#michael-bishop — Public Fediverse posts

The Time I Sent a YouTuber Fan Mail

https://jaimedavid.blog/2026/07/09/23/45/42/analysis/jaimedavid327/11325/the-time-i-sent-a-youtuber-fan-mail/

The Time I Sent a YouTuber Fan Mail

https://jaimedavid.blog/2026/07/09/23/45/42/analysis/jaimedavid327/11325/the-time-i-sent-a-youtuber-fan-mail/

The Time I Sent a YouTuber Fan Mail

https://jaimedavid.blog/2026/07/09/23/45/42/analysis/jaimedavid327/11325/the-time-i-sent-a-youtuber-fan-mail/

The Time I Sent a YouTuber Fan Mail

https://jaimedavid.blog/2026/07/09/23/45/42/analysis/jaimedavid327/11325/the-time-i-sent-a-youtuber-fan-mail/

https://www.europesays.com/africa/239882/ DA persisted with payments flagged as risky #AshorSarupen #ChristopherPappas #CilliersBrink #DASalaryTopUps #DASalaryTopUps;DALegalAdviceOnPaymentOfAllowances;ExecutiveEthicsCode;ProhibitionFromPerformingAnyOtherPaidWork #GeorgeMichalakis #LegalOpinion #MichaelBishop #SouthAfrica

Rocznice i urodziny:
»80 rocznica urodzin Michaela Lawsona Bishopa«

Michael Lawson Bishop, amerykański pisarz science fiction i fantasy, przyszedł na świat 12 listopada 1945 roku.

https://www.fahrenheit.net.pl/rocznice-urodziny/80-rocznica-urodzin-michaela-lawsona-bishopa/

#Fahrenheit_zin #MichaelLawsonBishop #MichaelBishop #PiñonFall #AFuneralfortheEyesofFire #Samurajiwierzby #HerHabilineHusband #LightYearsandDark #Przyspieszenie #Niemaszwrogapróczczasu

I’ve read three of these #sciencefiction #books about science fiction - the #PaulLaFarge, #LavieTidhar and #MichaelBishop - and they were all great, but the last one in particular, as it’s about a subject close to my heart; it’s alternate title is #PhilipKDick is Dead, Alas …

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:qs6lqij3alrw4tbhpthicdso/post/3lx4bva7txh2u

I’ve read three of these #sciencefiction #books about science fiction - the #PaulLaFarge, #LavieTidhar and #MichaelBishop - and they were all great, but the last one in particular, as it’s about a subject close to my heart; it’s alternate title is #PhilipKDick is Dead, Alas …

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:qs6lqij3alrw4tbhpthicdso/post/3lx4bva7txh2u

I’ve read three of these #sciencefiction #books about science fiction - the #PaulLaFarge, #LavieTidhar and #MichaelBishop - and they were all great, but the last one in particular, as it’s about a subject close to my heart; it’s alternate title is #PhilipKDick is Dead, Alas …

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:qs6lqij3alrw4tbhpthicdso/post/3lx4bva7txh2u

I’ve read three of these #sciencefiction #books about science fiction - the #PaulLaFarge, #LavieTidhar and #MichaelBishop - and they were all great, but the last one in particular, as it’s about a subject close to my heart; it’s alternate title is #PhilipKDick is Dead, Alas …

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:qs6lqij3alrw4tbhpthicdso/post/3lx4bva7txh2u

1 of 3

More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon, published in 1953, is a classic of science fiction that explores the next step in human evolution

The book revolves around a group of extraordinary individuals with psychic abilities who merge into a single, superior entity called the Gestalt. This idea was ahead of its time, influencing later depictions of telepathy and group consciousness

#Literature
#SciFi
#ScienceFiction
#books
#bookstodon
@scifi
#TheodoreSturgeon
#MichaelBishop

Aktualności:
»Rok temu odszedł Michael Lawson Bishop«

13 listopada 2023 roku w wieku 78 lat zmarł Michael Lawson Bishop, amerykański pisarz science fiction i fantasy.

https://www.fahrenheit.net.pl/aktualnosci/rok-temu-odszedl-michael-lawson-bishop/

#Fahrenheit_zin #pisarz #MichaelLawsonBishop #MichaelBishop #PiñonFall #AFuneralfortheEyesofFire #Samurajiwierzby #HerHabilineHusband #LightYearsandDark #Przyspieszenie #Niemaszwrogapróczczasu

As part of the cost-cutting measures to secure the Season 4 renewal, #SupermanAndLois will lose eight regular cast members -- Dylan Walsh, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Erik Valdez, Inde Navarrette, Wolé Parks, Tayler Buck and Sofia Hasmik -- with the hope that some or all will guest or recur based on availability or interest. #TylerHoechlin, #ElizabethTulloch, #MichaelBishop and #AlexGarfin will naturally return, while #MichaelCudlitz (Lex Luthor) will be promoted to a series regular. #television

As part of the cost-cutting measures to secure the Season 4 renewal, #SupermanAndLois will lose eight regular cast members -- Dylan Walsh, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Erik Valdez, Inde Navarrette, Wolé Parks, Tayler Buck and Sofia Hasmik -- with the hope that some or all will guest or recur based on availability or interest. #TylerHoechlin, #ElizabethTulloch, #MichaelBishop and #AlexGarfin will naturally return, while #MichaelCudlitz (Lex Luthor) will be promoted to a series regular. #television

#TV #SupermanAndLois #MichaelBishop as #JonKent is good recasting. He looks a little more like #AlexanderGarfin than #JordanElsass did and also looks a little beefier than Elsass, more like a #Football player. I liked Elsass's acting, but I respect his decision to leave and work on his #MentalHealth.

#TV #SupermanAndLois #MichaelBishop as #JonKent is good recasting. He looks a little more like #AlexanderGarfin than #JordanElsass did and also looks a little beefier than Elsass, more like a #Football player. I liked Elsass's acting, but I respect his decision to leave and work on his #MentalHealth.

Why was #JonathanKent react for #SupermanandLoisSseason3?

https://screenrant.com/why-jonathan-kent-recast-superman-lois-season-3/

#SupermanAndLois #Arrowverse #JordanElsass #MichaelBishop

Why was #JonathanKent react for #SupermanandLoisSseason3?

https://screenrant.com/why-jonathan-kent-recast-superman-lois-season-3/

#SupermanAndLois #Arrowverse #JordanElsass #MichaelBishop

Guest Post: Catacomb Years, Michael Bishop (1979)

(Ron Walotsky’s cover for the 1979 edition)

The eighth (!) installment in my Michael Bishop Guest post series comes via my longtime fellow SF blogger/friend (well, multiple years) 2theD (twitter:@SFPotPourri) at PotPourri of Science Fiction Literature.  And this is a darn good linked collection of Bishop stories.

I highly recommend you check out 2theD’s blog, follow him on twitter, peruse his large collection of reviews…

All cities are built on voiceless narratives

Collated rating: 5/5

Buying Michael Bishop’s Catacomb Years was a wise investment, albeit an impulse buy at the second-hand bookstore. This is the only Bishop novel, or collection, I own. Originally, it was going to stay stacked in my to-be-read pile for 3-4 years in the future (hey, I have a lot of catching up to do in my library) but the alluring cover proved  too much… that and Joachim Boaz manhandled me from 8,700 miles away into reading it for his collection of guest posts on the work of Michael Bishop.

You’d be a dullard if you weren’t initially struck by either the premise or the cover art: As history barrels forward in a the manner of a drunkard, American cities like Atlanta eventually cap themselves in domes under the idea of Preemptive Isolation, only to suffer the pangs of dying from its onset of birth. Along with the novel A Little Knowledge (1977), pristinely reviewed by Heloise Merlin, these two books complete Bishop’s Urban Nucleus series.

Rear cover synopsis:

“They were the great years. the years after the U.S.A. was dissolved, after he domed cities were sealed, after the aliens from 61 Cygni had arrived… before they had converted to Christianity!

As rich and outrageous as Faulkner crossed with Heinlein, Michael Bishop’s Future History of the Urban Nucleus of Atlanta chronicles a New South of Near-Future people by born-again aliens, jumpsuited glissadors, child-embodied immortals, Mall guys, fall guys and two improbable lovers looking upward toward the stars. Its publication is one of the major SF events of the decade.”

————

Two things strike the reader when they learn that Catacomb Years is a collection of stories about a city under a dome: (1) The Why and (2) The How. As for the history WHY the domes were constructed, the book contains (1) a 5-page dated chronology covering the span of time of the stories and (2) a 4-page “Prelude: The Domes”. As for HOW… well, like I said, you’d be a dolt if you didn’t think seven stories of a domed city would be intriguing… but Bishop doesn’t play his fiddle for dolts; he has smartly written humanistic stories of people in the city rather than of the inner workings of the city-cum-Urban Nucleus called Atlanta, itself.

In writing humanistic stories, Bishop takes the high path and ignores the common narratives of the elite (affluent or influential), the powerful (administrators or politicians) or the controversial (pop stars or prostitutes [same thing, right?]). Ignoring these obvious narratives, Bishop instead hits upon the voiceless narratives of the common man in uncommon events—the muted accounts, the unheard secret history of the Urban Nucleus.

Each of these voiceless narratives has consequential ripples in the remaining stories, much as one rock can produce a lake-wide wave pattern. Though spanning generations, the momentum of the city’s subcutaneous reality-in-the-flesh builds to form its own dome of understanding around the Nucleus. With death, with suffering or with hope for renewal, these panels of the city’s geodesic narrative dome frame the city justly.

So, like Bishop’s exclusion of using the horse and pony show to impress the reader, I’ll just say what’s needed of the passing lives in Atlanta.

————

If a Flower Could Eclipse (1970, novelette) – 4/5 – Isolating himself in the corner of his classroom, the precocious Emory Coleman secretively toils away on his drawings down in black, his favorite color. Observing him through the glass are Fiona Bitler and Dr. Greer, his teacher and the behavioral psychologist, respectively. Considering Emory is the son of the man who assassinated Mz. Bitler’s husband, the situation is odd even before the two disappear together. 29 pages

Here, three individuals struggle to cope with the expectations of their respective role: Emory should be social and obedient yet his nature is reclusive and condescending; Fiona Bitler and Dr. Greer should both be objective in their study of young Emory, but personal needs blur the distinction between professional interests and emotional interests.

Old Folks at Home (1978, novella) – 4/5 – Zoe Breedlove’s own daughter volunteers her for a gerontological study. Though initially dismayed at her unsympathetic attitude toward her own mother, the Geriatric Hostel offers more than Zoe had dared hope. Adopted by, but not yet married into, the Phoenix septigamoklan (an elderly marriage grouping of seven), Zoe spends days and years among her kind in interests, kinship, and love. 49 pages

Unlike an assisted care facility or whatever you want to call a prison for the elderly, the Geriatric Hostel’s program doesn’t simply doll out the meds and swap bedpans every so often. In the septigamoklan, similar to a group of responsible children left on their own, they form a bond amongst themselves and even indulge in eccentricities for the intrinsic need for happiness.

The Window’s in Dante’s Hell (1973, shortstory) – 4/5 – Dead bodies in the urban Nucleus are better left to the unemotional servo-units, in which they simply dispose of the body into the city’s Level 9 recycler. An elderly body’s death stirs up curiosity and morbidity in the city’s Biomonitor Agency, resulting in Ardry and his boss’s son descending the levels to see the dead body. Rather than shock, they experience interest and sadness in the woman’s obsession with an old sci-fi TV series. 17 pages

Ignoring death is to be scared of our shared finality, the one common trait that makes us human: we live, we die. When Ardry and Newlyn come upon the dead woman’s home, the presence of her corpse isn’t as haunting as the elaborate mockup of a starship bridge—an eerie reminder than the death of history walks as a zombie in the minds of others.

The Samurai and the Willows (1976, novella) – 5/5 – Inhabiting Level 9 by trade and inhabiting the same level by choice, Georgia Cawthorn and Simon Fowler, respectively, share a room but not much else: He, a lithe Japanese figure with a fixation on samurai philosophy and bonsai pruning; she, an Amazonian glissaor of crass approach. Their physical proximity develops into a mutual interest and eventual, though slowly evolving, emotional interest of opposites attract. 45 pages

Impassioned by the art of patience and sacrifice, Simon writes of his daily philosophical struggles and toils selflessly with his bonsai trees. Perhaps the extrinsic looks of nobleness endear him to his toiling, but it’s his internal friction which catches him by surprise. When he sacrifices his vanity for a want, his hesitation is a blow to his esteem, so he must sacrifice one last thing.

Allegiances (1975, novella) – 4/5 – Contrary to popular belief under the dome of Atlanta, life still exists and even thrives in the Open. Newlyn Yates, now of the Biomonitor Agency with extended powers, enlists Clio Noble and a Native American, with the alias of Alexander Guest, to emerge from the Nucleus in order to procure two individuals of repute: Emory Coleman and Fiona Bitler. Having been in the open for some thirty years, they have privileged knowledge. 49 pages

Unbeknownst to most in the Urban Nucleus, the world beyond the Dome –itself a shield of ignorance—is fit for life. Once, the expansive roadways of Georgia served automobiles but in the year 2071, these same concrete arteries are chocked with verdant brush—an additional veil of ignorance keeping the domed citizens from knowing the truth about the US, Earth, and aliens.

At the Dixie-Apple with the Shoofly-Pie kid (1977, shortstory) – 5/5 – Julian had always been fascinated by the idea of aliens and so he wrote stories about them. When he learned that they really do exist, he wrote a story based on what he knew of the aliens and the Urban Nucleus: The Dixie-Apple Autumn Savings Sale is a draw enough for most, but the lone alien exhibition causes curiosity to soar, including Cullen, Bayangumay and her kids, one of which is about to run wild through the orderly store. 16 pages

This metafictional morsel allows Bishop to betray his assumed ambition—common man in uncommon events. The Autumn Savings Sale is a significant event for the commoner, but the relevance of the store’s rigid of aisle-passing rules and lax pricing system is insight into the more common inconveniences of Atlanta’s citizens and commentary on our own seasonal shopping habits.

Death Rehearsals (1979, novella) – 5/5 – Julian and his priestess wife live only doors down from the room where two dying aliens lay side-by-side. He is charged with their care—observing the two-year drawn out swansong in their cold tomb-to-be. Meanwhile, a poetic flyer penned by Leland Tanner stirs his soul; he offers the romantic aging man a place in his home and lands him a position at the Geriatric Hostel, where Leland finds work, love and too much truth. 69 pages

Leland Tanner (the same chief scientists from “Old Folks at Home”) is now, himself, an elderly man in need of similar company. To express his sorrow, he illegally prints a sheet of poems and, in doing so, meets the current director of the Geriatric Hostel, who he hopes to woo. Disappointingly, his only recourse for companionship are the dying aliens down the hall. Though he seeks personal closure, a more significant closure looms over all.

