From the Files of the Time Rangers

– Charles de Lint, author of Moonheart, and winner of the World Fantasy Award

Of Gods and Men . . . and Time

From the Files of the Time Rangers is a mosaic novel about time travel, alternate worlds, gods, cops, and the making of a president. The story spans the Twentieth Century, from the gritty waterfronts of Manhattan to the exclusive New England resorts of the rich and famous, culminating in a U.S. presidential election a bit like, yet absolutely different from, the one we experienced in 2004.

Mercury, the messenger of the gods, works his wiles in the world of Public Relations. The hunter-goddess Diana serves as a New York City detective, but with questionable ethics; and Cupid, a minor demimonde celebrity, arrows his way into the hearts of the unsuspecting, doing the gods’ work. Dionysus takes as his mistress a madcap eighteenth-century noblewoman, and together they traverse time and place to bring their bacchanalian escapades to the masses. While Pluto, the god of death, grooms a bright, though resentful, African-American boy to be his successor. And the Maine estate of the immensely powerful Macauley family houses a sacred shrine presided over by a succession of priests, each of whom has murdered his or her predecessor.

Against this backdrop, the Time Rangers – God Apollo’s chosen servants – try to maintain peace and order along the Time Stream. As the novel opens, three young Ranger Cadets, runaways and abandoned children touched by the gods, begin their training. But they quickly become hardened Rangers, passionately performing their duties, and encountering fates both sad and grand. In this timeline, the Rangers must protect naval aviator Timothy Macauley, Apollo’s chosen one, during his rise to the presidency. In From the Files of the Time Rangers, author Richard Bowes deftly paints a story rich in the hues and symbols and complexities of the Twentieth Century.

Two stories incorporated into the novel – “The Ferryman’s Wife” and “The Mask of the Rex” –were each a finalist for the prestigious Nebula Award for Best Novelette of the Year, in 2002 and 2003 respectively. With a Foreword by Kage Baker, noted author of “The Company” novels, and an Afterword by Richard Bowes, in which the author shares his insights into, and the history of, the mosaic novel.

In 1992 Bowes began writing a series of semi-autobiographical stories narrated by Kevin Grierson, a person with a doppelgänger. These stories were published primarily in the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and later became the novel Minions of the Moon. One story, “Streetcar Dreams,” won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novella of the Year. The novel itself won the Lambda Award.

A short fiction collection, Transfigured Night and Other Stories, was published by Time Warner in 2001. It included the original novella, “My Life in Speculative Fiction.” These stories plus recent material will appear in Streetcar Dreams and Other Midnight Fancies forthcoming in late 2005 from PS Publishing in England.

Over the last few years, Bowes has written a new series of stories about Time Rangers and the Gods, which have formed the mosaic novel From the Files of the Time Rangers. Time Ranger novelettes “The Ferryman’s Wife” and “The Mask of the Rex,” both originally published in the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, were finalists for the prestigious Nebula Award.