Mason, David
Entry updated 4 August 2025. Tagged: Author.
Working name of US author Samuel Mason (1924-1974) who began publishing with "Placebo" in Infinity Science Fiction for November 1955; he was married 1956-1962 to Katherine MacLean. Most of his novels – such as his first, Kavin's World (1969), and its sequel in the Kavin sequence, The Return of Kavin (1972) – were routine Sword and Sorcery. However, his final book, The Deep Gods (1973), more impressively implants a twentieth-century mentality into the brain of a prehistoric man (see Identity Transfer; Prehistoric SF), where he must deal with the insanity of a whale (one of the "deep gods" of the title) that threatens to destroy the planetary Eden where humans and Dolphins live in harmony.
This author should not be confused with the David Mason whose Young Adult fantasy sequence begins with Talons of the Valkari (2010); nor with other David Masons who have published nonfiction after 1974. [JC]
Samuel Mason
born 1924
died 28 June 1974
works
series
Kavin
- Kavin's World (New York: Lancer Books, 1969) [Kavin: pb/Frank Frazetta]
- The Return of Kavin (New York: Lancer Books, 1972) [Kavin: pb/Charles Moll]
individual titles
- Degrees of Pleasure (New York: Olympia Press, 1969) [pb/nonpictorial]
- Jellyroll (New York: Olympia Press, 1969) [pb/nonpictorial]
- Devil's Food (New York: Ophelia Press, 1969) [pb/nonpictorial]
- The Sorcerer's Skull (New York: Lancer Books, 1970) [pb/Steele Savage]
- The Shores of Tomorrow (New York: Lancer Books, 1971) [pb/Jim Steranko]
- The Deep Gods (New York: Lancer Books, 1973) [pb/Charles Moll]
links
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