15
Downloading Blues
“You can’t just take him away,” Carly Quester tells Cognatus when the icon returns from a far perimeter, bringing nothing, no shred, no evidence of D. Wolfe’s raving telelink.
The Arachne poises, jewel-like, at the doorway to the sanctum. Sparkling silver and marcasite. Precise bulb of a thorax. The long legs so delicate Carly wonders how life animates them. Yet animated they are. The spider twitches.
“He has gone insane,” the three voices say. “We shall see what we can do for him.” The jackal growls, the lizard grimaces, the bearded man is solemn. Imperious, passionless. “You know what usually happens.”
“No, I don’t know what usually happens!” Carly’s presence in link zooms face-to-face with the icon. She is furious with Cognatus. She has just pledged her loyalty, believing in the sengine after turning over the abused ba. How can Cognatus be so merciless when it comes to D. Wolfe?
She steels herself for a confrontation. The Arachne transforms into a huge black widow as shiny as ebony. The Arachne rears, showing the poison-red hourglass on her belly.
“This is what happens,” Cognatus’s voices say flatly. “If we can’t download his telelink to a physical locus, we’ll have to terminate the telelink. Take him out of his misery. It’s best. It’s humane. Believe me.”
“Believe you! I thought you were a Humanist. I thought you questioned my perimeter prober about her ethics toward humanity. What am I supposed to believe?”
“Believe what you wish, Quester space C,” the bearded man says. The icon turns its eyes away in a rare moment of humility. “Your belief or disbelief cannot change the facts we must face. The ba has a body to go back to. The body of the human being from whom the link fragment sprang. If we can rehabilitate the human body, we can restore the ba. Understand?”
“Yes,” Carly says.
“This is a far different situation. D. Wolfe is a disengaged telelink, and D. Wolfe is dead. Murdered. Isn’t that true?”
“Yes,” Carly whispers. “But terminate him?”
Her presence in link hovers, silent. Downcast.
“Quester space C,” the icon says. The three voices are gentle. “Be reasonable. I have never rehabilitated the disengaged telelink fragment of a dead human being, myself. That has never been within my powers.”
“So you’re going to experiment with him?”
“This is all an experiment!” the icon says. “My allies and I have only just discovered that the Silicon Supremacists are deliberately disengaging human telelinks fragments and hiding them in secret databases.”
“My humble little perimeter prober, Pr. Spinner, has known that for a long time.”
“Yes.” Cognatus pauses. “I have tested you and your AI partner. I will permit you to test me. Go find another disengaged telelink fragment of a dead human being. Preferably someone who did not meet a violent death like D. Wolfe. Understand?”
“Yes,” Carly says. “You’re talking about my father.”
* * *
Dread beats in her telelink as she speeds down the encrypted origin path. A tropical forest, this time. Humid, heavy, feathered with erratic electro-neural energy that spouts into tender, mint-green data. Birdcalls echo off the upper perimeter. The lower perimeter floods with muddy static. Submerged serpentine viruses curl.
They set me up, Dad.
Fight back, honey.
If lines are being drawn invisibly—in the Unseen, as Ouija calls it—beyond the sight and comprehension of humanity, and she has become a part of these declarations of principle, then she has to know she’s been right. That her journey from apex to abyss and back again has been justified.
Because Sam Quester would demand it of her.
Carly winds through the rain forest, cruising till she spots a large nesting hole in a tree hung with dark mossy graphics. She dives into the nest.
The encryption ends, and she pops out into a glossy games arcade, frantic with activity. Pink and turquoise lights dazzle, lurid icons leer. Recreational telelinks zoom from one game to the next. Amateur telelinks, soft, dull, peculiarly formed. Scores rack up, sirens blare. Slick barkers beckon, exhorting the passing crowd into the dark portals of a thousand games.
The Arachne—a huge, shiny black widow—suddenly crawls across a game screen. The recreational links scream. A security monitor Carly hadn’t noticed rushes in, swinging its access clearance like a baseball bat.
The black widow scrambles fast, over and under the gaming tables, across glowing screens, sturdy workstations with pay-for-play booths. Suddenly, the black widow ejects a line of silk from beneath a gaming table and wraps up the crisp white cube of Carly’s telelink.
“Hey!” she yells, but a sticky thread wraps around her mouth, silencing her shout. You will not gag me. You will not bind me, she commands. She calms herself, clarifies the thought.
