles. The Incredible Hulkster must polish them daily.”
“One of his duties as butler to the undead.”
I like and trust Ben Lofland at once and sense from his voice his respect and affection for Kovac. I’m sorely tempted to ask him what happened to Kovac. What injured the man so grievously. Why he grimaces in pain one day, but not the next.
Before I can cobble up a not-too-nosy way to ask, Lofland hands me his business card, urges me to call anytime, and strides down the driveway.
Leaving me pondering the mystery of Jack Kovac.
–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. 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. 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. 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 is 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 26, 2012
The Story That Sold To The Movies
The Story That Sold To The Movies, Tomorrow’s Child, is on Nook and 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.
Tomorrow’s Child started out as a medical documentary for the 3M Company, transformed into a lead story published in Omni magazine, then sold to Universal Studios where the story is presently in development.
The ebook includes the blog, “The Story Behind The Story That Sold To The Movies,” describing the twists and turns the story took from concept to movie sale.
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/B0073EJ8YU
On Nook: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/books/e/2940014075091
Visit me at http://www.lisamason.com for books, ebooks, stories, and screenplays, forthcoming projects and more.
My Abracadabra Check Is On Its Way
30
I rock ‘n’ roll back to Berkeley the supersonic way: on a city street. Forget the gridlocked, fume-polluted freeway. Telegraph Avenue is a straight shot of normal stop-and-go from uptown Oakland to downtown Berkeley. Not only is my chosen route more scenic, less obnoxious, and a hell of a lot quicker, but I can stop at Whole Foods at the corner of Ashby and go on a serious shopping spree.
My Abracadabra check is on its way. Yes!
Organic strawberries find their way into my cart before I swoon from the fragrance of the fruit. Spring mix and salad fixings. Vegenaise and cage-free eggs. Whole wheat linguine and nine-grain bread. Crunchy peanut butter and three kinds of jam. More spring water, milk and yogurt, an expensive Cakebread chardonnay, and I’m almost done.
I stop at the meat counter. “Half a pound of ground beef,” I tell the ruddy-faced butcher. “It’s for my piranhas. They won’t eat anything else.”
“Know what you mean,” the butcher says, scooping out the meat. “My Beth and Billy are just like that.”
One last stop at Prepared Foods where I splurge on a sinful pound of citrus salmon. Now I’m done.
I swing out onto the Av, drive four blocks to Derby, and negotiate the sharp right that takes me onto Mirage Way. I stable Heigh-Ho Silver in Garage Number One, unload my grocery bags, and padlock the doors.
I’m toting the bags to my patio door when I hear the shouting.
“Just what do you think you’re doing to the Master’s car?”
“Admiring your awesome paint job.”
“I don’t think so. I think you’re trying to pick the lock. Car thief, car thief! Begone, before I call Nine One One.”
I thump the bags down on the café table and sprint to the parking lot.
–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 master 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! If you would rather read THE GARDEN OF ABRACADABRA in installments at your leisure, Bast Books is now offering each book separately at an affordable price.
Book 1, Life’s Journey
On Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009QLEK0K
On Nook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-garden-of-abracadabra-book-1-lisa-mason/2940015502312
Book 2, In Dark Woods
On Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009QLEMKS
On Nook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-garden-of-abracadabra-book-2-lisa-mason/2940015502466
Book 3, The Right Road
On Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009QLEIRU
On Nook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-garden-of-abracadabra-book-3-lisa-mason/2940015502763
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. 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. 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. 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 is 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 25, 2012
Daughter of the Tao
Daughter of the Tao is on Nook and Kindle
Published in Peter S. Beagle’s Immortal Unicorn anthology (HarperPrism), which also included stories by Charles de Lint, Karen Joy Fowler, Robert Sheckley, and Ellen Kushner.
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?
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/B007TTNQPQ
On Nook: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/books/e/2940014473804
Visit me at http://www.lisamason.com for books, ebooks, stories, and screenplays, forthcoming projects and more.
If you enjoy this 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!
