Secret Matter, a neat, sexy & adventuresome science fiction novel

in a revised, updated, and expanded edition for 21st century readers from Lethe Press, November 2005
With an Afterword by Mark Jordan

Lambda Literary Award Winner for Gay Men's Science Fiction

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 Grocery Store Tabloid announces Aliens Settle in San Francisco the week Secret Matter is released

Table of Contents

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Also on this website:

Toby Johnson's books:

GAY SPIRITUALITY: The Role of Gay Identity in the Transformation of Human Consciousness

GAY PERSPECTIVE: Things Our Homosexuality Tells Us about the Nature of God and the Universe

SECRET MATTER,
updated, revised & expanded eidtion from Lethe Press

GETTING LIFE IN PERSPECTIVE

PLAGUE: A NOVEL ABOUT HEALING.

TWO SPIRITS: A Story of Life With the Navajo, with Walter Williams

CHARMED LIVES: Gay Spirit in Storytelling

Books on Gay Spirituality:

 

Articles and Excerpts:

The Simple Answer to the Gay Marriage Debate

Why gay people should NOT Marry

Wedding Cake Liberation

Gay Marriage in Texas

What's ironic

Shame on the American People

The "highest form of love"

 The cause of homosexuality

What Jesus said about Gay Rights

The purpose of homosexuality

Mesosexual Ideal for Straight Men

Varieties of Gay Spirituality

Why Gay Spirituality: Spirituality as Artistic Medium

"It's Always About You"

The myth of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara

Joseph Campbell's description of Avalokiteshvara

You're Not A Wave


Curious Bodies

What Toby Johnson Believes

The Joseph Campbell Connection,

The Nature of Religion

Being Gay is a Blessing

Freedom of Religion

The Gay Agenda

Gay Saintliness

Gay Spiritual Functions

The subtle workings of the spirit in gay men's lives.


 "The Evolution of Gay Identity"

"St. John of the Cross &
the Dark Night of the Soul."

Avalokiteshvara at the Baths.

 Eckhart's Eye

Let Me Tell You a Secret

Religious Articulations of the Secret

The Collective Unconscious

Driving as Spiritual Practice


Teenage Prostitution and the Nature of Evil

Allah Hu: "God is present here"
 
Adam and Steve

Gay retirement and the "freelance monastery"

Seeing with Different Eyes


The mystical experience at the Servites'  Castle in Riverside

The Great Dance according to C.S.Lewis


The Techniques Of The World Saviors

Part 1: Brer Rabbit and the Tar-Baby
Part 2:
The Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara
Part 3:
Jesus and the Resurrection
Part 4:
A Course in Miracles


The Secret of the Clear Light

Understanding the Clear Light

Mobius Strip

Finding Your Tiger Face

How Gay Souls Get Reincarnated

About Alien Abduction

In honor of Sir Arthur C Clarke

The D.A.F.O.D.I.L. Alliance

Toby's friend and nicknamesake Toby Marotta.

About Michael Talbot, gay mystic

About Guy Mannheimer

 
Secret Matter great gay science fiction novelClick on cover to read the excerpt "The Arrival of the Visitors"

The winner of a Lambda Literary Award for Gay Men's Science Fiction and
bestselling novel, Secret Matter returns to print in a revised edition for the
21st century.

Kevin Anderson is moving along through his life, finishing up college, and
getting ready to leave New York for an internship rebuilding San Francisco
after an immense earthquake. Then the Visitors arrive; a race of human-like
aliens touch down in several cities around the globe, including SF, and
nothing will ever be the same. When Kevin’s company is given a contract to
build a facility for the Visitors, he forms a friendship with 'Bel, one of their
number. But is 'Bel so alien after all? They seem so human, but they possess some odd characteristics and seem to be hiding something. What secrets do they carry, and where, exactly, are they from?

