The Dolphins of Oceanus
Come inside, human; fear not -
Come inside and enter the undersea life of dolphins and whales, and swim away with the highly developed, sophisticated beings,
who have been evolving twenty million years here in Oceanus, waiting for us, their co-stewards of the planet, The Child, to be born,
and then grow to maturity.
Ralph and Bobbie On the Road
It is 1937, the Golden Age of Jazz and of Radio. The Hit Parade plays all the great new songs. Life is hopeful again and the innocents come forth. Bobbie is eighteen in Birmingham, Alabama. She sings in a band and for radio. In a crisis Bobbie signs on with Jay Gould’s traveling magazine sales crew, heading to Los Angeles. Ralph is in Rexburg, Idaho, the same year, disliking the family farm and hating the winters there. Defying his father, Ralph leaves home to go on the road with Martin Seward’s magazine crew, traveling the US with new buddy Vic Sabattini, a kindred wandering spirit. Ralph and Bobbie are both fearless and primed for destined events. Eventually it must be that their paths lead to each other and their destinies merge.
The Spy In Love
Young Fonzo Suarez’ playground of enterprise is a little lakeside village in the highlands of Jalisco, Mexico, beside the beautiful but suffering Lake Chapala. There some thousands of dark-skinned natives have lived for centuries, and there also nowadays many thousands of Americans and Canadians have settled among them to enjoy a serene retirement. Happily, these gringos have come with lots of money, thus providing a prosperous industry in which chubby Fonzo may always be there for the next opportunity. He always seems to find a next one. He may seem a bumbling, absurdly dressed fool, but his inner resources are formidable. Years living in Los Angeles have made his English perfect; his family in the village is of the oldest, wealthy and influential; and he has not a least scruple to inhibit him in any of his pursuits. It will work against him only that he can suddenly, in careless moments, become sentimental, a true fool for love.
Laka Chapala Serenade I: MexicoLimpio
A perfect climate and the serenity of quaint fishing villages attract swarms of retiring Americans and Canadians to Lake Chapala in Mexico. This real estate bonanza begets a comedy of suspicion, deceit and intrigue among the many aspirants to the prize. Yet even such a perfect model, walled-in community as MexicoLimpio must employ the services of spies and counter-spies to thwart not only its competitors, but also enemies within and enemies imagined.
Lake Chapala Serenade II: Max and Carlotta Go to Mexico
The inevitable turn of the century California Malaise has finally settled on old hippies Max and Carlotta and they flee to Mexico. They build one house with their Mexican crew and become enamored of Mexico, the land of the people. Like their namesakes Maximillian and Carlotta long ago, they have idealistic dreams for their company and their new, adopted countrymen, their loyal workers. And like that ill-fated couple, they will be all the while comically ignorant of the forces that move against them, business rivals, bureaucrats and most fiercesome of all, a religious scourge, a Hindu swami intent on divine retribution.
Lady of the Sorrows I: San Francisco
This is 1847-1850, and these are the stories that chronicle the birth of this fabled city, when the pueblo grew from 400 citizens to a metropolis
of 100,000 in two years, when it became overnight the richest, most extravagant, exciting city on Earth. Sonny Wells is an eastern lawyer who's come west to
help create government in the wilds of California, legal clerk for the military Governor, General Mason. Other founding fathers, General Kearney, Admiral
Stockton, secret agent Thomas Larkin, flamboyant John Charles Fremont are the very legends of the birth of San Francisco, as are the always investigated
Mayor George Hyde and his friend the owner of the biggest casino Robert Parker and the notorious Lansford Hastings and Sam Brannan, excommunicated by
Brigham Young for refusing to leave San Francisco. Sonny knows all of them and is part of their stories.
Sonny loves the excitement he finds in San Francisco, and he leaves Monterey to become a partner with the flamboyant Robert Parker, owner of the
notorious Parker House. Before he makes that fatal step, however, he meets Valerian, the abandoned recluse of Mission Dolores. There he gives her a book
of poems by Edgar Allan Poe, and this momentous event brings Poe intensely into the world of Valerian's many inner secret voices. Poe will speak to her, and
she will listen and wish to be with him. He will draw her to him, her who has not gone outside the mission walls in five years, who has not seen even the
new wonder of San Francisco that has grown up two miles away across the sand dunes, on the sandy beach of the bay. Must go to Baltimore.
Lady of the Sorrows II: Panama City
Panama City, 1850, is still at the heart of the tropical jungle, where savages drums can be heard in the night and cheetahs scream in the tree tops. It is also the quickest route east or west, to or from the fabulous gold fields of California. The American Hotel is usually only a brief stopover for these travelers, but on this day the layover will be extended, since the savages in the jungle seem prepared for trouble. Even Sonny with his chest of gold, and Valerian, going to meet Edgar Allan Poe in Baltimore will be delayed; and in that twenty-four hours their lives, as well as the lives of several others secluded there, will become transformed by the rapid and explosive chain of events.