CALIFIA: "Once upon a time there was an Island named California where dreams came true." So begins the opening address to the reader in the electronic narrative, Califia - a story of five generations of Californians on a quest for a lost stash of gold. The gold was buried, it seems, in the Southern California mountains some few years after the great gold rush of 1849. And then, through a series of California dust-ups, it got lost. From the discovery of the earliest clues - the Baja Map and the blue blanket-embroidery of Willing Stars - the characters puzzle though earthquake, fire, a mysterious train wreck, Hollywood nights, strange land-buying expeditions into the desert, flight plans, and Chumash legends to link together the elusive path to the dream of riches - and discover the sensory longing that makes seekers of us all.
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Critic's Circle--Critics on Califia |