Bowker, Richard
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1950- ) US author who began publishing sf with "Side Effect" for Unearth in Summer 1977. His first novel, Forbidden Sanctuary (1982), treats a ticklish theological problem – whether an Alien whose possession of a soul is moot can claim sanctuary in a church – with due regard for the likely Roman Catholic view on the issue (see Religion). Replica (1986), a political thriller also set in the Near Future, not entirely convincingly depicts an American President replaced by his double (see Doppelgangers), but Marlborough Street (1987), a Fantasy about a man with Psi Powers, is of considerably greater interest, and Dover Beach (1987), set in Post-Holocaust Boston and the UK a generation or so after World War Three has set off a Nuclear Winter, is even more substantial. The protagonist of the book – that he is a Scientist/detective obsessed by genre thrillers from before the holocaust does not seriously detract from the tale – serves as an effective mirror of our state, reflecting the new world complexly and with wit. The title – it is that of Matthew Arnold's 1867 poem about the loss of faith in a world which has darkened and "where ignorant armies clash by night" – strikes an appropriate note. Sequels followed from 2012 to form a series now surtitled The Last P.I..
There is some sense that Bowker's liking for thriller modes – his next novel after Dover Beach, Summit (1989), is an espionage thriller involving yet another psychic – may have consorted uneasily with his gift for the elegiac anatomy of individuals and their worlds. Summit was followed by a long hiatus in his genre activity, broken by a return in self-publishing mode with The Last P.I. sequels and the new Portal Parallel-World sequence opening with The Portal (2013). [JC/DRL]
see also: Androids.
Richard John Bowker
born Brighton, Massachusetts: 15 August 1950
works
series
The Last P.I.
- Dover Beach (New York: Bantam Books, 1987) [The Last P.I.: pb/Franco Accornero]
- The Distance Beacons (Shrewsbury, Pennsylvania: ePublishing Works!, 2012) [The Last P.I.: pb/]
- Where All the Ladders Start (Shrewsbury, Pennsylvania: ePublishing Works!, 2015) [The Last P.I.: pb/]
Portal
- The Portal (Shrewsbury, Pennsylvania: ePublishing Works!, 2013) [ebook: pb edition later the same year: Portal: na/]
- Terra (Shrewsbury, Pennsylvania: ePublishing Works!, 2016) [Portal: pb/]
individual titles
- Forbidden Sanctuary (New York: Ballantine/Del Rey, 1982) [pb/Darrell K Sweet]
- Replica (New York: Bantam Books, 1986) [pb/Ed Acuña]
- Marlborough Street (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1987) [hb/Margo Herr]
- Summit (New York: Bantam Books, 1989) [pb/]
links
previous versions of this entry