Waiting for the Galactic Bus (37 page)

Godwin’s brief career ended in tragedy at a fantasy convention banquet when he accidentally consumed the entree. He is remembered mainly through the scattered recollections of other writers.
The Curse of Testosterone,
the autobiography of the radical feminist Roberta Drear, recalls Godwin with no affection at all, making rather much of his relationship with a Bulgarian succubus, an episode now considered apocryphal.

From his vast, brilliant historical fantasies (
Beloved Exile
,
Firelord
,
The Last Rainbow
) to his magical, truthful contemporary tales (
A Truce with Time
and the World Fantasy Award-winning “
The Fire when it Comes
”), Park Godwin has thrilled us with remarkable storytelling and his unique abiltity to bring worlds alive on the page. Now he shows a new dimension of his considerable talents in this irreverent tale of “divine” intervention.

Barion and Coyul are two brothers from a civilization vastly superior to our own. Stranded on Earth, they decide to create the human race — without fully thinking the process through. Life was never easy, but now, a few million years later, their creations have posed them with their most serious problem yet.

Charity Stoveall is a nice young woman from Nowhere, U.S.A. Roy Stride is a minor league fascist whom Charity happens to love. If Charity marries Roy, they will give birth to a child who could spell doom for the human race. Barion and Coyul must act fast to prevent this from happening — even if it means literally taking the fateful couple through Hell.

Here’s a wild romp through an outrageious landscape with an unforgettable cast of characters. You’ll meet the irrepressible Wilksey Booth, who has
finally
been handed the role of his career. You’ll meet an enigmatic cab driver called Jake whom you probably know better under another name. You’ll meet Woody Barnes, the trumpet player in love with Charity who has been drafted to play the most incredible road show in history. And you’ll spend time in the Ultimate Rise, the apartment complex where your every dream can come true — as long as you don’t want anything more.

Biting, witty, poignant and wise.
Waiting for the Galactic Bus
is the most amazing story yet from one of America’s master storytellers.

Born in New York City, Parke Godwin was raised all over, and drifted through a variety of places, schools and careers, including the army, government, theater, research, the staff of Sports Afield and as a short-order cook before writing his first novel,
Darker Places
, in 1971. He first attracted attention in the science fiction and fantasy field with
The Masters of Solitude
(1978), written with Marvin Kaye, and folowed in 1982 by
Wintermind
.

Godwin’s most noted work to date is his triptych on Roman Britain, which began with
Firelord
(1981, a World Fantasy Award finalist), and continued with
Beloved Exile
(1984) and
The Last Rainbow
(1985). Those novels received great praise from writers such as Marion Zimmer Bradley and Morgan Llywelyn and rave reviews from such sources as the Chicago Sun-Times and Washington Post Book World.

Godwin’s most recent previous novel is
A Truce with Time
(subtitled “A Love Story with Occasional Ghosts”) which was published in early 1988. Of it, Iris Rainer Dart said “
A Truce with Time
is a sexy, witty, moving love story for and about grown-ups. I loved it.”

Though Godwin doesn’t publish short fiction often, his stories have also received high acclaim. “The Fire When It Comes” won the World Fantasy Award in 1982 and has subsequently been optioned for film production. Another story, “Influencing the Hell Out of Time and Theresa Golowitz,” was dramatized on The Twilight Zone.

He is currently at work on the sequel to
Waiting for the Galactic Bus
.

Jacket Illustration © 1988 Chris Hopkins

Jacket Design by Jamie S. Warren

Printed in the USA