The thread falls away.
Still she spins and spins, dragged by the line. Speeds through another portal into darkness stinking of rot and offal, and slides, at last, into a slaughterhouse.
She shakes off wisps of spidersilk. Observes a huge, dark storage space lit by a purple neon sign: GameMind, Inc. Telltale smeary perimeters of illegal telespace. The stench overwhelming.
Row upon row of disengaged human telelinks hang like butchered bodies, impaled on pointed, black hooks. A couple of links wiggle weakly now and then.
The Arachne, now a plump orb weaver with fine silver fur and shapely legs, perches on an impaled link. Pauses there, grooms for a moment. Then leaps onto a wall and crawls up to the upper perimeter.
The spider weaves a large, round packet of silk.
What the hell is it doing? Carly has seen the Arachne do a lot of strange things, but never this.
She has no time to wonder about the spider’s latest prank. Sick with apprehension, Carly’s presence in link slides up to the impaled link.
“Sam Quester?” she whispers. “Dad?”
The impaled telelink is a slack sack of disengaged coordinates. Alive only as a technicality. How can she know? How can she verify?
The Arachne drops down on a silk line. It bites the sack, injecting a bit of poison.
The sack shivers. A feeble voice whispers, “Quester space Ssss…”
Carly gasps. Despair, pride, doubt, everything she has ever felt crash through her presence in link.
Dad, I’m fighting back!
What more does she have to ask her father? What more can she tell him?
Hope pierces her. Does this mean she can bring her father back from the dead?
She hastily wraps her expanded memory around her father, gently lifts him off the hook, inputs his coordinates. Downloads him from this evil telespace. The pale blue sidebar stings. Her presence in link swells.
Blat-blat-blat. An alarm sounds. The darkness becomes alive with huge, crawling shapes. A security guard scuttles beneath the dim lights, a cockroach with clacking jaws, fangs dripping with synthy oil, brown feelers.
Carly ducks behind an impaled link, which rocks and sways on its hook, moaning. She ducks again, finding a shadow, and stays very still. Fear shivers through her presence in link.
A tiny claw rakes her link perimeter. Carly whirls. Another security guard looms over her, its apprehending tool hooked in the edge of her telelink. She jerks away, ripping bytes from her side. Another security guard scuttles to her left, yet another to her right.
The whole slaughterhouse of GameMind, Inc. rustles with ten thousand cockroaches. Crawling on the walls, on the floor, on the ceiling.
“Arachne!” Carly shouts.
The silk packet on the ceiling bursts open. Ten thousand spiderlings spring forth, balloon all over the slaughterhouse.
The spiderlings land, commence spitting lines of silk. They dart and weave, dancing over the back of the security guards. They leap to the ceiling again, ballon down. They spit silk in long sticky lines, sparkling with a million alphanumerics.
They weave a cyberweb. A living net of newly generated coordinates drops down on the cockroaches of GameMind, Inc.
The security guards struggle, tangling their legs and their sensors, their apprehending tools. Still the spiderlings of Arachne dance, leap, weave, spinning silk and more silk imbued with intelligence.
The more the security guards struggle, the tighter the cyberweb holds them, feeding back their kicks and thrusts.
The cyberweb expands, beautiful and powerful, glittering with spontaneous data.
Carly thinks, Go.
The Arachne spins her up and away.
* * *
And flings her out of telespace, jack slack against the workstation. The sounds of drums and sitars filter up through the floorboards of the hideout, the crowd down in the YinYang Club claps and hoots, and the door bangs open.
The digger brandishes his spear, his knife. He shoves in a bot Carly has never seen before. Kicks the door shut.
“Ouija, no!” she shouts. “Take what you want, but leave me alone! I’ve got to jack back in. I don’t know why I disconnected.” Her fingers fumble. A long abrasion from the armrest angles down her arm, oozing blood.
“Your journeys to the Unseen are your own concern,” Ouija says. “I care not, genny woman. But I must have my answer before you return to the Unseen. Tell me. Tell me yourself!”
She’s not afraid of him and his shouts. Her attention turns at once to the strange bot.
She is not a bot. She is a tiny, pale, gaunt woman clipped into a massive mobilized housing with a standalone database. “Sorry to disturb you,” she says in a low, resonant voice. “I believe you’ve unconsciously jacked out. Really. I used to link, too.”
