A Different Light

A man makes the ultimate sacrifice to find the man he loves in this "magical . . . entertaining cross-genre tale" from the World Fantasy Award–winning author (Library Journal).

In the future, cancer has been eliminated on Earth. Despite his diagnosis, celebrated artist Jimson Alleca can live peacefully for another twenty years if he stays on the planet to receive his medication. But Jimson does not want peace; he wants love. Even though it will shorten his lifespan, giving him one single year more, Jimson leaves space-normal to enter "the Hype," a shimmering space outside of space. He goes in search of his former lover, the star captain Russell O'Neill. What he finds is enough adventure and freedom to fill a lifetime.


With A Different Light, author Elizabeth A. Lynn has changed the face of science fiction by depicting a homosexual relationship not as taboo or fantastical but as a normal aspect of everyday life, around which the fantasy and adventure gets built. Since the novel's first publication in 1978, readers have loved its depth of prose, its clarity of emotion, and its thrilling adventure. It is no wonder Lynn is a multiple World Fantasy Award–winning writer whose work author George R. R. Martin called "lyrical and literate, and a treat from the first page to the last."