Links to previous Michael Bishop Guest Posts [updated]

“Allegiances” (1975) (review by Peter S.)

A Little Knowledge (1977) (review by Heloise at Heloise Merlin’s Weblog)

Blooded on Arachne (1982) (selections) (review by Carl V. Anderson at Stainless Steel Droppings)

Brighten to Incandescence (2003) (review by MPorcius at MPorcius Fiction Log)

Brittle Innings (1994) (review by James Harris at Auxiliary Memory)

Catacomb Years (1979) (review by 2theD at Potpourri of Science Fiction Literature)

“Death and Designation Among the Asadi” (1973) (review by Jesse at Speculiction…)

“In Rubble, Pleading” (1974), “Death and Designation Among the Asadi” (1973), and “The White Otters of Childhood” (1973), (review by Admiral Ironbombs at Battered, Tattered, Yellowed & Creased)

No Enemy But Time (1982) (review by Megan at From Couch to Moon)

“The Quickening” (1981) (review by Max at Pechorin’s Journal)

~

Links to my three previously posted reviews of Bishop’s work

A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire (1975)

And Strange at Ecbatan the Trees (1976)

Stolen Faces (1977)

#1970s #aliens #avantGarde #michaelBishop #sciFi #scienceFiction #shortStories #technology

Guest Post: Catacomb Years, Michael Bishop (1979)

(Ron Walotsky’s cover for the 1979 edition)

The eighth (!) installment in my Michael Bishop Guest post series comes via my longtime fellow SF blogger/friend (well, multiple years) 2theD (twitter:@SFPotPourri) at PotPourri of Science Fiction Literature.  And this is a darn good linked collection of Bishop stories.

I highly recommend you check out 2theD’s blog, follow him on twitter, peruse his large collection of reviews…

All cities are built on voiceless narratives

Collated rating: 5/5

Buying Michael Bishop’s Catacomb Years was a wise investment, albeit an impulse buy at the second-hand bookstore. This is the only Bishop novel, or collection, I own. Originally, it was going to stay stacked in my to-be-read pile for 3-4 years in the future (hey, I have a lot of catching up to do in my library) but the alluring cover proved  too much… that and Joachim Boaz manhandled me from 8,700 miles away into reading it for his collection of guest posts on the work of Michael Bishop.

You’d be a dullard if you weren’t initially struck by either the premise or the cover art: As history barrels forward in a the manner of a drunkard, American cities like Atlanta eventually cap themselves in domes under the idea of Preemptive Isolation, only to suffer the pangs of dying from its onset of birth. Along with the novel A Little Knowledge (1977), pristinely reviewed by Heloise Merlin, these two books complete Bishop’s Urban Nucleus series.

Rear cover synopsis:

“They were the great years. the years after the U.S.A. was dissolved, after he domed cities were sealed, after the aliens from 61 Cygni had arrived… before they had converted to Christianity!

As rich and outrageous as Faulkner crossed with Heinlein, Michael Bishop’s Future History of the Urban Nucleus of Atlanta chronicles a New South of Near-Future people by born-again aliens, jumpsuited glissadors, child-embodied immortals, Mall guys, fall guys and two improbable lovers looking upward toward the stars. Its publication is one of the major SF events of the decade.”

————

Two things strike the reader when they learn that Catacomb Years is a collection of stories about a city under a dome: (1) The Why and (2) The How. As for the history WHY the domes were constructed, the book contains (1) a 5-page dated chronology covering the span of time of the stories and (2) a 4-page “Prelude: The Domes”. As for HOW… well, like I said, you’d be a dolt if you didn’t think seven stories of a domed city would be intriguing… but Bishop doesn’t play his fiddle for dolts; he has smartly written humanistic stories of people in the city rather than of the inner workings of the city-cum-Urban Nucleus called Atlanta, itself.

In writing humanistic stories, Bishop takes the high path and ignores the common narratives of the elite (affluent or influential), the powerful (administrators or politicians) or the controversial (pop stars or prostitutes [same thing, right?]). Ignoring these obvious narratives, Bishop instead hits upon the voiceless narratives of the common man in uncommon events—the muted accounts, the unheard secret history of the Urban Nucleus.

Each of these voiceless narratives has consequential ripples in the remaining stories, much as one rock can produce a lake-wide wave pattern. Though spanning generations, the momentum of the city’s subcutaneous reality-in-the-flesh builds to form its own dome of understanding around the Nucleus. With death, with suffering or with hope for renewal, these panels of the city’s geodesic narrative dome frame the city justly.

So, like Bishop’s exclusion of using the horse and pony show to impress the reader, I’ll just say what’s needed of the passing lives in Atlanta.

————

If a Flower Could Eclipse (1970, novelette) – 4/5 – Isolating himself in the corner of his classroom, the precocious Emory Coleman secretively toils away on his drawings down in black, his favorite color. Observing him through the glass are Fiona Bitler and Dr. Greer, his teacher and the behavioral psychologist, respectively. Considering Emory is the son of the man who assassinated Mz. Bitler’s husband, the situation is odd even before the two disappear together. 29 pages

Here, three individuals struggle to cope with the expectations of their respective role: Emory should be social and obedient yet his nature is reclusive and condescending; Fiona Bitler and Dr. Greer should both be objective in their study of young Emory, but personal needs blur the distinction between professional interests and emotional interests.

Old Folks at Home (1978, novella) – 4/5 – Zoe Breedlove’s own daughter volunteers her for a gerontological study. Though initially dismayed at her unsympathetic attitude toward her own mother, the Geriatric Hostel offers more than Zoe had dared hope. Adopted by, but not yet married into, the Phoenix septigamoklan (an elderly marriage grouping of seven), Zoe spends days and years among her kind in interests, kinship, and love. 49 pages

Unlike an assisted care facility or whatever you want to call a prison for the elderly, the Geriatric Hostel’s program doesn’t simply doll out the meds and swap bedpans every so often. In the septigamoklan, similar to a group of responsible children left on their own, they form a bond amongst themselves and even indulge in eccentricities for the intrinsic need for happiness.

The Window’s in Dante’s Hell (1973, shortstory) – 4/5 – Dead bodies in the urban Nucleus are better left to the unemotional servo-units, in which they simply dispose of the body into the city’s Level 9 recycler. An elderly body’s death stirs up curiosity and morbidity in the city’s Biomonitor Agency, resulting in Ardry and his boss’s son descending the levels to see the dead body. Rather than shock, they experience interest and sadness in the woman’s obsession with an old sci-fi TV series. 17 pages

Ignoring death is to be scared of our shared finality, the one common trait that makes us human: we live, we die. When Ardry and Newlyn come upon the dead woman’s home, the presence of her corpse isn’t as haunting as the elaborate mockup of a starship bridge—an eerie reminder than the death of history walks as a zombie in the minds of others.

The Samurai and the Willows (1976, novella) – 5/5 – Inhabiting Level 9 by trade and inhabiting the same level by choice, Georgia Cawthorn and Simon Fowler, respectively, share a room but not much else: He, a lithe Japanese figure with a fixation on samurai philosophy and bonsai pruning; she, an Amazonian glissaor of crass approach. Their physical proximity develops into a mutual interest and eventual, though slowly evolving, emotional interest of opposites attract. 45 pages

Impassioned by the art of patience and sacrifice, Simon writes of his daily philosophical struggles and toils selflessly with his bonsai trees. Perhaps the extrinsic looks of nobleness endear him to his toiling, but it’s his internal friction which catches him by surprise. When he sacrifices his vanity for a want, his hesitation is a blow to his esteem, so he must sacrifice one last thing.

Allegiances (1975, novella) – 4/5 – Contrary to popular belief under the dome of Atlanta, life still exists and even thrives in the Open. Newlyn Yates, now of the Biomonitor Agency with extended powers, enlists Clio Noble and a Native American, with the alias of Alexander Guest, to emerge from the Nucleus in order to procure two individuals of repute: Emory Coleman and Fiona Bitler. Having been in the open for some thirty years, they have privileged knowledge. 49 pages

Unbeknownst to most in the Urban Nucleus, the world beyond the Dome –itself a shield of ignorance—is fit for life. Once, the expansive roadways of Georgia served automobiles but in the year 2071, these same concrete arteries are chocked with verdant brush—an additional veil of ignorance keeping the domed citizens from knowing the truth about the US, Earth, and aliens.

At the Dixie-Apple with the Shoofly-Pie kid (1977, shortstory) – 5/5 – Julian had always been fascinated by the idea of aliens and so he wrote stories about them. When he learned that they really do exist, he wrote a story based on what he knew of the aliens and the Urban Nucleus: The Dixie-Apple Autumn Savings Sale is a draw enough for most, but the lone alien exhibition causes curiosity to soar, including Cullen, Bayangumay and her kids, one of which is about to run wild through the orderly store. 16 pages

This metafictional morsel allows Bishop to betray his assumed ambition—common man in uncommon events. The Autumn Savings Sale is a significant event for the commoner, but the relevance of the store’s rigid of aisle-passing rules and lax pricing system is insight into the more common inconveniences of Atlanta’s citizens and commentary on our own seasonal shopping habits.

Death Rehearsals (1979, novella) – 5/5 – Julian and his priestess wife live only doors down from the room where two dying aliens lay side-by-side. He is charged with their care—observing the two-year drawn out swansong in their cold tomb-to-be. Meanwhile, a poetic flyer penned by Leland Tanner stirs his soul; he offers the romantic aging man a place in his home and lands him a position at the Geriatric Hostel, where Leland finds work, love and too much truth. 69 pages

Leland Tanner (the same chief scientists from “Old Folks at Home”) is now, himself, an elderly man in need of similar company. To express his sorrow, he illegally prints a sheet of poems and, in doing so, meets the current director of the Geriatric Hostel, who he hopes to woo. Disappointingly, his only recourse for companionship are the dying aliens down the hall. Though he seeks personal closure, a more significant closure looms over all.

Links to previous Michael Bishop Guest Posts [updated]

“Allegiances” (1975) (review by Peter S.)

A Little Knowledge (1977) (review by Heloise at Heloise Merlin’s Weblog)

Blooded on Arachne (1982) (selections) (review by Carl V. Anderson at Stainless Steel Droppings)

Brighten to Incandescence (2003) (review by MPorcius at MPorcius Fiction Log)

Brittle Innings (1994) (review by James Harris at Auxiliary Memory)

Catacomb Years (1979) (review by 2theD at Potpourri of Science Fiction Literature)

“Death and Designation Among the Asadi” (1973) (review by Jesse at Speculiction…)

“In Rubble, Pleading” (1974), “Death and Designation Among the Asadi” (1973), and “The White Otters of Childhood” (1973), (review by Admiral Ironbombs at Battered, Tattered, Yellowed & Creased)

No Enemy But Time (1982) (review by Megan at From Couch to Moon)

“The Quickening” (1981) (review by Max at Pechorin’s Journal)

~

Links to my three previously posted reviews of Bishop’s work

A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire (1975)

And Strange at Ecbatan the Trees (1976)

Stolen Faces (1977)

#1970s #aliens #avantGarde #michaelBishop #sciFi #scienceFiction #shortStories #technology

Guest Post: Catacomb Years, Michael Bishop (1979)

(Ron Walotsky’s cover for the 1979 edition)

The eighth (!) installment in my Michael Bishop Guest post series comes via my longtime fellow SF blogger/friend (well, multiple years) 2theD (twitter:@SFPotPourri) at PotPourri of Science Fiction Literature.  And this is a darn good linked collection of Bishop stories.

I highly recommend you check out 2theD’s blog, follow him on twitter, peruse his large collection of reviews…

All cities are built on voiceless narratives

Collated rating: 5/5

Buying Michael Bishop’s Catacomb Years was a wise investment, albeit an impulse buy at the second-hand bookstore. This is the only Bishop novel, or collection, I own. Originally, it was going to stay stacked in my to-be-read pile for 3-4 years in the future (hey, I have a lot of catching up to do in my library) but the alluring cover proved  too much… that and Joachim Boaz manhandled me from 8,700 miles away into reading it for his collection of guest posts on the work of Michael Bishop.

You’d be a dullard if you weren’t initially struck by either the premise or the cover art: As history barrels forward in a the manner of a drunkard, American cities like Atlanta eventually cap themselves in domes under the idea of Preemptive Isolation, only to suffer the pangs of dying from its onset of birth. Along with the novel A Little Knowledge (1977), pristinely reviewed by Heloise Merlin, these two books complete Bishop’s Urban Nucleus series.

Rear cover synopsis:

“They were the great years. the years after the U.S.A. was dissolved, after he domed cities were sealed, after the aliens from 61 Cygni had arrived… before they had converted to Christianity!

As rich and outrageous as Faulkner crossed with Heinlein, Michael Bishop’s Future History of the Urban Nucleus of Atlanta chronicles a New South of Near-Future people by born-again aliens, jumpsuited glissadors, child-embodied immortals, Mall guys, fall guys and two improbable lovers looking upward toward the stars. Its publication is one of the major SF events of the decade.”

————

Two things strike the reader when they learn that Catacomb Years is a collection of stories about a city under a dome: (1) The Why and (2) The How. As for the history WHY the domes were constructed, the book contains (1) a 5-page dated chronology covering the span of time of the stories and (2) a 4-page “Prelude: The Domes”. As for HOW… well, like I said, you’d be a dolt if you didn’t think seven stories of a domed city would be intriguing… but Bishop doesn’t play his fiddle for dolts; he has smartly written humanistic stories of people in the city rather than of the inner workings of the city-cum-Urban Nucleus called Atlanta, itself.

In writing humanistic stories, Bishop takes the high path and ignores the common narratives of the elite (affluent or influential), the powerful (administrators or politicians) or the controversial (pop stars or prostitutes [same thing, right?]). Ignoring these obvious narratives, Bishop instead hits upon the voiceless narratives of the common man in uncommon events—the muted accounts, the unheard secret history of the Urban Nucleus.

Each of these voiceless narratives has consequential ripples in the remaining stories, much as one rock can produce a lake-wide wave pattern. Though spanning generations, the momentum of the city’s subcutaneous reality-in-the-flesh builds to form its own dome of understanding around the Nucleus. With death, with suffering or with hope for renewal, these panels of the city’s geodesic narrative dome frame the city justly.

So, like Bishop’s exclusion of using the horse and pony show to impress the reader, I’ll just say what’s needed of the passing lives in Atlanta.

————

If a Flower Could Eclipse (1970, novelette) – 4/5 – Isolating himself in the corner of his classroom, the precocious Emory Coleman secretively toils away on his drawings down in black, his favorite color. Observing him through the glass are Fiona Bitler and Dr. Greer, his teacher and the behavioral psychologist, respectively. Considering Emory is the son of the man who assassinated Mz. Bitler’s husband, the situation is odd even before the two disappear together. 29 pages

Here, three individuals struggle to cope with the expectations of their respective role: Emory should be social and obedient yet his nature is reclusive and condescending; Fiona Bitler and Dr. Greer should both be objective in their study of young Emory, but personal needs blur the distinction between professional interests and emotional interests.

