Richard Bowes

Greek gods are posing as humans and pulling humanity's strings in this mosaic novel about time travel, alternate worlds, and the making of a president. The Time Rangers, Apollo's chosen servants, are in charge of preserving the peace and harmony along the Time Stream, the pathway between various worlds and times, but Apollo has given them a new task?to protect Timothy Macauley, the chosen one who must become the president of the United States or else witness the destruction of humankind. Standing in the Rangers's way are other gods: Mercury, who's working his wiles in the world of public relations; Diana, cruising New York City in the guise of an NYPD detective; Pluto, who is in the process of grooming his successor; and Dionysus, who has caused the annihilation of an alternate world. Nonstop action keeps the story rolling from the 1950s to the present day, through this world and others. The author shares his insights into, and the history of, the mosaic novel in the afterworld.

Kevin Grierson has a Shadow with a mind of its own. It likes thrills, it likes power, it likes the rush of drugs and danger. From the suburbs of Boston to the streets of New York, from the false glamour of advertising to the dark glamour of hustling and drug-dealing. Grierson's Shadow keeps him walking the edge of destruction and madness. Then a simple robbery goes horribly wrong. With the help of a flawed saint named Leo Dunn, Grierson struggles to banish his Shadow, and succeeds. Temporarily. Years later, sober and settled, at peace with his world, Kevin Grierson meets his Shadow again. And this time it won't go away.

Exhalation / Ted Chiang -- Shoggoths in bloom / Elizabeth Bear -- Uncle Chaim and Aunt Rifke and the angel / Peter S. Beagle -- Fixing Hanover / Jeff VanderMeer -- The gambler / Paolo Bacigalupi -- The dust assassin / Ian McDonald -- Virgin / Holly Black -- Pride and Prometheus / John Kessel -- The thought war / Paul McAuley -- Beyond the sea gates of the Scholar Pirates of Sarsköe / Garth Nix -- The small door / Holly Phillips -- Turing's apples / Stephen Baxter -- The New York Times at special bargain rates / Stephen King -- Five thrillers / Robert Reed -- The magician's house / Meghan McCarron -- Goblin music / Joan Aiken -- Machine maid / Margo Lanagan -- The art of alchemy / Ted Kosmatka -- 26 Monkeys, also The abyss / Kij Johnson -- Marry the sun / Rachel Swirsky -- Crystal nights / Greg Egan -- His master's voice / Hannu Rajaniemi -- Special economics / Maureen F. McHugh -- Evidence of love in a case of abandonment / M. Rickert -- From Babel's fall'n glory we fled / Michael Swanwich -- If angels fight / Richard Bowes -- The doom of love in small spaces / Ken Scholes -- Pretty monsters / Kelly Link.