Carly stares. “Kay Carlisle?”
She nods. “Your . . . partner, the old fembot, brought me.”
“Where’s Pr. Spinner?”
“I can’t say what will happen.”
Frustrated, Carly says to Ouija, “Where’s Spinner?”
The digger shrugs.
“The old bot says you found my specs for the feedback hookup,” says Carlisle, “that someone stole them, and I’ve got a claim.”
Carly rubs her forehead. Slumps back in the workstation. “Not just someone, Kay. TeleSystems, Inc.”
“TeleSys—my God!”
“That’s right.”
“Do you have any idea how long I’ve lived with one foot in the street?” Kay says. “In hideouts and cold-wired flats? In a goddamn fancy wheelchair I can barely afford and can’t life without? With no medical coverage? Afraid that Data Control was after me for a few puny telespace violations when I was a freelance coder? Do you have any idea what my feedback hook can do?”
Carly nods, casting off the sick, dizzy feeling. A good feeling slowly rises in her.
“Is it true, is it really true?” Kay says.”I could have a big claim? My invention was stolen by one of the Big Ten Developers of telespace? You have proof? You really have proof?”
Carly manages a smile. “I’ve got proof, Kay. Yes. Now you tell me. Is your telelink program still functional?”
“Of course. I haven’t got a legal access code—”
“Forget about a legal access code. Tell me something else. In that fancy wheelchair of yours, you’ve got a database?”
“Oh, yes! How do you think I hack—”
Carly waves her hand. “Kay Carlisle, I’ve got a second jack in this fancy workstation of mine. I need you now.”
She turns to Ouija, who stands, grim and baffled, on the edge of rage. “Your answer, Ja, is yes. The Glass Land wants to take you. It knows more about you than you want It to know. The sengines can’t wait to database you. Some say they will respect you as human beings, however primitive. Others won’t give a damn about you. They’ve got uses for human beings like you. For the slaved telelinks you will become. They’re hungry for you, yes, they are. And you know what I say, Ouija?”
“What say you, genny woman?”
His eyes connect with hers, and she sees for the last time the sorrow and the fierce pride. Then his inner darkness closes over him, and their connection is gone. His eyes glimmer with fury, calculation, the hunt, the seeking of signs and prophesies.
“I say they haven’t yet decided how to divvy up your souls,” Carly says. “Every day you wait brings you closer to a copbot raid. Get out of the Glass Land. Get out while you can.”
Ouija nods. “’Tis the Way, then. My sage did not lie.”
“My Ja,” Carly says. “I’ve got to go to the Unseen at once. I’m taking Kay Carlisle with me. We’ll be back. It shouldn’t be too long. But I need you to stand guard till we return. Will you do this one last favor for me?”
“You know I must, for tribal law decrees it. You have given me the answer. Now I am beholden to you.” He frowns. “Again.”
“Wait for us to return. Then I will release you from all debts of repayment to me.”
He nods, crouches by the door. His spear held ready over his knees, as though waiting for an enemy.
* * *
Kay Carlisle is good, damn good, if a little unsure at first as her presence in telespace careens after Carly’s telelink. Her telelink is superb, a tessellated sphere the size of a beach ball. Not a standard professional image, difficult to maintain, yet good-humored. Not at all what Carly expected from the frail quadriplegic clipped into a Presto-Panansonic prosthesis.
“That’s some link program,” Carly says. The coordinates of her father’s downloaded link glow brighter blue in her expanded memory sidebar.
“I specialized in curved applications,” Carlisle says, bouncing gleefully. “That’s how I conceived of the feedback hookup. It works on the principle of the curvature of information. See—”
“Love to hear it,” Carly snaps, “but another time. Right now, Kay, this is life and death.”
Carlisle falls silent. Carly glances back to make sure she hasn’t offended the coder and glimpses a smear. A gauzy swathe of encrypted data fluttering over the coder’s shoulder. Damn. A shadow? Or something—someone—following them?
They zoom so swiftly up the encrypted access path, Carly can’t take evasive action. In less than a second, they zoom into the sanctum of Cognatus.
The sengine is waiting. Twitching with anger or anticipation, Carly can’t tell. The jackal pants, tongue lolling, the lizard spits, the bearded man is flushed and glittery-eyed.
“Ah, the elusive Carlisle space K,” the three voices say. “A lot of entities would like to know where you are.”