Daughter of the Tao
5.0 out of 5 stars
a beautiful novella! April 23, 2012
By Mark Abrams
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
The characters in this little book jumped off the page and you really cared what happened to them. It is a rare talent that can do that so well! This was a compelling tale of a girl sold into slavery as her culture allowed. I found myself hooked from the very first page as I followed her through the twists and turns of her life. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a character-based story with a touch of magic and fantasy to it!
His Magic Flows All Around Me
Kovac parks in his slot on Level Four. We climb down the concrete stairwell to Level One and my Mustang. While he watches, I take out the key to the trunk. With midcentury cars, you need two keys, one for the doors and ignition, another for the trunk. I lock my handbag with its devilish secret in legal concealment, still far from happy.
I’m aware Kovac is lingering, taking his time, not sprinting off to what surely must be vital business at Supernatural Crimes.
“So, bye-bye, Jack. It was swell stumbling on a grisly murder scene with you.”
“Abby, wait.” He neither smiles nor frowns, but holds himself in reserve. A disturbing reserve.
“What’s on your mind?”
“I’m worried about the power Brand thrust in you when you were unaware. That’s what compelled you, you know.”
“To go hiking in Tilden Park? To follow the crows?”
“Yeah. You must have felt it.”
My unease that morning. The certainty someone or something was following me. The unnerving flicker behind my left shoulder, the poke of pain.
Now that Kovac mentions it, the dead sorcerer’s magic jitters through me like the first symptoms of a fever. The ache behind your eyes, the soreness in your throat, the pains in your joints before the full blast of contagion slams you on your ass.
Kovac strides around my Mustang, grips my shoulders. “Abby, you just turned pale.”
“I don’t feel too well.” I’m dizzy, falling. I seize his waist, steadying myself.
“I know how to take his power out of you, but I’ll need to touch your face. Is that going to be all right?”
I nod and wait for his touch.
He cups my face in both his hands, and I instinctively tip my chin up and grasp his wrists, holding on. He presses his open lips against my forehead, between and just above my eyebrows. Gently at first, then firm, firmer, he takes a breath, inhaling, sucking on my skin.
I groan. I can feel the grimy little ball of alien power lodged at the base of my spine. As Kovac inhales, the power dislodges, rolls all the way up my spine, climbs through the nape of my neck, and careens across the dome of my skull. The power skitters across my forehead like an insect crawling behind my eyes.
Kovac sucks harder. The power struggles through my skin, skittering out of me, and pops into his mouth.
He whips his mouth away, presses my face away, and spits.
A grimy little power bounces on the garage floor like a Ping-Pong ball from hell. It bounces, bounces, bounces, then lies still.
Then the thing starts to move, rolling aimlessly around.
Now the power pauses and speeds purposefully toward me. The power jumps up on the toe of my pump, rolls across my instep, rolls up my ankle. The power pries at my pantyhose, digging and twisting, tearing at the nylon.
I know what it wants. It wants to pierce my skin and thrust inside me again.
“No!” I scream.
Kovac stoops and punches the alien power off my ankle with his right fist. His hand of power. He stamps on the thing with his right foot, grinding the toe of his leather shoe against the concrete, pulverizing the thing.
I hate the little scream it utters, but the noise isn’t human. Isn’t animal.
Kovac scrapes his shoe away, and a greasy iridescent stain flickers on the concrete, fading to nothing.
We stand, stunned, looking at the fading stain, then at each other. Before I know what I’m doing, I’m wrapping my arms around his neck, he folds his arms around my waist, and we embrace, quick and hard, with the joy of having just survived something very bad.
He feels so right in my arms. A perfect fit. As if he was always meant to be there. My power reaches out to his, and his magic flows all around me, electric, electrifying. But respectful, refusing to thrust into me, unbidden.
No, he’s not Brand.
I love the feeling of his arms around me, powerful and protective.
He whispers, “I’m on duty, Abby. I’ve got an official responsibility toward you. I shouldn’t be doing this.”
