title: Mirage
author: Brass, Perry
description: Nominated for a 1992 Lambda Literary Award in Gay Science Fiction, Mirage is a bold new gay science fiction thriller by the acclaimed writer Perry Brass. On the tribal planet Ki, two men-in the spirit of an ancient pact-have been promised to each other for a lifetime. But a savage attack and a blood-chilling murder break this promise, and force them to seek another world where imbalance and lies form Reality. This is the planet known as Earth, a world they will ultimately use and escape. Mirage is the story of Greeland, a hunter from primitive, tribal Ki and his love for Enkidu, the friend promised to him for a lifetime. On Ki, men who on Earth would be labeled "gay" are promised to each for a lifetime of sexual exclusivity and loyalty unto death. Living in tribal enclaves led by elder tribesmen, these men possess an amazing third testicle, called the "Egg of the Eye." The Egg extends their lifespans, allows them to read each other's thoughts, and produces the sweet, sought-after "Seed of the Egg." However, one thing the Egg will never allow them to do is to lie. But a brutal attack on Enkidu and Greeland, by Ert, a handsome leader of the "Off-Sexers," the heterosexuals of planet Ki who live in a constant state of feudal warefare-and his bloodchilling murder in their defense-break this promise and force Greeland and Enkidu to escape through the properties of the "Egg of the Eye," whereby men like themselves can finally dissolve the limitations of time, space-and tiny, constricting Ki itself. Greeland are directed towards Earth, where they assume the bodies and identities of handsome, blonde Wright Smith, originally from a Michigan farm, and his lover, darker Alan Kostenbaum, from New York, both undeniably different from these visitors. On Earth Greeland and Enkidu encounter racism, violent homophobia-with one of the best accounts of a senseless homophobic attack in recent fiction-AIDS, and the decline of urban life. They also experience the strange agonies and thrills of two separate identities fighting and eventually merging within one body.