In Red Lightning: On the morning of January 10, 2016, thirty-year-old Samuel is ready to leave the house and live another day of his ordinary existence. But, as soon as he arrives on the street, he learns about David Bowie's death. The news strikes him so hard that he is stunned, and his are not moments of bewilderment, but hours, days, years, and centuries...he finds himself catapulted across space and time. He awakens hundreds of thousands of years later, in a society of the future, the year 200016.

 

In Tales of the City: Anna Madrigal runs a boarding house at 28 Barbary Lane, San Fransico. She welcomes people who have nowhere else to go: the misfits. This matriarch is known for her unending kindness and her superb marijuana crop. The novel starts with the arrival of Mary Ann Singleton, a prudish, naive, young woman who escaped her dull Ohio hometown. She settles in with her other fellow tenants: Michael "Mouse," a personable young gay man, Brian Hawkins, an incorrigible Don Juan, and Mona Ramsey, a young hippyish bisexual.

 

In A Man’s Skin: Bianca, a young woman from a good family in the age of the Italian Renaissance, is of marriageable age. Her parents soon find her a suitable fiancé: Giovanni, a rich merchant, young and seemingly pleasant. All preparations seem to be going smoothly, even though Bianca can’t hide her disappointment at the prospect of marrying a man she knows nothing about. But her marriage can take place, however, she learns a secret carried with the women of her family: The Man’s Skin. By wearing it, Bianca becomes “Lorenzo” and enjoys all the benefits given to a young man of stunning beauty. While she ventures first to get to know Giovanni in his natural environment, the world that opens up before her raises questions that echo into today. Why should women be treated as inherently different from men, and why should their freedom be a subject of contempt and coercion?