“I shouldn’t do lots of things, but sometimes I do, anyway.”
“It’s against the rules. I believe in the rules. I have to.”
“There are other rules besides the official ones. Those are the rules I believe in.”
I ease away from him, smiling up at his stricken face.
“Thanks for the magic, Jack.”
“Any time, my lady magician.”
–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 master 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! If you would rather read THE GARDEN OF ABRACADABRA in installments at your leisure, Bast Books is now offering each book separately at an affordable price.
Book 1, Life’s Journey
On Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009QLEK0K
On Nook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-garden-of-abracadabra-book-1-lisa-mason/2940015502312
Book 2, In Dark Woods
On Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009QLEMKS
On Nook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-garden-of-abracadabra-book-2-lisa-mason/2940015502466
Book 3, The Right Road
On Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009QLEIRU
On Nook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-garden-of-abracadabra-book-3-lisa-mason/2940015502763
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.
Fifteen 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. 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. 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. 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 is 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 24, 2012
Every Mystery Unexplained
Every Mystery Unexplained is on Nook and 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 will learn to reconcile himself with his grief and guilt and to assume his own place at center stage as a magician in his own right with the help of a mysterious beautiful lady.
Every Mystery Unexplained was published in David Copperfield’s Tales of the Impossible (HarperPrism), an anthology including stories by Ray Bradbury, Joyce Carol Oates, Kevin J. Anderson, and F. Paul Wilson.
On Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007OR6EUW
On Nook: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/books/e/2940014131278
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).
Visit me at http://www.lisamason.com for books, ebooks, stories, and screenplays, forthcoming projects and more.
Book 3, The Right Road
New! Bast Books is now offering THE GARDEN OF ABRACADABRA as a trilogy so you can read in installments at an affordable price.
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. On her first day in Berkeley, she stumbles upon a supernatural multiple murder scene. Compelled into a dangerous murder investigation, Abby will discover the first secrets of an ancient and ongoing battle 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.
In Book 3: The Right Road,Abby uncovers ancient supernatural secrets behind the murders and faces dangers and challenges ahead.
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).
“So refreshing. . . .Stephanie Plum in the world of Harry Potter.”
On Kindle http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009QLEIRU
On Nook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-garden-of-abracadabra-book-3-lisa-mason/2940015502763
I Feel At Peace
“Small talk about magic,” Kovac says. Wistfully, I think. “Listen, Abby. Brand’s buddy, Mike the Pike Peters, is a hard-core badass who may or may not know about you and your ride with Brand. And he’s out there somewhere. So is whoever did Brand and the girls. Till the Berkeley P.D. lassos Mike the Pike and we solve Tilden Park, you can’t afford to roam the range unarmed.”
“I’ll be fine,” I say with more bravado than I feel. “I’m learning Real Magic.”
“Uh-huh. Real Magic is excellent, but you also need the hardware to back it up. Have you got a dollar?” He stretches out his hand.
“Have I got a what?”
“A dollar. I just need a dollar.”
I root around in the bottom of my handbag and pull out a crumpled bill. “What, are you panhandling me?
“Could be. Give it to me.”
I slap the bill in the palm of his hand.
We grind to another standstill, and he reaches across my knees, punches open the glove box, and pulls out the devilish thing. He’s even got the nerve to drop it in my lap.
“What is that?”
“That, my lady magician, is a Beretta. Nice gun. I hate to part with it, but I’ve got others.”
“No, no, no, I don’t want a Beretta.”
“Too bad. You just bought yourself a prime gun in a private transaction and you don’t even have to fill out the forms. If you stick up a Seven-Eleven, I’m prepared to take full responsibility. If you cap Mike the Pike, you’ll walk on self-defense. Same for the Horde. And Scorpio Rising.”
That gets my attention. “You can kill a vampire with an ordinary gun? I thought you needed a silver bullet.”
“If you’re a good shot and a quick shot and you blow his freaking brains into dog chow, of course you can. However.”
“Another however?”
