"In Mason’s debut sci-fi novel, a tormented anthropologist looking for the origins of mankind meets a not-quite-human girl who reminds him of a lost love.

This work impressively shuttles backward and forward through the cosmos, speculating on humanity’s remote past and destined future, while largely remaining bound to the same setting: a few arid square miles in northern Kenya in 1985. That’s where John Lohner, a Harvard paleoanthropologist on an excavation site, tries to forget about the tragedies in his life—specifically, his mother’s suicide, his own suicide attempt, and the death of his fiancee, Diane, in a traffic accident. The fact that Lohner hears voices in his head doesn’t make things any easier. When he and his African assistant, Kamau, find an unnaturally pale, hairless, and nude girl, Mia, in a field, he’s shocked to find that she reminds him of Diane. Readers, however, already know that Mia, perceived by natives as a “witch,” is actually a synthetic humanoid—a sort of ephemeral scout created by a mysterious, spaceborne entity called the Shepherd, which travels through time and space by using black holes. Four million years ago, the Shepherd clashed with a marauding artificial intelligence called A4-Ni over the custody of Gilomir, a precious, sentient genome sequence. The two wounded combatants tumbled to primordial Earth, where Gilomir sowed the seeds for intelligent Homo sapiens. Now the Shepherd and A4-Ni, with inhuman patience, near a showdown, in which Lohner unwittingly plays an important part. In lesser hands, this obtuse material could have gone completely off the rails. However, Mason doles out the story’s mind-stretching revelations, on an Olaf Stapledon–like scale, and pathos with fair skill, keeping the narrative’s key features carefully hidden or flat-out confounding. In his flights of imagination, he sometimes spins sheer prose-poetry out of genetic-science terminology, practically singing of haploids, nucleotides, chromosomes, and amino acids (“A4-Ni stored her methodology in a genetic lockbox she constructed in his Y chromosome”). A sequel, Primordium Book Two: Renaissance, has already been published.

An ambitious tale with compelling concepts but one that’s dauntingly dense—even for sci-fi readers raised on the temporal loops of Doctor Who."

Reviewed December 16, 2015 - sleepybookworm.com

Reformation by William Mason is a science fiction novel which tells the story of John Loehner, an archaeologist who becomes the puppet of an alien connected to the origin of mankind. Based in a Kenyan excavation site in 1985, Loehner starts to hear voices. The logical explanation for this would be the pain he has endured in his personal life which drove him to attempt suicide: the loss of his mother and fiance.

One day, Loehner and his assistant discover a naked, hairless girl in a field named Mia, who reminds him of his dead fiance, Diane. The twist, however, is that this girl is not human, she is a humanoid created by an alien being called The Shepherd. From here on, Mason takes us on a philosophical journey, questioning the nature of our species, delving into matters of science, and delivering it all with poetic flare.

On the downside, the prose is occasionally hampered by informational overloads and confusing syntax. Mason is one of those writers a little too imaginative for his own good, and he needs to remember that mere human brains may struggle to keep up with his own cybernetically-enhanced and genetically modified mega-brain. Otherwise, Primordium is a wonderfully-told science fiction tale with impressive attention to detail and is believable every step of the way.

Reviewed by Martha L. Eisenberger on Amazon
July 6, 2015

"A masterful piece of storytelling, I thoroughly enjoyed it. A fascinating imagining of how life evolved on our planet spun off from the accidental arrival of alien DNA. The author did an excellent job of developing the characters with multiple layers of complexity, and the plot was always interesting with good movement. His Mobius strip was a brilliant idea for the structure of its timeline. I loved how the gripping suspense built up to a massive crescendo of a grand finale to tie it altogether, then spinning off with the beginning of a new storyline in the epilogue. Wow, I can't wait to order the rest of his series, Primordium! I highly recommend this book, and found that the author's website gives an excellent preview of his work at: www.williamemason.com."

Reviewed by Esilenotsnoj on Amazon
February 25, 2015

"I finished "Reformation" last night, The first sci-fi book I've read in about 30 years. And, to my surprise, (because I thought that sci-fi was not my thing), I REALLY enjoyed it, - I read until three in the morning. I very much liked the fact that it was based on earth and not some far-off planet with Daleks on it."

Reviewed by DW on Amazon
April 11, 2015

"This is a fascinating book of science fiction that will keep you turning the pages. It is a beautifully written book with great descriptions and lots of action and there is a surprising depth to it all. I am recommending it to all my friends."