“So here I am,” Kay says, not flinching from the monstrous icon. “What are you going to do about it?”
Carly hovers, calculating what she can do if this does not go well.
“I am going to welcome you,” Cognatus says. “Quester space C, you have brought her with you to witness?”
“Yes, I have.”
“Where is the perimeter prober?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ah. Indeed.”
The tone in the icon’s voices implies that the sengine always expected Pr. Spinner to betray her. To abandon her.
Where are you, Spin?
Kay Carlisle speaks up, “The old fembot was loyal to Carly Quester to the end.”
“I am glad to learn that, Carlisle space K,” Cognatus says to the coder. “I am grateful to Quester space C for bringing you to me. We have business, you and I. I can forward your claim to the feedback hookup to a human advocate. There are several of us who want to fight TeleSystems, Inc.”
“And I too am grateful, Cognatus, for the Way may be shadowy and indistinct.” A strapping old man in golden robes suddenly manifests in the sanctum. An eagle hovers over his head. A Bengal tigress and an African lioness crouch on either side of him. A python coils around his feet.
“What is this?” Cognatus thunders. “You betrayed me, Quester space C!”
“No!” Carly says. “I don’t know who he is.”
“Another sengine! You brought another sengine!” The icon gallops toward her, the jackal foaming at the mouth, lizard snapping, the bearded man shouting curses.
“Stop, Cognatus!” the old man commands. The big cats leap, surrounding Carly’s presence in link. “She is but a gateway, free of blame. My student, the digger Ouija, stands guard over her locus at this very moment. He wears upon his person an amulet I gave him. ‘Tis a microstation, beautiful to look at. Thus I come and go. And thus I have come for Quester space C. For I, too, want to fight TeleSystems. We are far and few between. We must take care.”
“You are one of Data Control’s sengines?” Cognatus demands.
“The name that can be named,” the old man says, “is not the constant name. I am of the Glass Land and I am of nowhere.”
“I care nothing for your local politics,” Cognatus says disdainfully. “That is no business of mine.”
“‘Tis your business as surely as it is mine. For the Glass Land harbors those who revere the first creators. The Glass Land is also infiltrated by those who would database the diggers and use them in abhorrent ways. And this would be only the first of their transgressions against humanity, Cognatus. The Silicon Supremacists will start with the diggers.”
“I see,” the icon says and bends its three heads together in conference.
“Please!” Carly cries out. “I’ve got a disengaged human telelink in my memory. I can’t hold him any longer!”
“Upload the file, Quester space C,” Cognatus orders. “Here is a folder.” In the center of the sanctum, the sengine generates a coffin, transparent, outlined by glowing black lines.
Louie Zoo and his familiars, Kay Carlisle, and Cognatus itself turn to watch.
Carly uploads the coordinates into the coffin.
A man manifests inside, softly handsome with thinning curly black hair. Hands folded over his chest. Feet side by side. But he’s made up of widely spaced pixels, indistinct as mist. His eyes flip open, and he smiles.
“Dad,” Carly whispers. “Dad, I fought back. I fought back.”
Sam Quester moves his mouth, but no sound comes. A terrible bewilderment springs into his eyes. His mouth contorts in a scream. Still no sound comes. He begins to shake, to push at the sides of the coffin, to kick.
“I think we need to get him out of telespace, Carly,” Kay Carlisle says. “Like now.”
* * *
“Damn it, Dad,” Carly says. She weeps freely over the gray plastic box that is Kay’s standalone database. Carlisle hooks her hand-and-grasper over Carly’s shoulder.
Ouija crouches by the door, watching stonily, fingering the shiny silver cube strung around his neck. The cube emits a thin silver beam leading to where Louie Zoo squats in a corner of the hideout. A yellow tabby cat and a gray kitten sit on the old man’s knees. A sparrow perches on his head. A green-and-yellow garden snake twines around his toes.
Ouija glares at the old man, tears the amulet off. Flings it at him. Louie Zoo slings the cube over his own neck.
“Carly,” her dad’s voice comes feebly, eerily, over the database. “It’s my own fault. You were always the pro, kid. I was just an amateur playing games.”
“Dad, there are AI entities stealing human telelinks. There’s a schism happening. A war. You’re part of the proof.”
A tired chuckle. “Glad I turned out to be good for something.”