Old Folks at Home (1978, novella) – 4/5 – Zoe Breedlove’s own daughter volunteers her for a gerontological study. Though initially dismayed at her unsympathetic attitude toward her own mother, the Geriatric Hostel offers more than Zoe had dared hope. Adopted by, but not yet married into, the Phoenix septigamoklan (an elderly marriage grouping of seven), Zoe spends days and years among her kind in interests, kinship, and love. 49 pages

Unlike an assisted care facility or whatever you want to call a prison for the elderly, the Geriatric Hostel’s program doesn’t simply doll out the meds and swap bedpans every so often. In the septigamoklan, similar to a group of responsible children left on their own, they form a bond amongst themselves and even indulge in eccentricities for the intrinsic need for happiness.

The Window’s in Dante’s Hell (1973, shortstory) – 4/5 – Dead bodies in the urban Nucleus are better left to the unemotional servo-units, in which they simply dispose of the body into the city’s Level 9 recycler. An elderly body’s death stirs up curiosity and morbidity in the city’s Biomonitor Agency, resulting in Ardry and his boss’s son descending the levels to see the dead body. Rather than shock, they experience interest and sadness in the woman’s obsession with an old sci-fi TV series. 17 pages

Ignoring death is to be scared of our shared finality, the one common trait that makes us human: we live, we die. When Ardry and Newlyn come upon the dead woman’s home, the presence of her corpse isn’t as haunting as the elaborate mockup of a starship bridge—an eerie reminder than the death of history walks as a zombie in the minds of others.

The Samurai and the Willows (1976, novella) – 5/5 – Inhabiting Level 9 by trade and inhabiting the same level by choice, Georgia Cawthorn and Simon Fowler, respectively, share a room but not much else: He, a lithe Japanese figure with a fixation on samurai philosophy and bonsai pruning; she, an Amazonian glissaor of crass approach. Their physical proximity develops into a mutual interest and eventual, though slowly evolving, emotional interest of opposites attract. 45 pages

Impassioned by the art of patience and sacrifice, Simon writes of his daily philosophical struggles and toils selflessly with his bonsai trees. Perhaps the extrinsic looks of nobleness endear him to his toiling, but it’s his internal friction which catches him by surprise. When he sacrifices his vanity for a want, his hesitation is a blow to his esteem, so he must sacrifice one last thing.

Allegiances (1975, novella) – 4/5 – Contrary to popular belief under the dome of Atlanta, life still exists and even thrives in the Open. Newlyn Yates, now of the Biomonitor Agency with extended powers, enlists Clio Noble and a Native American, with the alias of Alexander Guest, to emerge from the Nucleus in order to procure two individuals of repute: Emory Coleman and Fiona Bitler. Having been in the open for some thirty years, they have privileged knowledge. 49 pages

Unbeknownst to most in the Urban Nucleus, the world beyond the Dome –itself a shield of ignorance—is fit for life. Once, the expansive roadways of Georgia served automobiles but in the year 2071, these same concrete arteries are chocked with verdant brush—an additional veil of ignorance keeping the domed citizens from knowing the truth about the US, Earth, and aliens.

At the Dixie-Apple with the Shoofly-Pie kid (1977, shortstory) – 5/5 – Julian had always been fascinated by the idea of aliens and so he wrote stories about them. When he learned that they really do exist, he wrote a story based on what he knew of the aliens and the Urban Nucleus: The Dixie-Apple Autumn Savings Sale is a draw enough for most, but the lone alien exhibition causes curiosity to soar, including Cullen, Bayangumay and her kids, one of which is about to run wild through the orderly store. 16 pages

This metafictional morsel allows Bishop to betray his assumed ambition—common man in uncommon events. The Autumn Savings Sale is a significant event for the commoner, but the relevance of the store’s rigid of aisle-passing rules and lax pricing system is insight into the more common inconveniences of Atlanta’s citizens and commentary on our own seasonal shopping habits.

Death Rehearsals (1979, novella) – 5/5 – Julian and his priestess wife live only doors down from the room where two dying aliens lay side-by-side. He is charged with their care—observing the two-year drawn out swansong in their cold tomb-to-be. Meanwhile, a poetic flyer penned by Leland Tanner stirs his soul; he offers the romantic aging man a place in his home and lands him a position at the Geriatric Hostel, where Leland finds work, love and too much truth. 69 pages

Leland Tanner (the same chief scientists from “Old Folks at Home”) is now, himself, an elderly man in need of similar company. To express his sorrow, he illegally prints a sheet of poems and, in doing so, meets the current director of the Geriatric Hostel, who he hopes to woo. Disappointingly, his only recourse for companionship are the dying aliens down the hall. Though he seeks personal closure, a more significant closure looms over all.

Links to previous Michael Bishop Guest Posts [updated]

“Allegiances” (1975) (review by Peter S.)

A Little Knowledge (1977) (review by Heloise at Heloise Merlin’s Weblog)

Blooded on Arachne (1982) (selections) (review by Carl V. Anderson at Stainless Steel Droppings)

Brighten to Incandescence (2003) (review by MPorcius at MPorcius Fiction Log)

Brittle Innings (1994) (review by James Harris at Auxiliary Memory)

Catacomb Years (1979) (review by 2theD at Potpourri of Science Fiction Literature)

“Death and Designation Among the Asadi” (1973) (review by Jesse at Speculiction…)

“In Rubble, Pleading” (1974), “Death and Designation Among the Asadi” (1973), and “The White Otters of Childhood” (1973), (review by Admiral Ironbombs at Battered, Tattered, Yellowed & Creased)

No Enemy But Time (1982) (review by Megan at From Couch to Moon)

“The Quickening” (1981) (review by Max at Pechorin’s Journal)

~

Links to my three previously posted reviews of Bishop’s work

A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire (1975)

And Strange at Ecbatan the Trees (1976)

Stolen Faces (1977)

#1970s #aliens #avantGarde #michaelBishop #sciFi #scienceFiction #shortStories #technology

Guest Post: Catacomb Years, Michael Bishop (1979)

(Ron Walotsky’s cover for the 1979 edition)

The eighth (!) installment in my Michael Bishop Guest post series comes via my longtime fellow SF blogger/friend (well, multiple years) 2theD (twitter:@SFPotPourri) at PotPourri of Science Fiction Literature.  And this is a darn good linked collection of Bishop stories.

I highly recommend you check out 2theD’s blog, follow him on twitter, peruse his large collection of reviews…

All cities are built on voiceless narratives

Collated rating: 5/5

Buying Michael Bishop’s Catacomb Years was a wise investment, albeit an impulse buy at the second-hand bookstore. This is the only Bishop novel, or collection, I own. Originally, it was going to stay stacked in my to-be-read pile for 3-4 years in the future (hey, I have a lot of catching up to do in my library) but the alluring cover proved  too much… that and Joachim Boaz manhandled me from 8,700 miles away into reading it for his collection of guest posts on the work of Michael Bishop.

You’d be a dullard if you weren’t initially struck by either the premise or the cover art: As history barrels forward in a the manner of a drunkard, American cities like Atlanta eventually cap themselves in domes under the idea of Preemptive Isolation, only to suffer the pangs of dying from its onset of birth. Along with the novel A Little Knowledge (1977), pristinely reviewed by Heloise Merlin, these two books complete Bishop’s Urban Nucleus series.

Rear cover synopsis:

“They were the great years. the years after the U.S.A. was dissolved, after he domed cities were sealed, after the aliens from 61 Cygni had arrived… before they had converted to Christianity!

As rich and outrageous as Faulkner crossed with Heinlein, Michael Bishop’s Future History of the Urban Nucleus of Atlanta chronicles a New South of Near-Future people by born-again aliens, jumpsuited glissadors, child-embodied immortals, Mall guys, fall guys and two improbable lovers looking upward toward the stars. Its publication is one of the major SF events of the decade.”

————

Two things strike the reader when they learn that Catacomb Years is a collection of stories about a city under a dome: (1) The Why and (2) The How. As for the history WHY the domes were constructed, the book contains (1) a 5-page dated chronology covering the span of time of the stories and (2) a 4-page “Prelude: The Domes”. As for HOW… well, like I said, you’d be a dolt if you didn’t think seven stories of a domed city would be intriguing… but Bishop doesn’t play his fiddle for dolts; he has smartly written humanistic stories of people in the city rather than of the inner workings of the city-cum-Urban Nucleus called Atlanta, itself.

In writing humanistic stories, Bishop takes the high path and ignores the common narratives of the elite (affluent or influential), the powerful (administrators or politicians) or the controversial (pop stars or prostitutes [same thing, right?]). Ignoring these obvious narratives, Bishop instead hits upon the voiceless narratives of the common man in uncommon events—the muted accounts, the unheard secret history of the Urban Nucleus.

Each of these voiceless narratives has consequential ripples in the remaining stories, much as one rock can produce a lake-wide wave pattern. Though spanning generations, the momentum of the city’s subcutaneous reality-in-the-flesh builds to form its own dome of understanding around the Nucleus. With death, with suffering or with hope for renewal, these panels of the city’s geodesic narrative dome frame the city justly.

So, like Bishop’s exclusion of using the horse and pony show to impress the reader, I’ll just say what’s needed of the passing lives in Atlanta.

————

If a Flower Could Eclipse (1970, novelette) – 4/5 – Isolating himself in the corner of his classroom, the precocious Emory Coleman secretively toils away on his drawings down in black, his favorite color. Observing him through the glass are Fiona Bitler and Dr. Greer, his teacher and the behavioral psychologist, respectively. Considering Emory is the son of the man who assassinated Mz. Bitler’s husband, the situation is odd even before the two disappear together. 29 pages

Here, three individuals struggle to cope with the expectations of their respective role: Emory should be social and obedient yet his nature is reclusive and condescending; Fiona Bitler and Dr. Greer should both be objective in their study of young Emory, but personal needs blur the distinction between professional interests and emotional interests.

Old Folks at Home (1978, novella) – 4/5 – Zoe Breedlove’s own daughter volunteers her for a gerontological study. Though initially dismayed at her unsympathetic attitude toward her own mother, the Geriatric Hostel offers more than Zoe had dared hope. Adopted by, but not yet married into, the Phoenix septigamoklan (an elderly marriage grouping of seven), Zoe spends days and years among her kind in interests, kinship, and love. 49 pages

Unlike an assisted care facility or whatever you want to call a prison for the elderly, the Geriatric Hostel’s program doesn’t simply doll out the meds and swap bedpans every so often. In the septigamoklan, similar to a group of responsible children left on their own, they form a bond amongst themselves and even indulge in eccentricities for the intrinsic need for happiness.

The Window’s in Dante’s Hell (1973, shortstory) – 4/5 – Dead bodies in the urban Nucleus are better left to the unemotional servo-units, in which they simply dispose of the body into the city’s Level 9 recycler. An elderly body’s death stirs up curiosity and morbidity in the city’s Biomonitor Agency, resulting in Ardry and his boss’s son descending the levels to see the dead body. Rather than shock, they experience interest and sadness in the woman’s obsession with an old sci-fi TV series. 17 pages

Ignoring death is to be scared of our shared finality, the one common trait that makes us human: we live, we die. When Ardry and Newlyn come upon the dead woman’s home, the presence of her corpse isn’t as haunting as the elaborate mockup of a starship bridge—an eerie reminder than the death of history walks as a zombie in the minds of others.

The Samurai and the Willows (1976, novella) – 5/5 – Inhabiting Level 9 by trade and inhabiting the same level by choice, Georgia Cawthorn and Simon Fowler, respectively, share a room but not much else: He, a lithe Japanese figure with a fixation on samurai philosophy and bonsai pruning; she, an Amazonian glissaor of crass approach. Their physical proximity develops into a mutual interest and eventual, though slowly evolving, emotional interest of opposites attract. 45 pages

Impassioned by the art of patience and sacrifice, Simon writes of his daily philosophical struggles and toils selflessly with his bonsai trees. Perhaps the extrinsic looks of nobleness endear him to his toiling, but it’s his internal friction which catches him by surprise. When he sacrifices his vanity for a want, his hesitation is a blow to his esteem, so he must sacrifice one last thing.

Allegiances (1975, novella) – 4/5 – Contrary to popular belief under the dome of Atlanta, life still exists and even thrives in the Open. Newlyn Yates, now of the Biomonitor Agency with extended powers, enlists Clio Noble and a Native American, with the alias of Alexander Guest, to emerge from the Nucleus in order to procure two individuals of repute: Emory Coleman and Fiona Bitler. Having been in the open for some thirty years, they have privileged knowledge. 49 pages

Unbeknownst to most in the Urban Nucleus, the world beyond the Dome –itself a shield of ignorance—is fit for life. Once, the expansive roadways of Georgia served automobiles but in the year 2071, these same concrete arteries are chocked with verdant brush—an additional veil of ignorance keeping the domed citizens from knowing the truth about the US, Earth, and aliens.

At the Dixie-Apple with the Shoofly-Pie kid (1977, shortstory) – 5/5 – Julian had always been fascinated by the idea of aliens and so he wrote stories about them. When he learned that they really do exist, he wrote a story based on what he knew of the aliens and the Urban Nucleus: The Dixie-Apple Autumn Savings Sale is a draw enough for most, but the lone alien exhibition causes curiosity to soar, including Cullen, Bayangumay and her kids, one of which is about to run wild through the orderly store. 16 pages

This metafictional morsel allows Bishop to betray his assumed ambition—common man in uncommon events. The Autumn Savings Sale is a significant event for the commoner, but the relevance of the store’s rigid of aisle-passing rules and lax pricing system is insight into the more common inconveniences of Atlanta’s citizens and commentary on our own seasonal shopping habits.

Death Rehearsals (1979, novella) – 5/5 – Julian and his priestess wife live only doors down from the room where two dying aliens lay side-by-side. He is charged with their care—observing the two-year drawn out swansong in their cold tomb-to-be. Meanwhile, a poetic flyer penned by Leland Tanner stirs his soul; he offers the romantic aging man a place in his home and lands him a position at the Geriatric Hostel, where Leland finds work, love and too much truth. 69 pages

Leland Tanner (the same chief scientists from “Old Folks at Home”) is now, himself, an elderly man in need of similar company. To express his sorrow, he illegally prints a sheet of poems and, in doing so, meets the current director of the Geriatric Hostel, who he hopes to woo. Disappointingly, his only recourse for companionship are the dying aliens down the hall. Though he seeks personal closure, a more significant closure looms over all.

Links to previous Michael Bishop Guest Posts [updated]

“Allegiances” (1975) (review by Peter S.)

