E-books are all the rage, so it shouldn't surprise us that a "New Age" novel uses new technology for its distribution. Gates are for swinging on, talking over, and for entering into new territory. Find out what The Shasta Gate offers!
The major publishers want books that are smooth, without any kind of rough edges. If you find these books remind you of nailing a raw egg to a board, you'll appreciate The Shasta Gate. It's a book that's rough, raw, and edgy as it has to be. You don't read it to be comforted or have all your preconceptions endorsed. It is a novel more in the tradition of the philisophes than the dumbed down novels of the multinationals.
But this is a New Age novel. It contains descriptions of practices, meditations, and powers which multinational novels skip over. There isn't just a wave of the wand or a few words of power. There is a view of human nature which overtly and covertly instructs the novel. At times that is not smooth, but that is the point.
The chapter where Catherine, one of the main characters, breaks up with Bill, who disappears, is stilted, jarring. But are break-ups smooth and witty? Do they spark off insight and keen observation? Or are they more like it is presented here - petty, discomforting, annoying?
Although Catherine and the bike rider Eugene are the main characters, the plot is held together by the Indian, Ram. He is the one with insight, who knows at least something of what is coming. In the chapter following the break-up of Catherine and Bill, we follow Ram. Whereas Eugene fights down the disturbing images that rise within him, Ram merely accepts them as a necessary cleaning out of the psyche.
We are treated to a tour. The plot is not as tight as multinationals like. Like Lord of the Rings this is a milieu novel. We learn as Catherine and Eugene learn. We meet whom they meet among the New Age and seeker communities around Mt. Shasta. Teachers, practitioners, seekers, people overwhelmed by life, plain old geeks and a biker gang all come into play.
The gang stalk Catherine and Eugene. Their leader, eyes always hidden behind sun-glasses, conceives a hatred for Eugene and, reading between the lines, perhaps is Eugene. As he comes closer to the pair, who are learning about themselves as they go, the gang itself falls apart in increasing paroxysms of anger and violence.
It's fair to give warning that the book uses the s-word and the f-word, and his-and-her c-words. If these offend you, go elsewhere. This book is also an adventure. Action mixes with philosophy or the (rather sparingly used) occult powers. There is sex, which itself is an exploration of the spiritual as well as bonding man and woman.
In the end the book is a quest, and quests are never easy. Despite the discomfort, though, the book will suck you in. You may get upset with it, but you'll just have to read the next page to see if you understood it, and that lasts to the very last word.