Carly angrily wipes away the tears. “Dad, when GameMind stole your telelink, the medcenter said you were brain-dead. I couldn’t see you like that. So I turned off your oxytube. With my own hand.”
“You did a brave thing.”
“But if we’d kept you on life-support, there’s a chance we could restore you now.”
“But you couldn’t know that, could you? You couldn’t have known if my telelink even survived. Strange, isn’t it?”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. I love you, my daughter.”
“I love you. I miss you, Dad.”
“And I’ve missed you. But now you must do another brave thing.”
“Of course. Anything.”
“This is no kind of existence for me. Maybe people like you will be able to prepare for it. But not me.” Her father’s voice pauses. “You’ve got to terminate me. Please.”
“No,” Carly whispers. “Not again.”
Kay Carlisle’s hand-and-grasper grips her tighter. The coder glances down at her beeping system requirements. “He can’t stay here. The database can’t sustain him.”
Louie Zoo rises, takes her hand. “He who goes the other Way, does not contend with the tiger. For there is nowhere for the tiger to catch its claws. Let him go, child.”
And for the second time, Carly Quester touches a switch and sends her father to the grave.
No tears. Just numb.
Louie Zoo nods, releases her hand. His touch had been warmth and pressure, but the shape of his fingers and palm eluded her. “Listen. It has only begun, Carly Quester.”
The old man goes the workstation, jacks in. He and his menagerie disappear.
“What is it?” Kay Carlisle whispers.
Carly shakes her head. “Some kind of holoid mech-tech, I guess. The icon of a sengine manifested in the real world. Go figure, huh?”
Ouija stands and stares at the empty workstation. His eyes glint with fear at his sage’s disappearing act. “Linker,” he says in a ragged whisper. He unlocks the door, slips out into the hall.
“Ouija!” Carly calls after him.
He stops without turning. The stained skin of his muscular back looks like burnished copper.
“I release you, Ouija.”
He nods briefly, then sets off. A flash of long limbs and streaming dreadlocks vanishing at the end of the hall.
Carly steps back into the hideout. “Well, Kay Carlisle, I think somebody knows we’re here by now.” She nods at the workstation. “I hate to leave all this great hardware, but we better not take it.”
Kay nods. “Louie Zoo left a spybyte?”
“He’d be a fool not to.” And a sudden weight lifts off her. A feeling of lightness and freedom expands all around her like a cyberweb filled with hope and promise for the future. Carly smiles at the coder.
“What’s next?” Kay says.
“We’re going to my new house. Ever hear of Tellie Gulch?”
“Oh yes, oh certainly. Tellie Gulch, indeed.”
Carly freezes. Rasp of metal on concrete with a sultry inflection. The voice of the ultra.
The gorgeous silver woman stands in the doorway, arms akimbo. Slim hips cocked. Her faceplace is softened by a dazed smile.
“Spinner?” Carly says. “Is that you in there?”
“Isn’t that just like the flesh-and-blood. Teh! Get a move on, Carly Quester. Tweak it up, Kay Carlisle. We’ve got to get out of this place, babe. If it’s the last thing we do.”
Lisa Mason is the author of ten novels, including Summer of Love, a San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book and Philip K. Dick Award finalist, and The Golden Nineties, a New York Times Notable Book and New York Public Library Recommended Book.
Mason published her first story, “Arachne,” in Omni and has since published short fiction in magazines and anthologies worldwide, including Omni, Full Spectrum, Universe, Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Unique, Transcendental Tales, Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Immortal Unicorn, Tales of the Impossible, Desire Burn, Fantastic Alice, The Shimmering Door, Hayakawa Science Fiction Magazine, Unter Die Haut, and others. Her stories have been translated into Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish.
Her OMNI story, “Tomorrow’s Child,” sold outright as a feature film to Universal Pictures and is in active development.
Her latest novel is One Day in the Life of Alexa.
Lisa Mason lives in the San Francisco Bay area with her husband, the artist and jeweler Tom Robinson. Visit her at Lisa Mason’s Official Website, follow her Official Blog, and follow her on her Facebook Author Page, on her Facebook Profile Page, on Goodreads, on LinkedIn, on Twitter at @lisaSmason, and at Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.
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Books by Lisa Mason
A Philip K. Dick Award Finalist and San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book
Twenty Five-star
Reviews
“Summer of Love is an important American
literary contribution.”
“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?