“Some vampires can catch ordinary bullets in midair. And an ordinary bullet striking any other part of an undead body besides the head won’t do much damage.”
Still I recoil from the devilish thing, a dead weight lying in my lap. “No, no, no. Thanks, Jack, but no thanks. The Horde’s not on to me, not yet anyway. Same for Mike the Pike. And I can handle Scorpio Rising.”
“Don’t be too sure about any of those assumptions. I’m officially advising you against wishful thinking. Put the gun in your handbag. Do it, Abby. I won’t take no for an answer.”
I shove the devilish thing in my handbag, far from happy.
“When we get to your Pony car, put your handbag in the trunk and lock it.”
“Great idea. Then I can’t cap Mike the Pike.”
“Not while you’re driving. You also won’t get arrested for carrying concealed if you should get pulled over for speeding or running a red light.”
“As if I would ever.”
“It’s a legal technicality you should be aware of, now that you’re the proud new owner of a Beretta.”
“Jack, I don’t know the first thing about shooting a gun.”
“That’s why you’re meeting me tomorrow at the Marin shooting range for a lesson.”
“Are you asking me out on a date?”
“Call it a tryst, schoolgirl. What’s your schedule?”
“My schedule.” Never in my life have I lived one day at a time so mindfully the way I’m living each day since I arrived in Berkeley. “As the super, I’m always on call. And I’ve got a class at three with Professor Bonwitch. We’re working our way through the First Fundamental of Real Magic.” I roll my eyes. “Know Thyself.”
“And do you know yourself?”
“Ever since I got to Berkeley, I’m not so sure.”
“Outstanding.”
“What’s outstanding about that?”
“Self knowledge is a lifelong quest. Pythagoras would be proud of you.”
I raise my eyebrows. Jack Kovac knows about Pythagoras? I too know about Pythagoras. Researching my essay on “Know Thyself,” I discovered the Greek philosopher and wizard who coined the adage “Know Thyself” and plumbed the Real Magic of numbers. Numbers that rule our society to this day, two thousand five hundred years after Pythagoras lived and died. Numbers that people lie about and manipulate and cover up but always, in the end, tell their own truth.
“Gosh, you’re pretty profound for an FBI agent.”
“Thanks, I try. Is ten-thirty good for you?”
“Ten-thirty or so, depending on the gridlock.”
“I’ll wait. Take I-80 over the San Rafael Bridge. The range is to your right just after you exit the bridge.”
“I’ll find it.” I study Kovac while he studies the road–braking, accelerating, darting from lane to lane, gaining momentum in spite of the gridlock. Driving expertly. Driving superbly.
And you know what? I feel at peace riding in the passenger seat when Jack Kovac is at the wheel.
–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 master 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! If you would rather read THE GARDEN OF ABRACADABRA in installments at your leisure, Bast Books is now offering each book separately at an affordable price.
Book 1, Life’s Journey
On Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009QLEK0K
On Nook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-garden-of-abracadabra-book-1-lisa-mason/2940015502312
Book 2, In Dark Woods
On Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009QLEMKS
On Nook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-garden-of-abracadabra-book-2-lisa-mason/2940015502466
Book 3, The Right Road
On Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009QLEIRU
On Nook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-garden-of-abracadabra-book-3-lisa-mason/2940015502763
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.
Fifteen 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. 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. 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. 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 is 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! Celestrial 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 23, 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.
Book 2, In Dark Woods
New! Bast Books is now offering THE GARDEN OF ABRACADABRA as a trilogy so you can read in installments at an affordable price.
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. On her first day in Berkeley, she stumbles upon a supernatural multiple murder scene. Compelled into a dangerous murder investigation, Abby will discover the first secrets of an ancient and ongoing battle 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.
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, the enigmatic FBI agent, and Prince Lastor, the mysterious supernatural man living in the penthouse at the Garden of Abracadabra.
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).
“So refreshing. . . .Stephanie Plum in the world of Harry Potter.”
On Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009QLEMKS
On Nook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-garden-of-abracadabra-book-2-lisa-mason/2940015502466