A Little Knowledge (1977) (review by Heloise at Heloise Merlin’s Weblog)

Blooded on Arachne (1982) (selections) (review by Carl V. Anderson at Stainless Steel Droppings)

Brighten to Incandescence (2003) (review by MPorcius at MPorcius Fiction Log)

Brittle Innings (1994) (review by James Harris at Auxiliary Memory)

Catacomb Years (1979) (review by 2theD at Potpourri of Science Fiction Literature)

“Death and Designation Among the Asadi” (1973) (review by Jesse at Speculiction…)

“In Rubble, Pleading” (1974), “Death and Designation Among the Asadi” (1973), and “The White Otters of Childhood” (1973), (review by Admiral Ironbombs at Battered, Tattered, Yellowed & Creased)

No Enemy But Time (1982) (review by Megan at From Couch to Moon)

“The Quickening” (1981) (review by Max at Pechorin’s Journal)

~

Links to my three previously posted reviews of Bishop’s work

A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire (1975)

And Strange at Ecbatan the Trees (1976)

Stolen Faces (1977)

#1970s #aliens #avantGarde #michaelBishop #sciFi #scienceFiction #shortStories #technology

Guest Post: A Little Knowledge, Michael Bishop (1977)

(Dean Ellis’ cover for the 1978 edition)

The sixth installment of my The Science Fiction of Michael Bishop guest post series was graciously provided by Heloise over at Heloise Merlin’s Weblog.  She is a long time fan of Michael Bishop’s work and we have engaged in numerous (fruitful) discussions of his work—including whether or not the first version of A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire (1975) is superior to his complete rewrite Eyes of Fire (1980).

Heloise purposefully chose one of Bishop’s lesser known novels.  But, from the review, A Little Knowledge (1977) has been wrongly ignored: “even though [A Little Knowledge] never leaves this single place on Earth, in the end Bishop’s novel manages to give more of a sense of what it means for humans to live in a vast, largely unexplored universe than most novels that are filled with large spaceships and far-future technologies.”

I plan acquiring a copy ASAP.

Visit Heloise’s site! Enjoy!  Comment!

A Little Knowledge (1977)—Michael Bishop

Michael Bishop’s Urban Nucleus sequence (consisting of the novel A Little Knowledge and the stories collected in Catacomb Years) is unusual among his early works in that it is not an anthropological Science Fiction novel; unlike books like A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire or And Strange at Ecteban the Trees, while reading A Little Knowledge, one is not so much reminded of Ursula K. LeGuin but it rather seems influenced by Philip K. Dick – and not by his largely consensual novels like Ubik or The Man in the High Castle, but his later work, most notably the VALIS trilogy, which still often gets written off as a mere product of mental illness.

Of course, Bishop being Bishop, what he offers here is his own, very unique take on Dick’s work, and what it resulted in might not be his best novel, but it is in all likelihood his most unsettling. A Little Knowledge seems almost like a deliberate total reversal of the Space Opera paradigm – instead of the broad sweep into outer space, there is an extremely narrow focus, all of the novel’s events take place in a single North-American city. And yet, even though it never leaves this single place on Earth, in the end Bishop’s novel manages to give more of a sense of what it means for humans to live in a vast, largely unexplored universe than most novels that are filled with large spaceships and far-future technologies.

(Karel Thole’s cover for the 1980 German Edition)

A Little Knowledge takes place in Atlanta in the year 2071, an Atlanta that – like most large cities in the former US – has been placed underneath a dome and is ruled by a theocracy. It mainly follows the points of view of two young people (although there are chapters written from other characters’ perspectives, too), aspiring writer Julian Cawthon and Margot Eastwing who is studying to be a priest. The plot gets under way when Julian is forced to take a job and ends up working as caretaker for a group of aliens that are living with the influential Fiona Bitler. Things are already pretty weird at this stage – Fiona is the widow of a popular politician who was assassinated, who took on the assassin’s son as her own son and later as her lover and husband; the aliens not only look very bizarre and communicate in strange ways but also have some very unusual eating habits – which lead to Julian prowling the city streets for stray cats at night. But they get even weirder when one of the aliens asks to be allowed to attend a church service during which he converts to Atlanta’s official religion.

There are quite a few books that concern themselves with religion from SFnal point of view – Bishop even has one of his characters openly reference two of them, Blish’s A Case of Conscienceand Miller’s Canticles for Leibowitz, if anyone is curious; other ones that would come to mind are Keith Robert’s Pavane or Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow. What all of these books share, however, is that they are written from an auctorial point of view that is either distinctly pro- or unmistakably anti-religious. Things are rather more complicated with A Little Knowledge: on the one hand, the novel is a serious exploration of the question where aliens would fit into a monotheistic religion (and every reader not believing in God will have to deal with that), on the other hand, the religion Bishop presents here – the “Ortho-Urban Church” – while clearly a Christian religion, is just as clearly maintaining a religious dictatorship (something every readerbelieving in God will have to deal with). This is no anti-ecclesiastical novel either – the church’s theocracy is a surprisingly mild, almost benign one, it even allows competing religious belief. But it is a dictatorship none the less, the only other religions allowed are the two sanctioned by the official church, and events in the novel progress and spin increasingly out of control the velvet glove becomes increasingly threadbare, showing the iron fist inside. Even then, however, Bishop still portrays the leaders of the church as basically well-meaning. The human is inextricably tangled with the divine, and that may be humanity’s flaw, or its salvation – the jury remains still out on that one.

(K. G. Yanase’s cover for the 1987 Japanese Edition)

A Little Knowledge does have some weaknesses – it attempts to be both a character study and a novel of ideas, and does not always manage to reconcile the two; while the main protagonists’ self-doubts and soul-searching are well done, the minor characters never get really fleshed out enough to interest the reader, and events often seem staged rather than grow out of the characters (most notably the relationship between Margot and Julian). It is also a novel that not many are going to like – it seems determined to offend pretty much everyone, believers and non-believers, Christians and non-Christians alike, and I doubt that anyone can read the revelation at the ending without having a “Is he fucking kidding me?” moment. This, however, I consider not a weakness of A Little Knowledge but its greatest strength – like all of Bishop’s novels that I have read so far, it asks pertinent question without giving easy answers, and more than anything else by him that I’m familiar with, this novel asks its readers to question their pre-conceived ideas, to re-examine the topics it engages with and possibly view them in a different light after closing the book. And when everything is said and done, I think it is precisely this what Science Fiction at its best is all about.

Links to previous Michael Bishop Guest Posts [updated]

“Allegiances” (1975) (review by Peter S.)

A Little Knowledge (1977) (review by Heloise at Heloise Merlin’s Weblog)

Blooded on Arachne (1982) (selections) (review by Carl V. Anderson at Stainless Steel Droppings)

Brighten to Incandescence (2003) (review by MPorcius at MPorcius Fiction Log)

Brittle Innings (1994) (review by James Harris at Auxiliary Memory)

Catacomb Years (1979) (review by 2theD at Potpourri of Science Fiction Literature)

“Death and Designation Among the Asadi” (1973) (review by Jesse at Speculiction…)

“In Rubble, Pleading” (1974), “Death and Designation Among the Asadi” (1973), and “The White Otters of Childhood” (1973), (review by Admiral Ironbombs at Battered, Tattered, Yellowed & Creased)

No Enemy But Time (1982) (review by Megan at From Couch to Moon)

“The Quickening” (1981) (review by Max at Pechorin’s Journal)

~

Links to my three previously posted reviews of Bishop’s work

A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire (1975)

And Strange at Ecbatan the Trees (1976)

Stolen Faces (1977)

#1970s #aliens #avantGarde #michaelBishop #philipKDick #sciFi #scienceFiction #spaceships #technology

Guest Post: Brighten to Incandescence (selections), Michael Bishop (2003)

(Jamie Bishop’s cover for the 2003 edition)

The fourth installment of my The Science Fiction of Michael Bishop guest post series was written by MPorcius (twitter: @hankbukowsi) at MPorcius Fiction Log—a valued and longtime commentator on my site.  I have procured quite a few books due to his quality reviews which I highly recommend perusing.  Check out his site (especially if you like classic SF)!

Over the course of this series we moved from Michael Bishop’s most well known novella (“Death and Designation Among the Asadi“) to his novels (Brittle Innings, No Enemy but Time) and now to an intriguing collection of lesser known short SF and non-genre stories.

MPorcius decided to only focus on the SF in Brighten to Incandescence but points out that all the stories in the collection are worth reading!