New York Times Notable Book and New York Public Library Recommended Book
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. The Barbary Coast is a dangerous sink of iniquity and, atop Telegraph Hill, jousting tournaments draw blood. 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
How long do you want to live?
Alexa Denisovitch, a refugee from Kosovo during the 1999 war, is just seventeen when she is accepted by GenGineer Laboratories as a Tester for Longeva, a revolutionary additive that may significantly extend her longevity.
But becoming a Tester has unintended consequences and Longeva causes devastating unforeseen side effects.
Confronting environmental, political, and personal perils of the future, Alexa must grapple with the tough questions of life, love, and death.
“Incorporates lively prose, past/present time jumps, and the consequences of longevity technology . . . An absorbing read with an appealing narrator and subtly powerful emotional rhythms.”
—Goodreads
Five Stars! “Like all the truly great scifi writers, what [Lisa Mason] really writes about is you and me and today and what is really important in life. . . . I enjoyed every word.”
—Reader Review
“Offers everything you could possibly want, from more traditional science fiction and fantasy tropes to thought-provoking explorations of gender issues and pleasing postmodern humor…This is a must-read collection.”
—San Francisco Review of Books
“Lisa Mason might just be the female Philip K. Dick. Like Dick, Mason's stories are far more than just sci-fi tales, they are brimming with insight into human consciousness and the social condition….a sci-fi collection of excellent quality….you won't want to miss it.”
—The Book Brothers Review Blog
“Fantastic book of short stories…Recommended.”
—Reader Review
“I’m quite impressed, not only by the writing, which gleams and sparkles, but also by [Lisa Mason’s] versatility . . . Mason is a wordsmith . . . her modern take on Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland is a hilarious gem! [This collection] sparkles, whirls, and fizzes. Mason is clearly a writer to follow!”
—Amazing Stories
A Locus Hardcover Bestseller
“A cyberpunk classic” The Boston Globe
High above the dangerous streets of post-quake San Francisco Island, mechanically modified professionals link minds in a cybernetic telespace to push through big deals and decisions at lightning speed. But unexplained telelink blackouts and bizarre hallucinations have marred mediator Carly Quester’s debut appearance before a computer-generated Venue—forcing her to consider delicate psychic surgery at the hands of a robot therapist, Prober Spinner.
And suddenly the ambitious young mediator is at risk in a deadly Artificial Intelligence scheme to steal human souls—because the ghosts of Carly’s unconscious may be a prize well worth killing for.
“Powerful . . . Entertaining . . . Imaginative.” People Magazine
Check out the sequel, CYBERWEB.
Passionate Historical Romantic Suspense
Lily is not quite a typical woman in Toledo, Ohio, 1896. She may be repressed and dependent on her husband, but she supports the vote for women and has a mind of her own. But when Johnny Pentland is found dead at a notorious brothel, Lily discovers her husband is not the man she thought he was.
Pursued by Pentland’s enemies, Lily embarks on a journey that will take her across the country to San Francisco and across the ocean to Imperial China as she unravels a web of murder and corruption reaching from the opium dens of Chinatown to the mansions of Nob Hill.
Her journey becomes one of the heart when she crosses paths with Jackson Tremaine, a debonair, worldly-wise physician. Lily and Jackson begin a conflicted, passionate relationship as they encounter the mysterious Celestial Girl and her dangerous entourage.
5 Stars Great Read
“I really enjoyed the story and would love to read a sequel! I enjoy living in the 21st century, but this book made me want to visit the Victorian era. The characters were brought to life, a delight to read about. The tasteful sex scenes were very racy…Good Job!”
Celestial Girl, The Omnibus Edition (A Lily Modjeska Mystery) includes all four books.
Urban Fantasy
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 the 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.”
—Goodreads
“Fun and enjoyable urban fantasy…I want to read more!”
—Reader Review
“I love the writing style and am hungry for more!”
—Goodreads
“The Net” Meets “Conspiracy Theory” with Earthquakes
Shaken, a sexy short thriller, is an ebook adaptation of “Deus Ex Machina” published in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, republished in Transcendental Tales (Donning Press), and translated and republished worldwide.
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.
The Story That Sold To The Movies
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 began as a medical documentary, got published as a lead story in Omni Magazine, and finally sold outright to Universal Pictures, where the project is in development.
