After studying English at Oxford University,[2] Mason eventually began writing after periods spent working in publishing, journalism and organic farming.
Bethany is about a commune in Cornwall; The Illusionist is the story of Simon Magus, and his relationship with the early Christians; The War Against Chaos is set in a dystopian future (or alternative present) in which a victim of corruption encounters marginalised communities while in search of his estranged wife; The Racket is set in modern-day Brazil; Angel tells of a female test-pilot working for the Nazis (it is based loosely on the life of Hanna Reitsch); The Yellow Cathedral is an account of the political conflict in Chiapas, Mexico; Perfection is set during the Anabaptist rebellion in 16th-century Germany; and The Right Hand of the Sun covers the Spanish invasion and settlement of Central America.
Recurring themes in Mason's work include the establishment of alternative communities that oppose the values of mainstream society; the tension between the desires of an individual and the priorities of the collective; the ambiguity of religion as both a force that brings meaning, and as a ready excuse for oppression and violence; the similarly ambiguous nature of sexuality as a source of affection and sensuality, but also as the site of unequal relationships of power; and the use of the past as a mirror of the contemporary period.
Intrigued by the sect, he accepts baptism but, after a dispute with their leader, Kepha (Saint Peter), he finds he can no longer work his magic.
The War Against Chaos is set in a dystopian version of Britain that is similar in its depiction of a grey, shabby, philistine country, to Orwell's 1984.
[7] The principal character, Hare, is a clerk for a vast conglomerate known as Universal Goods, who is dismissed from his job and his lodgings after his corrupt boss, Jacobs, manipulates evidence against him.
After recuperating, Hare decides to search for his estranged wife, an artist who fled mainstream society after the government closed all art colleges.
The account, towards the end of the novel, of the suppression of a demonstration by police in full riot gear, is reminiscent of events during the UK miners' strike of 1984–85.
She discovers that a road serving a gold mine in the Pantanal region has been driven through Indian land, and writes a letter of protest to the American press (on the grounds that no action would be taken in Brazil).
She abandons her studies in medicine to fly gliders, and becomes a reputed test pilot for the growing German air force after the establishment of the Nazi regime.
Benito, a young PRD activist, is impatient at the peaceful strategy advocated by his respected uncle Hernandez, and falls in with a group who carry out a disastrous raid on a ranch.
Similarly, Rafael's sister Maria has angered her father over her conversion to evangelism and her rumoured affair with the local PRD candidate, Mateo Mendez.
In San Cristobal, a mob attacks the cathedral, where the left-wing Bishop Samuel Ruiz is staging a fast in support of the rebels.
The novel contains a postscript that explains the political background to its composition, and lists a number of books and websites dedicated to the situation in Chiapas.
The civic leaders of Munster are supporters of the Anabaptist movement, and so attract to the city hordes of refugees fleeing religious persecution.
The novel deals with Hernán Cortés' conquest of Mexico in 1519–21, and is partly narrated by Cortes' interpreter, a Spaniard named Gerónimo de Aguilar, who had been shipwrecked in the area a decade earlier, and had lived for years as a member of an indigenous tribe.
Cortés is revealed as a ruthless and cunning opportunist who persuades his men to travel inland to conquer the city of Tenochtitlan, the capital of the wealthy empire of the Meshica people and their ruler, Moctezuma.