A Different Light
A Different Light is Elizabeth A. Lynn's first novel, published in 1978. The book tells the story of Jimson Alleca, an artist with a fatal disease in a future where fatal diseases are almost unheard of. Alleca is in love with Russell "the Pirate" O'Neill, actually a smuggler. The two lovers travel together for much of the book, and get involved in some some space-opera adventures on O'Neill's spaceship.
A Different Light was one of the first works of science fiction to treat male homosexuality as not particularly remarkable except as an aspect of the lives of some characters, rather than exploring a cultural response to homosexuality as taboo.
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The successful gay-focused bookstores in New York, San Francisco, and West Hollywood (now in San Francisco, West Hollywood, and online) were started by science-fiction fan Richard Labonte and named in honor of this novel.