Enjoy!

~~~

Brighten to Incandescence (2003) — Michael Bishop

Brighten to Incandescence, published by Golden Gryphon Press in 2003, is Michael Bishop’s seventh collection of stories. In the final chapter of the book, a series of notes on the stories, Bishop explains that he and the people at Golden Gryphon initially were thinking of putting out a Best Of volume, then decided to publish a collection of previously uncollected pieces instead. What we have in Brighten to Incandescence, then, are 17 stories, many of which were passed over for inclusion in previous collections for years or even decades; these stories probably do not represent Bishop’s best or most salable work.

Happily, the stories are all worth reading; Bishop is a good writer and takes the job of writing seriously, and revised several of the stories before they were published in this book.

Bishop has a wide range of interests and has worked in many genres, and is willing to collaborate with other authors and take on the challenge of writing stories around ideas commissioned by others. The stories in Brighten to Incandescence reflect this diversity. We’ve got mysteries (“’We’re All in this Alone’” and “Murder on Lupozny Station,”) we’ve got horror (“A Tapestry of Little Murders” and “Thirteen Lies about Hummingbirds”) and stories about religion (“Sequel on Skorpios,” “Simply Indispensable” and “The Procedure.”) There are stories inspired by pop culture figures like Mary Shelly, the Beatles, and Rondo Hatton, stories in which Bishop tries to write in the voices of these real-life individuals. And there are stories based on Cold War conflicts (“With A Little Help From her Friends” and “The Tigers of Hysteria Feed Only on Themselves”) and the 2001 terrorist attacks (“Last Night Out.”)

I read all 17 stories, and my favorites are probably the brief “Sequel on Skorpios,” and “A Tapestry of Little Murders,” which pack a lot of interesting images and powerful emotions into a small number of words. The stories I liked least, “Last Night Out” and “O Happy Day,” are well-written, but don’t seem to go anywhere; they were not bad enough to merit a thumbs down, but felt unfinished, shallow, or like experiments which didn’t quite pan out.

For Joachim’s special feature on Michael Bishop I decided to talk about three of the more “sciencefictiony” stories, “Murder on Lupozny Station,” “O Happy Day” and “Herding with the Hadrosaurs.” These stories are also linked by the fact that they address the theme of human evil by contrasting humanity with other, more-or-less fictional, species. I think they also give an idea of the range of Bishop’s work.

(I have notes about the other 14 tales which I will post periodically on my own blog, I expect over the course of a few months.)

“Murder on Lupozny Station” (with Gerald W. Page) (1981)

I’ve never read anything by Page before… I admit it, I’ve never heard of Page before.   But there is a first time for everything. It appears that Page started the story, and, when stuck, sent it to Bishop to revise and finish.

This story is full of traditional SF and mystery trappings. There’s a space station in a solar system with no planets, just mineral rich asteroids; the station is the base of asteroid miners. Just before a starship arrives, the commander of the station is found murdered! The acting commander of the station asks the captain of the starship to help confirm the results of his investigation, so the captain sends over her astrogation team. The team consists of a human and an alien who have a quasi-telepathic link; such teams are required to navigate in hyperspace. There’s a lot of business you always find in mysteries, like interviewing suspects, checking the murder weapon for fingerprints, considering motives (the late station commander raped the computer officer, who is married to the astronomer) etc. One of the clues is so typical that I vaguely recall it being the subject of a skit on Saturday Night Live decades ago: a telescope is found by the dead hand of the station commander, an apparent indication that the astronomer was the killer.

The story also addresses gender and sex issues: few people in this future get married, and the station commander, even though he raped a woman, was a homosexual (in the future of this story they don’t say “homosexual” or “gay,” but “isoclinic.”) Bishop’s love of baseball and interest in religion also surface. Finally, the story is a criticism of human depravity: the alien in the story is from a race of people who never commit murder, in fact find murder incomprehensible, and they stand as a rebuke of mankind. Even the baseball game shown on a TV screen degenerates into violence when the fans rush the field.

This story was pretty good, a little above average. I’m a fan of all that traditional SF stuff, aliens and hyperspace and space suits and airlocks, so it was fun to see all of it, and even if I find most of the detective stuff (like hunting for clues and badgering witnesses and suspects) boring, the emotional and human elements of the crime interested me.

“O Happy Day” (1981)

This is perhaps the worst story in the collection; Bishop pulls the old switcheroo on us, showing us a middle class family in a world where rats are intelligent and tiny little humans live a precarious existence in their walls. The rat father and family sit in their apartment and watch a TV documentary about how a cold war enemy nation of rats is oppressing some primitive rats, the son has a pet human in a cage as a science experiment for school, and so on. In his notes on the story Bishop tells us that Omni rejected the story for being a one-note gimmick, and it was published in a short-lived periodical, Rigel Science Fiction. Bishop decided to include it in Brighten to Incandescence because he is “irrationally fond” of it.

There’s really not much plot or character or even satire to “O Happy Day”; the writing style is good and the setting and idea are fine, but it feels like Bishop just didn’t do anything with his setting or idea.

“Herding with the Hadrosaurs” (1992)

In Dreams Our Stuff is Made Of, Thomas Disch asserts that the dinosaur is like the rocket ship, one of the icons or “mythological figures” of science fiction. Not only is the dinosaur a monster, but it is a reminder of evolution and the “hard” facts-based science that was so central to early SF. SF is full of dinosaurs; many, maybe most, SF readers and writers love dinosaurs, and “Herding with the Hadrosaurs” is Bishop’s contribution to this tradition, appearing first in an anthology of dinosaur stories edited by Byron Preiss and Robert Silverberg.

“Herding with the Hadrosaurs” is a little on the jocular side in style, but describes horrible tragedies. Somehow an asteroid strike and earthquakes cause a cataclysm on 22nd century Earth. The western half of North America suddenly reverts to how it was in the Late Cretaceous, the people and buildings have vanished, replaced by herds of dinosaurs and a sky full of pterosaurs. The cataclysm also ruined the cities and suburbs of the East Coast, and so there are people willing to travel to the virgin lands of the dinosaur-infested West to start up farming, hunting, and trapping. Our narrator is among these homesteaders; at the age of 16, along with his little brother and his parents, he travels west. Unfortunately, Dad is a cheapass, and the second-hand dinosaur repellent he bought fails, so in short order Mom and Dad are eaten by tyrannosaurs.

The boys survive by tagging along with a herd of duckbilled dinosaurs. Reminiscent of the way in “Murder on Lupozny Station” that the aliens were more decent than the humans, and the switcheroo gimmick in “O Happy Day,” the dinosaurs keep the boys safe, while the humans the boys meet inflict on them atrocities of the kind found in James Dickey’s Deliverance.

This is one of the better stories in the collection, effective as an adventure and as a tragedy. The tone is a little discordant; I’m not sure if this undercuts or accentuates the tragic nature of the plot.

*************

Covering a wide variety of topics, genres, and tones, Brighten to Incandescence is a collection worth the attention of speculative fiction fans, and those who have enjoyed Bishop’s other work will certainly find it rewarding

~

Links to previous Michael Bishop Guest Posts [updated]

“Allegiances” (1975) (review by Peter S.)

A Little Knowledge (1977) (review by Heloise at Heloise Merlin’s Weblog)

Blooded on Arachne (1982) (selections) (review by Carl V. Anderson at Stainless Steel Droppings)

Brighten to Incandescence (2003) (review by MPorcius at MPorcius Fiction Log)

Brittle Innings (1994) (review by James Harris at Auxiliary Memory)

Catacomb Years (1979) (review by 2theD at Potpourri of Science Fiction Literature)

“Death and Designation Among the Asadi” (1973) (review by Jesse at Speculiction…)

“In Rubble, Pleading” (1974), “Death and Designation Among the Asadi” (1973), and “The White Otters of Childhood” (1973), (review by Admiral Ironbombs at Battered, Tattered, Yellowed & Creased)

No Enemy But Time (1982) (review by Megan at From Couch to Moon)

“The Quickening” (1981) (review by Max at Pechorin’s Journal)

~

Links to my three previously posted reviews of Bishop’s work

A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire (1975)

And Strange at Ecbatan the Trees (1976)

Stolen Faces (1977)

#1980s #1990s #2000s #aliens #bookReviews2 #michaelBishop #sciFi #scienceFiction #shortStories #technology

Guest Post: No Enemy But Time, Michael Bishop (1982)

(Vincent Di Fate’s cover for the 1983 edition)

The third installment of my Guest Post Series on Michael Bishop’s SF was written by Megan (twitter: @couchtomoon) over at the relatively new but completely worthwhile SF review site From Couch to the Moon.  She’s already put together a substantial list of delightful reviews.  Megan selected Bishop’s single most famous and Nebula award-winning novel, No Enemy But Time (1982)—and sadly, one of few books of his still in print.  Along with Transfigurations (1979), it was republished and selected for the Gollancz Masterwork [list].

No Enemy But Time (1982) — Michael Bishop

Coming out of Bishop’s 1982 Nebula award winning novel, No Enemy But Time, is like coming out of a time travel trance: the experience is jarring, hazy, and unwelcome. Bishop sweeps the reader into his world—humanity’s distant past—and paints a primitive African landscape dappled with hippos, hyenas, and volcanoes, but lush with the human experience. It’s a world where our ancestors, two million years removed, wear more flesh and charisma than our contemporaries. The reader befriends these charming hominids, shares in their struggles and triumphs, exalts in their communal efforts, only to be yanked back to the present where individuals misinterpret, neglect, and manipulate one another.

“All I am is a set of eyes, and the people I’m watching—they’re almost like people, but different, too—they can’t see me. They’re very hairy, but naked just under their hair” (Loc. 2568, Ch. 19).

(Uncredited cover for the 1983 Sphere edition)

Since infancy, Johnny Monegal has dreamed about the prehistoric past, a phenomenon he calls “spirit-traveling.” His dreams always lead him to the same time and place, Pleistocene era Africa, inspiring his curiosity about primitive humanity and influencing his informal expertise in paleoanthropology. But Johnny knows more about humanity’s past than he does his own, a black baby abandoned by a mute Spanish prostitute, and he later deserts his adoptive family, changes his name to Joshua Kampa, and flutters around Florida until a chance meeting with eminent paleoanthropologist Alistair Patrick Blair. Blair, and temporal physicist Woodrow Kaprow (Bishop has a thing for rhyming names), bring him to the African country of Zarakal, where he will test the technology that will unlock the past and allow his body to join him on his spirit travels.

Bishop’s love for the past is reflected in the romance between Joshua and Helen, a Homo habilis female who Joshua meets during his visit to the past. Helen is the member of a small troupe of habilines who grudgingly adopt Joshua as their resident outcast. Helen, a barren female of unusual height and with humanlike characteristics, shares Joshua’s outsider role, and they eventually mate and bond. Some readers may be disgusted by this pairing, and Bishop acknowledges this when Joshua states, “an old country boy like our Wyoming landlord Pete Grier would have seen more poetry in a farm boy’s hasty violation of an indifferent heifer than in my adult attraction to the willing Helen Habiline” (Loc. 2119, Ch. 16). But Helen, despite her hairy façade, is not an ape, and her advanced sapience and outsider status bridge the two million year gap. Helen and her habiline community represent the “innocent and beautiful” referenced in the Yeats poem from which the title is derived. (“The innocent and the beautiful/Have no enemy but time…” L. 3122, Ch. 22.)

As expected, common SF themes of violence and gender are explored in this novel about pre-human civilization. Typically maligned gender roles take on an innocent quality in the habilines’ primitive hunter-gatherer society, and Helen’s role, having no children to care for (although she yearns for this) and larger stature than most of the men, is stretched to benefit the hunt. But Bishop reminds us that the social boundaries we currently struggle to break were being formed in this early age, where “a big, strong, swift-footed, and cunning female was still a female” (Loc. 1586, Ch. 12) and “if you put on a child in this society, you were automatically dressed as a woman” (Loc. 4557, Ch. 28). And the violence, in which baby cheetahs and adopted Australopithecus children are clubbed to death, may be as dark and bloody as many modern movies and video games, but is never as gratuitous.

(John Jink’s cover for the 1989 edition)

But Bishop’s charm lies in his writing. Cool, placid, and precise, with a few snatches of dry humor that surprised a few laughs out of me. Images of habiline shaving cream fights and while the leader wears Fruit of the Looms (which gives new meaning to the phrases “wearing the pants” and “brief dethronement”) are funny, but the real humor lies within Bishop’s observations—never a punchline exactly, but built into the prose, and too corny or unwieldy to take out of context as a quote. This style fits well with the often jokey protagonist, who alternates first-person POV in the Stone Age with third-person POV in Joshua’s modern past. Joshua himself is an odd duck, an outsider in both the past and present, but with more empathy for his habiline companions. He wants to fit in with the “Minids,” whereas he makes little effort to fit in with modern-day Homo sapiens. His peculiar interactions with modern humans only emphasize his outsider status. In fact, I suspect his success with the “Minids” may be due to their limited language skills, which spares them from Joshua’s often inane babble.

Bishop’s wry humor goes beyond the silly imagery and quips that pepper his tale. He pranks his readers by setting up a traditional time travel paradox that, to my relief, he never delivers. He even withholds his anti-paradox time travel rules until the very end, just for the sake of the prank. Habilines with fire, Fruit of the Looms, and a few English words– not to mention sex with a Homo sapien– all have the potential to rock the foundation of human development at its core. And when the time traveler resembles his hominid community (short, dark, and initially speechless), with mysterious parental origins and vivid dreams (perhaps memories?) of humanity’s origins—even a casual SF reader can foresee the looming grandfather paradox. But when Helen births an albino female, and not a baby Joshua, the paradox is revealed as an illusion. And Bishop’s prank serves the rest of the story by fostering that illusion, casting doubt to Joshua’s entire story.

(Uncredited cover for the 2013 edition)

And that’s where the story should have ended. The illusion of time travel told by an unreliable protagonist fits well with the lingering tone of the story, but perhaps Bishop wanted to circumvent the hackneyed “it was all a dream” ending. Instead, Bishop switches gears and flips his resonating sociological study of human origins into a 007 thriller piece in which Josh’s halfbreed daughter catches the attentions of a slimy questionable crook with interests in future-travel. The last tenth of the novel is so out of character, I prefer to think that some idiot editor forced Bishop to axe his original ending (likely brilliant and moving) to wedge in this abrupt shift in tone, in order to dangle the possibility of a sequel. It’s just that terrible.

Or maybe it’s brilliant. Maybe Bishop designed his story to illustrate his interpretation of the chain of human evolution: slow and steady, difficult and harsh, but meaningful and communal, with the last tenth of our history rampaging toward the future in hollow, violent meaninglessness. Perhaps Bishop’s story structure is a reflection of his story’s message, in which he proclaims the end of evolution, likening our current social development to that of a tumor, a mutation rather than progress.

Because that last chapter was like a tumor in an otherwise perfect tale. It shocks the reader out of the powerful trance that Bishop fosters. It’s an unwelcome jolt from the cozy, warm slumber of spirit-travelling, and I was pissed when it happened. I want to go back.

Bishop succeeds where few speculative writers dare to tread. It’s common to imagine a future with endless possibilities, or to inject a documented past with dystopic tones. But to summon an unwritten past, and to gild our primitive ancestors with utopic optimism—it may not be very scientific, but it’s compelling and weighty. Bishop’s habilines hold a mirror to our supposed progress, causing the reader to reexamine their definition of “the good old days.”

~

Links to previous Michael Bishop Guest Posts [updated]

“Allegiances” (1975) (review by Peter S.)

A Little Knowledge (1977) (review by Heloise at Heloise Merlin’s Weblog)

Blooded on Arachne (1982) (selections) (review by Carl V. Anderson at Stainless Steel Droppings)

Brighten to Incandescence (2003) (review by MPorcius at MPorcius Fiction Log)

Brittle Innings (1994) (review by James Harris at Auxiliary Memory)

Catacomb Years (1979) (review by 2theD at Potpourri of Science Fiction Literature)

“Death and Designation Among the Asadi” (1973) (review by Jesse at Speculiction…)

“In Rubble, Pleading” (1974), “Death and Designation Among the Asadi” (1973), and “The White Otters of Childhood” (1973), (review by Admiral Ironbombs at Battered, Tattered, Yellowed & Creased)

No Enemy But Time (1982) (review by Megan at From Couch to Moon)

“The Quickening” (1981) (review by Max at Pechorin’s Journal)

~

Links to my three previously posted reviews of Bishop’s work