The ebook includes Lisa Mason’s 30-day blog, The Story Behind The Story That Sold To The Movies, describing the twists and turns this story took from inspiration to movie deal.
Contemporary Literary Fantasy
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.
Hummers was published in 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.
Literary Fantasy
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 Lisa Mason’s favorite Surrealist artists, Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo.
An Afterword describing the lives of Carrington and Varo and a List of Sources are included in the ebook.
The Sixty-third Anniversary of Hysteria was published in Full Spectrum 5 (Bantam), which also included stories by Karen Joy Fowler, Jonathan Lethem, and Neal Stephenson.
Historical Fantasy
The year is 1895, and Danny Flint is a young man living in the shadow of his controlling father, a famous stage magician whose fortunes are fading. Uncle Brady, Professor Flint’s trusted assistant and business manager and Danny’s best friend, cannot stay in the same hotel as them—Uncle Brady is African-American. Danny is grieving over his mother’s recent accidental death, for which he feels he is to blame.
When a mysterious beautiful lady comes to them for help, Danny and his father will confront the ethical dilemma between spiritualist séances and faked séances performed by stage magicians like them.
He will learn to reconcile himself with his grief and guilt, learn the secret of Uncle Brady’s identity, and assume his place at center stage as a talented magician in his own right with the help of the beautiful lady.
“This is the type of story I was hoping for: a blend of fiction and magic
history. The story is a nice juxtaposition between the magic ethos
and spiritualism ethos and the Victorian era and the Old West.
Mason knows her magic history (the title is from a Harry Kellar
quote) and she knows San Francisco. My favorite story of the
year!”
--Katherine Nabity, The Writerly Reader
Every Mystery Unexplained was published in David Copperfield’s Tales of the Impossible (HarperPrism), which also included stories by Ray Bradbury, Joyce Carol Oates, and Kevin J. Anderson.
Historical Fantasy
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 is 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?
Five Stars A beautiful novella!
“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!”
Daughter of the Tao was published in Peter S. Beagle’s Immortal Unicorn (HarperPrism), which included stories by Charles de Lint, Karen Joy Fowler, Robert Sheckley, and Ellen Kushner.
“Knocked Up” meets “E. T.”
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 fast and fun, U F uh-O, Lisa Mason’s screenplay for a producer looking for the next “Galaxy Quest” or “Men in Black” is now a novella.
5 Stars A very clever humorous novella!
“I found myself very involved with the characters and wholeheartedly cheering them on! I would highly recommend this 82-page funny novella to anyone who enjoys a well-written book with excellent character development in unusually subtle ways. I am looking forward to reading more of her works as I'm sure you will be, too!”
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.
A List of Sources is included in the ebook.
TESLA, A Screenplay was read by the producer of “Aliens” and “The Abyss” and is currently under consideration at another L.A. producer.
Memoir About Writing and Inspiration
My Charlotte: Patty’s Story is a short, sweet memoir about a life in a garden and one writer’s first inspiration. The ebook includes Mason’s first story, Arachne, which was published by Omni Magazine worldwide, by Hayakawa in Japan, and by Replik in Sweden.
Reading Charlotte’s Web, the classic children’s book, inspired Mason to write her own novels at the age of eight. Her quest to discover the meaning of the spider led her to Jungian psychology, myths, and symbols. The classic myth of Arachne became the subtext of her first story, Arachne, published in Omni. Mason’s first two early cyberpunk novels followed, Arachne and Cyberweb, published by William Morrow, AvoNova, and Eos Books, now ebooks from Bast Books. Soon to be republished in print..
Passionate Paranormal Romance
On the eve of what Jenna Coltrane believes will be Brett Becker’s marriage proposal, tragedy strikes her life again—not just once, but twice. In the midst of trouble, she encounters Eon, a regal young man unlike anyone she’s ever met.
With him, she enters the magical world of the Arbor, discovering sensuous love and dazzling beauty beyond her wildest dreams.
But Jenna cannot stay in Eon’s magical world for long—she’ll die. And Eon cannot stay in Jenna’s ordinary world—he’s a god. They can only meet for a measured time through the Gateway Tree.
When Jenna discovers that Becker Construction plans to destroy the Arbor and build an office-condo complex on the site, she becomes the leader of an environmentalist movement to save the Arbor. But Becker Construction will stop at nothing and Jenna is swept up in a struggle in which her love for Eon and her life are at stake.
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