Before Kevin can get to the bottom of his questions, political
disasters and miscommunications occur, and the Visitors
are expelled. 'Bel and his emissaries are very clear that
certain actions on the part of the U.S. will have grave
consequences upon his people and their world, but
no one listens except Kevin, who has fallen in love
with 'Bel. Now the young man is on a mission to
unravel the Visitors' secrets in order
to prevent the death and destruction
of Visitors and millions of
Americans.  $13.00  (Free freight)



gay sci fi novel naked man
























Cover design by Sou MacMillan
s
croll down to see more of 'Bel (and to learn about the back cover photograph)




shirtless men, barechested men
'Belwyn Tuarul is the amazing Visitor who meets Secret Matter's protagonist, Kevin Anderson, one afternoon in earthquake-ravaged San Francisco at Jackie O beach. And for both them, life is never the same again.

'Bel's a lovable, sweet character with a wonderful gimmick.

A romantic comedy with an undercurrent of tension and suspense, a lovable and unforgettable character, the right touch of science fiction, and, as fans of Toby Johnson's will recognize, just the right measure of mystical wisdom to make this a novel you'll thoroughly enjoy and long remember with a pang of fondness and pride.

While Toby Johnson was writing this book, he had a photo from a gay calendar framed next to his desk. That photo by renowned gay photographer Roy Blakey colored Toby's vision of what the Visitors would look like. We're especially pleased to be able to use Blakey's photo on the back cover of the new edition.




Photo by Roy Blakey


Goliath Books publishes

Roy Blakey 70s male nudesRoy Blakey's

70s Male Nudes

Edited and with an Introduction by Reed Massengill

English / Deutsch / Francais / Espanol / Italiano
size: 8,5 x 10 inches / 21 x 25,5 cm
160 pages /

ISBN 3-9807602-1-9

shirtless barechested man





Here's Blakey's beautiful photo
without the special FXs:




The updated, expanded, and revised edition for Lethe Press has an Afterword by Mark Jordan.


Mark Jordan teaches religion at Emory University.  He writes about sexuality and religious rhetoric.  He is author of  The Silence of Sodom: Homosexuality in Modern Catholicism, Telling Truths in Church: Scandal, Flesh and Christian Speech, and numerous other titles. A discussion of science fiction as modern day myth appears in his book Blessing Same-Sex Unions: The Perils of Queer Romance and the Confusions of Christian Marriage.

Read an excerpt from Mark Jordan's Afterword


Toby Johnson introduces the new edition with an elusive and evocative question about the nature of time and a reference to The Dimensional Structure of Consciousness

What Are You Looking for in a Gay Science Fiction Novel?

The Dimensional Structure of Consciousness by Samuel Avery offers a model for how the mind generates the experience of a five dimensional material world in the process of sorting sensory input from the five human senses. Toby Johnson extrapolated upon and fictionalized Avery's ideas to explain the origin of Secret Matter's Visitors.

Read an excerpt from the Preface to the Lethe Press Edition
Read a description of Samuel Avery's ideas by Toby Johnson

The Dimensional Strucutre of Consciousness is available from Barnes & Noble

09/03/2007


Toby Johnson, PhD is author of eight books: three non-fiction books that apply the wisdom of his teacher and "wise old man," Joseph Campbell to modern-day social and religious problems, three gay genre novels that dramatize spiritual issues at the heart of gay identity, and two books on gay men's spiritualities and the mystical experience of homosexuality. In addition to the novels featured elsewhere in this web site, Johnson is author of IN SEARCH OF GOD IN THE SEXUAL UNDERWORLD and THE MYTH OF THE GREAT SECRET (Revised edition): AN APPRECIATION OF JOSEPH CAMPBELL.

Johnson's Lammy Award winning book GAY SPIRITUALITY: The Role of Gay Identity in the Transformation of Human Consciousness was published in 2000.

His Lammy-nominated book  GAY PERSPECTIVE: Things Our Homosexuality Tells Us about the Nature of God and the Universe was published by Alyson in 2003.

 

 

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