A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire (1975)

And Strange at Ecbatan the Trees (1976)

Stolen Faces (1977)

#1980s #bookReviews2 #experimental #michaelBishop #paperbacks #sciFi #scienceFiction #technology #timeTravel

Guest Post: No Enemy But Time, Michael Bishop (1982)

(Vincent Di Fate’s cover for the 1983 edition)

The third installment of my Guest Post Series on Michael Bishop’s SF was written by Megan (twitter: @couchtomoon) over at the relatively new but completely worthwhile SF review site From Couch to the Moon.  She’s already put together a substantial list of delightful reviews.  Megan selected Bishop’s single most famous and Nebula award-winning novel, No Enemy But Time (1982)—and sadly, one of few books of his still in print.  Along with Transfigurations (1979), it was republished and selected for the Gollancz Masterwork [list].

No Enemy But Time (1982) — Michael Bishop

Coming out of Bishop’s 1982 Nebula award winning novel, No Enemy But Time, is like coming out of a time travel trance: the experience is jarring, hazy, and unwelcome. Bishop sweeps the reader into his world—humanity’s distant past—and paints a primitive African landscape dappled with hippos, hyenas, and volcanoes, but lush with the human experience. It’s a world where our ancestors, two million years removed, wear more flesh and charisma than our contemporaries. The reader befriends these charming hominids, shares in their struggles and triumphs, exalts in their communal efforts, only to be yanked back to the present where individuals misinterpret, neglect, and manipulate one another.

“All I am is a set of eyes, and the people I’m watching—they’re almost like people, but different, too—they can’t see me. They’re very hairy, but naked just under their hair” (Loc. 2568, Ch. 19).

(Uncredited cover for the 1983 Sphere edition)

Since infancy, Johnny Monegal has dreamed about the prehistoric past, a phenomenon he calls “spirit-traveling.” His dreams always lead him to the same time and place, Pleistocene era Africa, inspiring his curiosity about primitive humanity and influencing his informal expertise in paleoanthropology. But Johnny knows more about humanity’s past than he does his own, a black baby abandoned by a mute Spanish prostitute, and he later deserts his adoptive family, changes his name to Joshua Kampa, and flutters around Florida until a chance meeting with eminent paleoanthropologist Alistair Patrick Blair. Blair, and temporal physicist Woodrow Kaprow (Bishop has a thing for rhyming names), bring him to the African country of Zarakal, where he will test the technology that will unlock the past and allow his body to join him on his spirit travels.

Bishop’s love for the past is reflected in the romance between Joshua and Helen, a Homo habilis female who Joshua meets during his visit to the past. Helen is the member of a small troupe of habilines who grudgingly adopt Joshua as their resident outcast. Helen, a barren female of unusual height and with humanlike characteristics, shares Joshua’s outsider role, and they eventually mate and bond. Some readers may be disgusted by this pairing, and Bishop acknowledges this when Joshua states, “an old country boy like our Wyoming landlord Pete Grier would have seen more poetry in a farm boy’s hasty violation of an indifferent heifer than in my adult attraction to the willing Helen Habiline” (Loc. 2119, Ch. 16). But Helen, despite her hairy façade, is not an ape, and her advanced sapience and outsider status bridge the two million year gap. Helen and her habiline community represent the “innocent and beautiful” referenced in the Yeats poem from which the title is derived. (“The innocent and the beautiful/Have no enemy but time…” L. 3122, Ch. 22.)

As expected, common SF themes of violence and gender are explored in this novel about pre-human civilization. Typically maligned gender roles take on an innocent quality in the habilines’ primitive hunter-gatherer society, and Helen’s role, having no children to care for (although she yearns for this) and larger stature than most of the men, is stretched to benefit the hunt. But Bishop reminds us that the social boundaries we currently struggle to break were being formed in this early age, where “a big, strong, swift-footed, and cunning female was still a female” (Loc. 1586, Ch. 12) and “if you put on a child in this society, you were automatically dressed as a woman” (Loc. 4557, Ch. 28). And the violence, in which baby cheetahs and adopted Australopithecus children are clubbed to death, may be as dark and bloody as many modern movies and video games, but is never as gratuitous.

(John Jink’s cover for the 1989 edition)

But Bishop’s charm lies in his writing. Cool, placid, and precise, with a few snatches of dry humor that surprised a few laughs out of me. Images of habiline shaving cream fights and while the leader wears Fruit of the Looms (which gives new meaning to the phrases “wearing the pants” and “brief dethronement”) are funny, but the real humor lies within Bishop’s observations—never a punchline exactly, but built into the prose, and too corny or unwieldy to take out of context as a quote. This style fits well with the often jokey protagonist, who alternates first-person POV in the Stone Age with third-person POV in Joshua’s modern past. Joshua himself is an odd duck, an outsider in both the past and present, but with more empathy for his habiline companions. He wants to fit in with the “Minids,” whereas he makes little effort to fit in with modern-day Homo sapiens. His peculiar interactions with modern humans only emphasize his outsider status. In fact, I suspect his success with the “Minids” may be due to their limited language skills, which spares them from Joshua’s often inane babble.

Bishop’s wry humor goes beyond the silly imagery and quips that pepper his tale. He pranks his readers by setting up a traditional time travel paradox that, to my relief, he never delivers. He even withholds his anti-paradox time travel rules until the very end, just for the sake of the prank. Habilines with fire, Fruit of the Looms, and a few English words– not to mention sex with a Homo sapien– all have the potential to rock the foundation of human development at its core. And when the time traveler resembles his hominid community (short, dark, and initially speechless), with mysterious parental origins and vivid dreams (perhaps memories?) of humanity’s origins—even a casual SF reader can foresee the looming grandfather paradox. But when Helen births an albino female, and not a baby Joshua, the paradox is revealed as an illusion. And Bishop’s prank serves the rest of the story by fostering that illusion, casting doubt to Joshua’s entire story.

(Uncredited cover for the 2013 edition)

And that’s where the story should have ended. The illusion of time travel told by an unreliable protagonist fits well with the lingering tone of the story, but perhaps Bishop wanted to circumvent the hackneyed “it was all a dream” ending. Instead, Bishop switches gears and flips his resonating sociological study of human origins into a 007 thriller piece in which Josh’s halfbreed daughter catches the attentions of a slimy questionable crook with interests in future-travel. The last tenth of the novel is so out of character, I prefer to think that some idiot editor forced Bishop to axe his original ending (likely brilliant and moving) to wedge in this abrupt shift in tone, in order to dangle the possibility of a sequel. It’s just that terrible.

Or maybe it’s brilliant. Maybe Bishop designed his story to illustrate his interpretation of the chain of human evolution: slow and steady, difficult and harsh, but meaningful and communal, with the last tenth of our history rampaging toward the future in hollow, violent meaninglessness. Perhaps Bishop’s story structure is a reflection of his story’s message, in which he proclaims the end of evolution, likening our current social development to that of a tumor, a mutation rather than progress.

Because that last chapter was like a tumor in an otherwise perfect tale. It shocks the reader out of the powerful trance that Bishop fosters. It’s an unwelcome jolt from the cozy, warm slumber of spirit-travelling, and I was pissed when it happened. I want to go back.

Bishop succeeds where few speculative writers dare to tread. It’s common to imagine a future with endless possibilities, or to inject a documented past with dystopic tones. But to summon an unwritten past, and to gild our primitive ancestors with utopic optimism—it may not be very scientific, but it’s compelling and weighty. Bishop’s habilines hold a mirror to our supposed progress, causing the reader to reexamine their definition of “the good old days.”

~

Links to previous Michael Bishop Guest Posts [updated]

“Allegiances” (1975) (review by Peter S.)

A Little Knowledge (1977) (review by Heloise at Heloise Merlin’s Weblog)

Blooded on Arachne (1982) (selections) (review by Carl V. Anderson at Stainless Steel Droppings)

Brighten to Incandescence (2003) (review by MPorcius at MPorcius Fiction Log)

Brittle Innings (1994) (review by James Harris at Auxiliary Memory)

Catacomb Years (1979) (review by 2theD at Potpourri of Science Fiction Literature)

“Death and Designation Among the Asadi” (1973) (review by Jesse at Speculiction…)

“In Rubble, Pleading” (1974), “Death and Designation Among the Asadi” (1973), and “The White Otters of Childhood” (1973), (review by Admiral Ironbombs at Battered, Tattered, Yellowed & Creased)

No Enemy But Time (1982) (review by Megan at From Couch to Moon)

“The Quickening” (1981) (review by Max at Pechorin’s Journal)

~

Links to my three previously posted reviews of Bishop’s work

A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire (1975)

And Strange at Ecbatan the Trees (1976)

Stolen Faces (1977)

#1980s #bookReviews2 #experimental #michaelBishop #paperbacks #sciFi #scienceFiction #technology #timeTravel

Guest Post: No Enemy But Time, Michael Bishop (1982)

(Vincent Di Fate’s cover for the 1983 edition)

The third installment of my Guest Post Series on Michael Bishop’s SF was written by Megan (twitter: @couchtomoon) over at the relatively new but completely worthwhile SF review site From Couch to the Moon.  She’s already put together a substantial list of delightful reviews.  Megan selected Bishop’s single most famous and Nebula award-winning novel, No Enemy But Time (1982)—and sadly, one of few books of his still in print.  Along with Transfigurations (1979), it was republished and selected for the Gollancz Masterwork [list].

No Enemy But Time (1982) — Michael Bishop

Coming out of Bishop’s 1982 Nebula award winning novel, No Enemy But Time, is like coming out of a time travel trance: the experience is jarring, hazy, and unwelcome. Bishop sweeps the reader into his world—humanity’s distant past—and paints a primitive African landscape dappled with hippos, hyenas, and volcanoes, but lush with the human experience. It’s a world where our ancestors, two million years removed, wear more flesh and charisma than our contemporaries. The reader befriends these charming hominids, shares in their struggles and triumphs, exalts in their communal efforts, only to be yanked back to the present where individuals misinterpret, neglect, and manipulate one another.

“All I am is a set of eyes, and the people I’m watching—they’re almost like people, but different, too—they can’t see me. They’re very hairy, but naked just under their hair” (Loc. 2568, Ch. 19).

(Uncredited cover for the 1983 Sphere edition)

Since infancy, Johnny Monegal has dreamed about the prehistoric past, a phenomenon he calls “spirit-traveling.” His dreams always lead him to the same time and place, Pleistocene era Africa, inspiring his curiosity about primitive humanity and influencing his informal expertise in paleoanthropology. But Johnny knows more about humanity’s past than he does his own, a black baby abandoned by a mute Spanish prostitute, and he later deserts his adoptive family, changes his name to Joshua Kampa, and flutters around Florida until a chance meeting with eminent paleoanthropologist Alistair Patrick Blair. Blair, and temporal physicist Woodrow Kaprow (Bishop has a thing for rhyming names), bring him to the African country of Zarakal, where he will test the technology that will unlock the past and allow his body to join him on his spirit travels.

Bishop’s love for the past is reflected in the romance between Joshua and Helen, a Homo habilis female who Joshua meets during his visit to the past. Helen is the member of a small troupe of habilines who grudgingly adopt Joshua as their resident outcast. Helen, a barren female of unusual height and with humanlike characteristics, shares Joshua’s outsider role, and they eventually mate and bond. Some readers may be disgusted by this pairing, and Bishop acknowledges this when Joshua states, “an old country boy like our Wyoming landlord Pete Grier would have seen more poetry in a farm boy’s hasty violation of an indifferent heifer than in my adult attraction to the willing Helen Habiline” (Loc. 2119, Ch. 16). But Helen, despite her hairy façade, is not an ape, and her advanced sapience and outsider status bridge the two million year gap. Helen and her habiline community represent the “innocent and beautiful” referenced in the Yeats poem from which the title is derived. (“The innocent and the beautiful/Have no enemy but time…” L. 3122, Ch. 22.)

As expected, common SF themes of violence and gender are explored in this novel about pre-human civilization. Typically maligned gender roles take on an innocent quality in the habilines’ primitive hunter-gatherer society, and Helen’s role, having no children to care for (although she yearns for this) and larger stature than most of the men, is stretched to benefit the hunt. But Bishop reminds us that the social boundaries we currently struggle to break were being formed in this early age, where “a big, strong, swift-footed, and cunning female was still a female” (Loc. 1586, Ch. 12) and “if you put on a child in this society, you were automatically dressed as a woman” (Loc. 4557, Ch. 28). And the violence, in which baby cheetahs and adopted Australopithecus children are clubbed to death, may be as dark and bloody as many modern movies and video games, but is never as gratuitous.

(John Jink’s cover for the 1989 edition)

But Bishop’s charm lies in his writing. Cool, placid, and precise, with a few snatches of dry humor that surprised a few laughs out of me. Images of habiline shaving cream fights and while the leader wears Fruit of the Looms (which gives new meaning to the phrases “wearing the pants” and “brief dethronement”) are funny, but the real humor lies within Bishop’s observations—never a punchline exactly, but built into the prose, and too corny or unwieldy to take out of context as a quote. This style fits well with the often jokey protagonist, who alternates first-person POV in the Stone Age with third-person POV in Joshua’s modern past. Joshua himself is an odd duck, an outsider in both the past and present, but with more empathy for his habiline companions. He wants to fit in with the “Minids,” whereas he makes little effort to fit in with modern-day Homo sapiens. His peculiar interactions with modern humans only emphasize his outsider status. In fact, I suspect his success with the “Minids” may be due to their limited language skills, which spares them from Joshua’s often inane babble.

Bishop’s wry humor goes beyond the silly imagery and quips that pepper his tale. He pranks his readers by setting up a traditional time travel paradox that, to my relief, he never delivers. He even withholds his anti-paradox time travel rules until the very end, just for the sake of the prank. Habilines with fire, Fruit of the Looms, and a few English words– not to mention sex with a Homo sapien– all have the potential to rock the foundation of human development at its core. And when the time traveler resembles his hominid community (short, dark, and initially speechless), with mysterious parental origins and vivid dreams (perhaps memories?) of humanity’s origins—even a casual SF reader can foresee the looming grandfather paradox. But when Helen births an albino female, and not a baby Joshua, the paradox is revealed as an illusion. And Bishop’s prank serves the rest of the story by fostering that illusion, casting doubt to Joshua’s entire story.

(Uncredited cover for the 2013 edition)

And that’s where the story should have ended. The illusion of time travel told by an unreliable protagonist fits well with the lingering tone of the story, but perhaps Bishop wanted to circumvent the hackneyed “it was all a dream” ending. Instead, Bishop switches gears and flips his resonating sociological study of human origins into a 007 thriller piece in which Josh’s halfbreed daughter catches the attentions of a slimy questionable crook with interests in future-travel. The last tenth of the novel is so out of character, I prefer to think that some idiot editor forced Bishop to axe his original ending (likely brilliant and moving) to wedge in this abrupt shift in tone, in order to dangle the possibility of a sequel. It’s just that terrible.

Or maybe it’s brilliant. Maybe Bishop designed his story to illustrate his interpretation of the chain of human evolution: slow and steady, difficult and harsh, but meaningful and communal, with the last tenth of our history rampaging toward the future in hollow, violent meaninglessness. Perhaps Bishop’s story structure is a reflection of his story’s message, in which he proclaims the end of evolution, likening our current social development to that of a tumor, a mutation rather than progress.

Because that last chapter was like a tumor in an otherwise perfect tale. It shocks the reader out of the powerful trance that Bishop fosters. It’s an unwelcome jolt from the cozy, warm slumber of spirit-travelling, and I was pissed when it happened. I want to go back.

Bishop succeeds where few speculative writers dare to tread. It’s common to imagine a future with endless possibilities, or to inject a documented past with dystopic tones. But to summon an unwritten past, and to gild our primitive ancestors with utopic optimism—it may not be very scientific, but it’s compelling and weighty. Bishop’s habilines hold a mirror to our supposed progress, causing the reader to reexamine their definition of “the good old days.”

~

Links to previous Michael Bishop Guest Posts [updated]

“Allegiances” (1975) (review by Peter S.)

A Little Knowledge (1977) (review by Heloise at Heloise Merlin’s Weblog)

Blooded on Arachne (1982) (selections) (review by Carl V. Anderson at Stainless Steel Droppings)

Brighten to Incandescence (2003) (review by MPorcius at MPorcius Fiction Log)

Brittle Innings (1994) (review by James Harris at Auxiliary Memory)

Catacomb Years (1979) (review by 2theD at Potpourri of Science Fiction Literature)

“Death and Designation Among the Asadi” (1973) (review by Jesse at Speculiction…)

“In Rubble, Pleading” (1974), “Death and Designation Among the Asadi” (1973), and “The White Otters of Childhood” (1973), (review by Admiral Ironbombs at Battered, Tattered, Yellowed & Creased)

No Enemy But Time (1982) (review by Megan at From Couch to Moon)

“The Quickening” (1981) (review by Max at Pechorin’s Journal)

~

Links to my three previously posted reviews of Bishop’s work

A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire (1975)

And Strange at Ecbatan the Trees (1976)

Stolen Faces (1977)

#1980s #bookReviews2 #experimental #michaelBishop #paperbacks #sciFi #scienceFiction #technology #timeTravel

Guest Post: No Enemy But Time, Michael Bishop (1982)

(Vincent Di Fate’s cover for the 1983 edition)

The third installment of my Guest Post Series on Michael Bishop’s SF was written by Megan (twitter: @couchtomoon) over at the relatively new but completely worthwhile SF review site From Couch to the Moon.  She’s already put together a substantial list of delightful reviews.  Megan selected Bishop’s single most famous and Nebula award-winning novel, No Enemy But Time (1982)—and sadly, one of few books of his still in print.  Along with Transfigurations (1979), it was republished and selected for the Gollancz Masterwork [list].

No Enemy But Time (1982) — Michael Bishop

Coming out of Bishop’s 1982 Nebula award winning novel, No Enemy But Time, is like coming out of a time travel trance: the experience is jarring, hazy, and unwelcome. Bishop sweeps the reader into his world—humanity’s distant past—and paints a primitive African landscape dappled with hippos, hyenas, and volcanoes, but lush with the human experience. It’s a world where our ancestors, two million years removed, wear more flesh and charisma than our contemporaries. The reader befriends these charming hominids, shares in their struggles and triumphs, exalts in their communal efforts, only to be yanked back to the present where individuals misinterpret, neglect, and manipulate one another.

“All I am is a set of eyes, and the people I’m watching—they’re almost like people, but different, too—they can’t see me. They’re very hairy, but naked just under their hair” (Loc. 2568, Ch. 19).

(Uncredited cover for the 1983 Sphere edition)

Since infancy, Johnny Monegal has dreamed about the prehistoric past, a phenomenon he calls “spirit-traveling.” His dreams always lead him to the same time and place, Pleistocene era Africa, inspiring his curiosity about primitive humanity and influencing his informal expertise in paleoanthropology. But Johnny knows more about humanity’s past than he does his own, a black baby abandoned by a mute Spanish prostitute, and he later deserts his adoptive family, changes his name to Joshua Kampa, and flutters around Florida until a chance meeting with eminent paleoanthropologist Alistair Patrick Blair. Blair, and temporal physicist Woodrow Kaprow (Bishop has a thing for rhyming names), bring him to the African country of Zarakal, where he will test the technology that will unlock the past and allow his body to join him on his spirit travels.

Bishop’s love for the past is reflected in the romance between Joshua and Helen, a Homo habilis female who Joshua meets during his visit to the past. Helen is the member of a small troupe of habilines who grudgingly adopt Joshua as their resident outcast. Helen, a barren female of unusual height and with humanlike characteristics, shares Joshua’s outsider role, and they eventually mate and bond. Some readers may be disgusted by this pairing, and Bishop acknowledges this when Joshua states, “an old country boy like our Wyoming landlord Pete Grier would have seen more poetry in a farm boy’s hasty violation of an indifferent heifer than in my adult attraction to the willing Helen Habiline” (Loc. 2119, Ch. 16). But Helen, despite her hairy façade, is not an ape, and her advanced sapience and outsider status bridge the two million year gap. Helen and her habiline community represent the “innocent and beautiful” referenced in the Yeats poem from which the title is derived. (“The innocent and the beautiful/Have no enemy but time…” L. 3122, Ch. 22.)

As expected, common SF themes of violence and gender are explored in this novel about pre-human civilization. Typically maligned gender roles take on an innocent quality in the habilines’ primitive hunter-gatherer society, and Helen’s role, having no children to care for (although she yearns for this) and larger stature than most of the men, is stretched to benefit the hunt. But Bishop reminds us that the social boundaries we currently struggle to break were being formed in this early age, where “a big, strong, swift-footed, and cunning female was still a female” (Loc. 1586, Ch. 12) and “if you put on a child in this society, you were automatically dressed as a woman” (Loc. 4557, Ch. 28). And the violence, in which baby cheetahs and adopted Australopithecus children are clubbed to death, may be as dark and bloody as many modern movies and video games, but is never as gratuitous.

(John Jink’s cover for the 1989 edition)

But Bishop’s charm lies in his writing. Cool, placid, and precise, with a few snatches of dry humor that surprised a few laughs out of me. Images of habiline shaving cream fights and while the leader wears Fruit of the Looms (which gives new meaning to the phrases “wearing the pants” and “brief dethronement”) are funny, but the real humor lies within Bishop’s observations—never a punchline exactly, but built into the prose, and too corny or unwieldy to take out of context as a quote. This style fits well with the often jokey protagonist, who alternates first-person POV in the Stone Age with third-person POV in Joshua’s modern past. Joshua himself is an odd duck, an outsider in both the past and present, but with more empathy for his habiline companions. He wants to fit in with the “Minids,” whereas he makes little effort to fit in with modern-day Homo sapiens. His peculiar interactions with modern humans only emphasize his outsider status. In fact, I suspect his success with the “Minids” may be due to their limited language skills, which spares them from Joshua’s often inane babble.

Bishop’s wry humor goes beyond the silly imagery and quips that pepper his tale. He pranks his readers by setting up a traditional time travel paradox that, to my relief, he never delivers. He even withholds his anti-paradox time travel rules until the very end, just for the sake of the prank. Habilines with fire, Fruit of the Looms, and a few English words– not to mention sex with a Homo sapien– all have the potential to rock the foundation of human development at its core. And when the time traveler resembles his hominid community (short, dark, and initially speechless), with mysterious parental origins and vivid dreams (perhaps memories?) of humanity’s origins—even a casual SF reader can foresee the looming grandfather paradox. But when Helen births an albino female, and not a baby Joshua, the paradox is revealed as an illusion. And Bishop’s prank serves the rest of the story by fostering that illusion, casting doubt to Joshua’s entire story.

(Uncredited cover for the 2013 edition)

And that’s where the story should have ended. The illusion of time travel told by an unreliable protagonist fits well with the lingering tone of the story, but perhaps Bishop wanted to circumvent the hackneyed “it was all a dream” ending. Instead, Bishop switches gears and flips his resonating sociological study of human origins into a 007 thriller piece in which Josh’s halfbreed daughter catches the attentions of a slimy questionable crook with interests in future-travel. The last tenth of the novel is so out of character, I prefer to think that some idiot editor forced Bishop to axe his original ending (likely brilliant and moving) to wedge in this abrupt shift in tone, in order to dangle the possibility of a sequel. It’s just that terrible.

Or maybe it’s brilliant. Maybe Bishop designed his story to illustrate his interpretation of the chain of human evolution: slow and steady, difficult and harsh, but meaningful and communal, with the last tenth of our history rampaging toward the future in hollow, violent meaninglessness. Perhaps Bishop’s story structure is a reflection of his story’s message, in which he proclaims the end of evolution, likening our current social development to that of a tumor, a mutation rather than progress.

Because that last chapter was like a tumor in an otherwise perfect tale. It shocks the reader out of the powerful trance that Bishop fosters. It’s an unwelcome jolt from the cozy, warm slumber of spirit-travelling, and I was pissed when it happened. I want to go back.

Bishop succeeds where few speculative writers dare to tread. It’s common to imagine a future with endless possibilities, or to inject a documented past with dystopic tones. But to summon an unwritten past, and to gild our primitive ancestors with utopic optimism—it may not be very scientific, but it’s compelling and weighty. Bishop’s habilines hold a mirror to our supposed progress, causing the reader to reexamine their definition of “the good old days.”

~

Links to previous Michael Bishop Guest Posts [updated]

“Allegiances” (1975) (review by Peter S.)

A Little Knowledge (1977) (review by Heloise at Heloise Merlin’s Weblog)

Blooded on Arachne (1982) (selections) (review by Carl V. Anderson at Stainless Steel Droppings)

Brighten to Incandescence (2003) (review by MPorcius at MPorcius Fiction Log)

Brittle Innings (1994) (review by James Harris at Auxiliary Memory)

Catacomb Years (1979) (review by 2theD at Potpourri of Science Fiction Literature)

“Death and Designation Among the Asadi” (1973) (review by Jesse at Speculiction…)

“In Rubble, Pleading” (1974), “Death and Designation Among the Asadi” (1973), and “The White Otters of Childhood” (1973), (review by Admiral Ironbombs at Battered, Tattered, Yellowed & Creased)

No Enemy But Time (1982) (review by Megan at From Couch to Moon)

“The Quickening” (1981) (review by Max at Pechorin’s Journal)

~

Links to my three previously posted reviews of Bishop’s work

A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire (1975)

And Strange at Ecbatan the Trees (1976)

Stolen Faces (1977)

#1980s #bookReviews2 #experimental #michaelBishop #paperbacks #sciFi #scienceFiction #technology #timeTravel

Guest Post: “Death and Designation Among the Asadi,” Michael Bishop (1973)

The first installment in my Guest Post Series on The Science Fiction of Michael Bishop was written by Jesse over at the remarkable SF review site Speculiction… Not only is he incredibly prolific (and has a large back catalog of reviews to browse) but his reviews are also a joy to read.  If you are interested in both classic and contemporary SF, and the occasional post on Chinese poetry, make sure to check out his site.

Jesse has previously posted on his site about Bishop’s  “The Samurai in the Willows” (1976) and “Cri de Coeur” (1994).  Both reviews are worth reading.  

“Death and Designation Among the Asadi” (1973) is one of Michael Bishop’s more well known novellas that was nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula in 1974.  It was first published in the magazine Worlds of If January-February 1973, ed. Ejler Jakobsson.  If you are interested in finding a copy the story can be found in multiple later collections and forms the first part of his novel Transfigurations (1979) [listing here].

Enjoy!

~

“Death and Designation Among the Asadi,” Michael Bishop (1973)

The alien is perhaps the most recognized, if not the most used trope of science fiction.  World invaders (H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds), ethereal entities incomprehensible to humanity (Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris), mirrors to humanity (Ursula Le Guin’s The Word for World is Forest), cultural commentary on the Other (C.J. Cherryh’s Foreigner series), woman stealers (the cover of many a pulp magazine from the ‘30s), pinnacles of civilization (the Vulcan), and playgrounds for the imagination (any number of space operas would serve here), the extra-terrestrial has existed almost since the beginning of the genre, and in the time since has been portrayed in thousands of differing ways.  (To be honest, I would be curious what percentage of sci-fi has an alien of one sort or another present.  50%?  More?  Less?)  1973’s Death and Designation among the Asadi (1973) presents a Michael Bishop perspective of extra-terrestrials.  Though achieving a degree of viscerally alien only the most imaginative and insightful writers can hope for, the trope is utilized to express existential and cultural concerns of human proportion.

Death and Designation among the Asadi is the personal journals, research notes, and in situ voice recordings of the xenologist Egan Chaney, as compiled and presented by long time anthropologist and friend Thomas Benedict.  Chaney an eccentric personality, he has taken the mantle upon himself to live amongst the Asadi of BoskVeld in the hopes of furthering the knowledge gained by a predecessor.  The Asadi maned like male lions, Chaney thinks it best to enter the community with a shaved head thus to be viewed as a pariah, ignored by the mute, gray-skinned aliens.  The plan initially going off well, for months he is able to sit unmolested in their midst, making observations and drawing conclusions from their social behavior.  But not all is readily ascertainable.  An elderly Asadi appearing from the jungle with a winged homunculus perched on his shoulder one day, a mystery presents itself that begs resolution.  Trouble is, the learning process might be more than Chaney is capable of handling.

First appeared in the Worlds of If, January-February 1973 (cover: David A. Hardy)

One of the most realistically realized alien species in literature, the Asadi come vividly to life under Bishop’s facile pen.  A stylist aware of every letter, Chaney’s observations of Asadi behavior are unpacked one intriguing element at a time, the full weight—or as it were, mystery—of each given time to seep in before a new layer is exposed.  The impact at maximum, the reader is able to fully visualize Chaney’s experiences, the underlying uncertainty of the Asadi’s behavior palpable.  With the inclusion of the homunculus, not to mention a couple of other alien elements, the species become wholly separate from human affairs in setting, and yet, given peculiar physical similarities, perfectly capable of commenting upon them in primeval fashion.

Along with the life/death relationship Bishop, Death and Designation among the Asadi also delves into at least two more significant themes.  Isolation, socially and culturally, is one.  Though residing amongst a seemingly chaotic alien group, Chaney remains external, strong feelings of alienation the result.  Among the Asadi is a young male who Chaney comes to call the Bachelor.  Observing Chaney for as much as Chaney observes him, circumstances beyond the xenologists’ understanding contrive to isolate the Bachelor from his species, in turn relegating both of them to pariah status.  Though unable to communicate, the Bachelor thereafter becomes a significant parallel and juxtaposition to Chaney.  So affected by the unspoken relationship, in fact, Chaney’s decisions late in the story hinge upon it, his course of action rash from most perspectives but logical within the limits of the story.

Wrapped around isolation is Mircea Eliade’s concept of the Eternal Return.  Structure-wise, the first two-thirds of story peel back layer after layer of Asadi culture until a complete cycle is described.  The last third, however, begins a new cycle, one which answers some of Chaney (and the reader’s) most maddening questions, while simultaneously invoking a cycle of greater—and more mysterious—import.  The last page most certainly a return, Bishop encapsulates Eliade’s ideas perfectly in story, as well as at multiple levels within Asadi culture.

In the end, Death and Designation among the Asadi is as realistic a look at a truly alien group as is possible in literature.  The basic premise of the story (Asadi culture) detailed yet simple, Bishop relates an experience among an extra-terrestrial culture that operates at numerous levels.  From the personal confrontation of life and death to isolation—both cultural and societal, Bishop rounds off his wonderful creation by intertwining the concept of the Eternal Return at differing scales.  (Such a solid foundation of ideas, in fact, Bishop was able to expand the story to novel length, Transfigurations, published six years later, the result.)  Written with purpose from the first word onwards, the novella remains a fine balance of all things literary, and given the vivid evocativeness with which the Asadi are portrayed, it’s impossible for them not to leave an impression.

After all, there is a reason Joachim has chosen to spotlight Michael Bishop’s work…

~

Links to previous Michael Bishop Guest Posts [updated]

“Allegiances” (1975) (review by Peter S.)

A Little Knowledge (1977) (review by Heloise at Heloise Merlin’s Weblog)

Blooded on Arachne (1982) (selections) (review by Carl V. Anderson at Stainless Steel Droppings)

Brighten to Incandescence (2003) (review by MPorcius at MPorcius Fiction Log)

Brittle Innings (1994) (review by James Harris at Auxiliary Memory)

Catacomb Years (1979) (review by 2theD at Potpourri of Science Fiction Literature)

“Death and Designation Among the Asadi” (1973) (review by Jesse at Speculiction…)

“In Rubble, Pleading” (1974), “Death and Designation Among the Asadi” (1973), and “The White Otters of Childhood” (1973), (review by Admiral Ironbombs at Battered, Tattered, Yellowed & Creased)

No Enemy But Time (1982) (review by Megan at From Couch to Moon)

“The Quickening” (1981) (review by Max at Pechorin’s Journal)

~

Links to my three previously posted reviews of Bishop’s work

A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire (1975)

And Strange at Ecbatan the Trees (1976)

Stolen Faces (1977)

#aliens #bookReviews2 #experimental #michaelBishop #sciFi #scienceFiction #shortStories #spaceOpera #technology

Guest Post: “Death and Designation Among the Asadi,” Michael Bishop (1973)

The first installment in my Guest Post Series on The Science Fiction of Michael Bishop was written by Jesse over at the remarkable SF review site Speculiction… Not only is he incredibly prolific (and has a large back catalog of reviews to browse) but his reviews are also a joy to read.  If you are interested in both classic and contemporary SF, and the occasional post on Chinese poetry, make sure to check out his site.

Jesse has previously posted on his site about Bishop’s  “The Samurai in the Willows” (1976) and “Cri de Coeur” (1994).  Both reviews are worth reading.  

“Death and Designation Among the Asadi” (1973) is one of Michael Bishop’s more well known novellas that was nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula in 1974.  It was first published in the magazine Worlds of If January-February 1973, ed. Ejler Jakobsson.  If you are interested in finding a copy the story can be found in multiple later collections and forms the first part of his novel Transfigurations (1979) [listing here].

Enjoy!

~

“Death and Designation Among the Asadi,” Michael Bishop (1973)

The alien is perhaps the most recognized, if not the most used trope of science fiction.  World invaders (H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds), ethereal entities incomprehensible to humanity (Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris), mirrors to humanity (Ursula Le Guin’s The Word for World is Forest), cultural commentary on the Other (C.J. Cherryh’s Foreigner series), woman stealers (the cover of many a pulp magazine from the ‘30s), pinnacles of civilization (the Vulcan), and playgrounds for the imagination (any number of space operas would serve here), the extra-terrestrial has existed almost since the beginning of the genre, and in the time since has been portrayed in thousands of differing ways.  (To be honest, I would be curious what percentage of sci-fi has an alien of one sort or another present.  50%?  More?  Less?)  1973’s Death and Designation among the Asadi (1973) presents a Michael Bishop perspective of extra-terrestrials.  Though achieving a degree of viscerally alien only the most imaginative and insightful writers can hope for, the trope is utilized to express existential and cultural concerns of human proportion.

Death and Designation among the Asadi is the personal journals, research notes, and in situ voice recordings of the xenologist Egan Chaney, as compiled and presented by long time anthropologist and friend Thomas Benedict.  Chaney an eccentric personality, he has taken the mantle upon himself to live amongst the Asadi of BoskVeld in the hopes of furthering the knowledge gained by a predecessor.  The Asadi maned like male lions, Chaney thinks it best to enter the community with a shaved head thus to be viewed as a pariah, ignored by the mute, gray-skinned aliens.  The plan initially going off well, for months he is able to sit unmolested in their midst, making observations and drawing conclusions from their social behavior.  But not all is readily ascertainable.  An elderly Asadi appearing from the jungle with a winged homunculus perched on his shoulder one day, a mystery presents itself that begs resolution.  Trouble is, the learning process might be more than Chaney is capable of handling.

First appeared in the Worlds of If, January-February 1973 (cover: David A. Hardy)

One of the most realistically realized alien species in literature, the Asadi come vividly to life under Bishop’s facile pen.  A stylist aware of every letter, Chaney’s observations of Asadi behavior are unpacked one intriguing element at a time, the full weight—or as it were, mystery—of each given time to seep in before a new layer is exposed.  The impact at maximum, the reader is able to fully visualize Chaney’s experiences, the underlying uncertainty of the Asadi’s behavior palpable.  With the inclusion of the homunculus, not to mention a couple of other alien elements, the species become wholly separate from human affairs in setting, and yet, given peculiar physical similarities, perfectly capable of commenting upon them in primeval fashion.

Along with the life/death relationship Bishop, Death and Designation among the Asadi also delves into at least two more significant themes.  Isolation, socially and culturally, is one.  Though residing amongst a seemingly chaotic alien group, Chaney remains external, strong feelings of alienation the result.  Among the Asadi is a young male who Chaney comes to call the Bachelor.  Observing Chaney for as much as Chaney observes him, circumstances beyond the xenologists’ understanding contrive to isolate the Bachelor from his species, in turn relegating both of them to pariah status.  Though unable to communicate, the Bachelor thereafter becomes a significant parallel and juxtaposition to Chaney.  So affected by the unspoken relationship, in fact, Chaney’s decisions late in the story hinge upon it, his course of action rash from most perspectives but logical within the limits of the story.

Wrapped around isolation is Mircea Eliade’s concept of the Eternal Return.  Structure-wise, the first two-thirds of story peel back layer after layer of Asadi culture until a complete cycle is described.  The last third, however, begins a new cycle, one which answers some of Chaney (and the reader’s) most maddening questions, while simultaneously invoking a cycle of greater—and more mysterious—import.  The last page most certainly a return, Bishop encapsulates Eliade’s ideas perfectly in story, as well as at multiple levels within Asadi culture.

In the end, Death and Designation among the Asadi is as realistic a look at a truly alien group as is possible in literature.  The basic premise of the story (Asadi culture) detailed yet simple, Bishop relates an experience among an extra-terrestrial culture that operates at numerous levels.  From the personal confrontation of life and death to isolation—both cultural and societal, Bishop rounds off his wonderful creation by intertwining the concept of the Eternal Return at differing scales.  (Such a solid foundation of ideas, in fact, Bishop was able to expand the story to novel length, Transfigurations, published six years later, the result.)  Written with purpose from the first word onwards, the novella remains a fine balance of all things literary, and given the vivid evocativeness with which the Asadi are portrayed, it’s impossible for them not to leave an impression.

After all, there is a reason Joachim has chosen to spotlight Michael Bishop’s work…

~

Links to previous Michael Bishop Guest Posts [updated]

“Allegiances” (1975) (review by Peter S.)

A Little Knowledge (1977) (review by Heloise at Heloise Merlin’s Weblog)

Blooded on Arachne (1982) (selections) (review by Carl V. Anderson at Stainless Steel Droppings)

Brighten to Incandescence (2003) (review by MPorcius at MPorcius Fiction Log)

Brittle Innings (1994) (review by James Harris at Auxiliary Memory)

Catacomb Years (1979) (review by 2theD at Potpourri of Science Fiction Literature)

“Death and Designation Among the Asadi” (1973) (review by Jesse at Speculiction…)

“In Rubble, Pleading” (1974), “Death and Designation Among the Asadi” (1973), and “The White Otters of Childhood” (1973), (review by Admiral Ironbombs at Battered, Tattered, Yellowed & Creased)

No Enemy But Time (1982) (review by Megan at From Couch to Moon)

“The Quickening” (1981) (review by Max at Pechorin’s Journal)

~

Links to my three previously posted reviews of Bishop’s work

A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire (1975)

And Strange at Ecbatan the Trees (1976)

Stolen Faces (1977)

#aliens #bookReviews2 #experimental #michaelBishop #sciFi #scienceFiction #shortStories #spaceOpera #technology

Guest Post: “Death and Designation Among the Asadi,” Michael Bishop (1973)

The first installment in my Guest Post Series on The Science Fiction of Michael Bishop was written by Jesse over at the remarkable SF review site Speculiction… Not only is he incredibly prolific (and has a large back catalog of reviews to browse) but his reviews are also a joy to read.  If you are interested in both classic and contemporary SF, and the occasional post on Chinese poetry, make sure to check out his site.

Jesse has previously posted on his site about Bishop’s  “The Samurai in the Willows” (1976) and “Cri de Coeur” (1994).  Both reviews are worth reading.  

“Death and Designation Among the Asadi” (1973) is one of Michael Bishop’s more well known novellas that was nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula in 1974.  It was first published in the magazine Worlds of If January-February 1973, ed. Ejler Jakobsson.  If you are interested in finding a copy the story can be found in multiple later collections and forms the first part of his novel Transfigurations (1979) [listing here].

Enjoy!

~

“Death and Designation Among the Asadi,” Michael Bishop (1973)

The alien is perhaps the most recognized, if not the most used trope of science fiction.  World invaders (H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds), ethereal entities incomprehensible to humanity (Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris), mirrors to humanity (Ursula Le Guin’s The Word for World is Forest), cultural commentary on the Other (C.J. Cherryh’s Foreigner series), woman stealers (the cover of many a pulp magazine from the ‘30s), pinnacles of civilization (the Vulcan), and playgrounds for the imagination (any number of space operas would serve here), the extra-terrestrial has existed almost since the beginning of the genre, and in the time since has been portrayed in thousands of differing ways.  (To be honest, I would be curious what percentage of sci-fi has an alien of one sort or another present.  50%?  More?  Less?)  1973’s Death and Designation among the Asadi (1973) presents a Michael Bishop perspective of extra-terrestrials.  Though achieving a degree of viscerally alien only the most imaginative and insightful writers can hope for, the trope is utilized to express existential and cultural concerns of human proportion.

Death and Designation among the Asadi is the personal journals, research notes, and in situ voice recordings of the xenologist Egan Chaney, as compiled and presented by long time anthropologist and friend Thomas Benedict.  Chaney an eccentric personality, he has taken the mantle upon himself to live amongst the Asadi of BoskVeld in the hopes of furthering the knowledge gained by a predecessor.  The Asadi maned like male lions, Chaney thinks it best to enter the community with a shaved head thus to be viewed as a pariah, ignored by the mute, gray-skinned aliens.  The plan initially going off well, for months he is able to sit unmolested in their midst, making observations and drawing conclusions from their social behavior.  But not all is readily ascertainable.  An elderly Asadi appearing from the jungle with a winged homunculus perched on his shoulder one day, a mystery presents itself that begs resolution.  Trouble is, the learning process might be more than Chaney is capable of handling.

First appeared in the Worlds of If, January-February 1973 (cover: David A. Hardy)

One of the most realistically realized alien species in literature, the Asadi come vividly to life under Bishop’s facile pen.  A stylist aware of every letter, Chaney’s observations of Asadi behavior are unpacked one intriguing element at a time, the full weight—or as it were, mystery—of each given time to seep in before a new layer is exposed.  The impact at maximum, the reader is able to fully visualize Chaney’s experiences, the underlying uncertainty of the Asadi’s behavior palpable.  With the inclusion of the homunculus, not to mention a couple of other alien elements, the species become wholly separate from human affairs in setting, and yet, given peculiar physical similarities, perfectly capable of commenting upon them in primeval fashion.

Along with the life/death relationship Bishop, Death and Designation among the Asadi also delves into at least two more significant themes.  Isolation, socially and culturally, is one.  Though residing amongst a seemingly chaotic alien group, Chaney remains external, strong feelings of alienation the result.  Among the Asadi is a young male who Chaney comes to call the Bachelor.  Observing Chaney for as much as Chaney observes him, circumstances beyond the xenologists’ understanding contrive to isolate the Bachelor from his species, in turn relegating both of them to pariah status.  Though unable to communicate, the Bachelor thereafter becomes a significant parallel and juxtaposition to Chaney.  So affected by the unspoken relationship, in fact, Chaney’s decisions late in the story hinge upon it, his course of action rash from most perspectives but logical within the limits of the story.

Wrapped around isolation is Mircea Eliade’s concept of the Eternal Return.  Structure-wise, the first two-thirds of story peel back layer after layer of Asadi culture until a complete cycle is described.  The last third, however, begins a new cycle, one which answers some of Chaney (and the reader’s) most maddening questions, while simultaneously invoking a cycle of greater—and more mysterious—import.  The last page most certainly a return, Bishop encapsulates Eliade’s ideas perfectly in story, as well as at multiple levels within Asadi culture.

In the end, Death and Designation among the Asadi is as realistic a look at a truly alien group as is possible in literature.  The basic premise of the story (Asadi culture) detailed yet simple, Bishop relates an experience among an extra-terrestrial culture that operates at numerous levels.  From the personal confrontation of life and death to isolation—both cultural and societal, Bishop rounds off his wonderful creation by intertwining the concept of the Eternal Return at differing scales.  (Such a solid foundation of ideas, in fact, Bishop was able to expand the story to novel length, Transfigurations, published six years later, the result.)  Written with purpose from the first word onwards, the novella remains a fine balance of all things literary, and given the vivid evocativeness with which the Asadi are portrayed, it’s impossible for them not to leave an impression.

After all, there is a reason Joachim has chosen to spotlight Michael Bishop’s work…

~

Links to previous Michael Bishop Guest Posts [updated]

“Allegiances” (1975) (review by Peter S.)

A Little Knowledge (1977) (review by Heloise at Heloise Merlin’s Weblog)

Blooded on Arachne (1982) (selections) (review by Carl V. Anderson at Stainless Steel Droppings)

Brighten to Incandescence (2003) (review by MPorcius at MPorcius Fiction Log)

Brittle Innings (1994) (review by James Harris at Auxiliary Memory)

Catacomb Years (1979) (review by 2theD at Potpourri of Science Fiction Literature)

“Death and Designation Among the Asadi” (1973) (review by Jesse at Speculiction…)

“In Rubble, Pleading” (1974), “Death and Designation Among the Asadi” (1973), and “The White Otters of Childhood” (1973), (review by Admiral Ironbombs at Battered, Tattered, Yellowed & Creased)

No Enemy But Time (1982) (review by Megan at From Couch to Moon)

“The Quickening” (1981) (review by Max at Pechorin’s Journal)

~

Links to my three previously posted reviews of Bishop’s work

A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire (1975)

And Strange at Ecbatan the Trees (1976)

Stolen Faces (1977)

#aliens #bookReviews2 #experimental #michaelBishop #sciFi #scienceFiction #shortStories #spaceOpera #technology

Guest Post: “Death and Designation Among the Asadi,” Michael Bishop (1973)

The first installment in my Guest Post Series on The Science Fiction of Michael Bishop was written by Jesse over at the remarkable SF review site Speculiction… Not only is he incredibly prolific (and has a large back catalog of reviews to browse) but his reviews are also a joy to read.  If you are interested in both classic and contemporary SF, and the occasional post on Chinese poetry, make sure to check out his site.

Jesse has previously posted on his site about Bishop’s  “The Samurai in the Willows” (1976) and “Cri de Coeur” (1994).  Both reviews are worth reading.  

“Death and Designation Among the Asadi” (1973) is one of Michael Bishop’s more well known novellas that was nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula in 1974.  It was first published in the magazine Worlds of If January-February 1973, ed. Ejler Jakobsson.  If you are interested in finding a copy the story can be found in multiple later collections and forms the first part of his novel Transfigurations (1979) [listing here].

Enjoy!

~

“Death and Designation Among the Asadi,” Michael Bishop (1973)

The alien is perhaps the most recognized, if not the most used trope of science fiction.  World invaders (H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds), ethereal entities incomprehensible to humanity (Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris), mirrors to humanity (Ursula Le Guin’s The Word for World is Forest), cultural commentary on the Other (C.J. Cherryh’s Foreigner series), woman stealers (the cover of many a pulp magazine from the ‘30s), pinnacles of civilization (the Vulcan), and playgrounds for the imagination (any number of space operas would serve here), the extra-terrestrial has existed almost since the beginning of the genre, and in the time since has been portrayed in thousands of differing ways.  (To be honest, I would be curious what percentage of sci-fi has an alien of one sort or another present.  50%?  More?  Less?)  1973’s Death and Designation among the Asadi (1973) presents a Michael Bishop perspective of extra-terrestrials.  Though achieving a degree of viscerally alien only the most imaginative and insightful writers can hope for, the trope is utilized to express existential and cultural concerns of human proportion.

Death and Designation among the Asadi is the personal journals, research notes, and in situ voice recordings of the xenologist Egan Chaney, as compiled and presented by long time anthropologist and friend Thomas Benedict.  Chaney an eccentric personality, he has taken the mantle upon himself to live amongst the Asadi of BoskVeld in the hopes of furthering the knowledge gained by a predecessor.  The Asadi maned like male lions, Chaney thinks it best to enter the community with a shaved head thus to be viewed as a pariah, ignored by the mute, gray-skinned aliens.  The plan initially going off well, for months he is able to sit unmolested in their midst, making observations and drawing conclusions from their social behavior.  But not all is readily ascertainable.  An elderly Asadi appearing from the jungle with a winged homunculus perched on his shoulder one day, a mystery presents itself that begs resolution.  Trouble is, the learning process might be more than Chaney is capable of handling.

First appeared in the Worlds of If, January-February 1973 (cover: David A. Hardy)

One of the most realistically realized alien species in literature, the Asadi come vividly to life under Bishop’s facile pen.  A stylist aware of every letter, Chaney’s observations of Asadi behavior are unpacked one intriguing element at a time, the full weight—or as it were, mystery—of each given time to seep in before a new layer is exposed.  The impact at maximum, the reader is able to fully visualize Chaney’s experiences, the underlying uncertainty of the Asadi’s behavior palpable.  With the inclusion of the homunculus, not to mention a couple of other alien elements, the species become wholly separate from human affairs in setting, and yet, given peculiar physical similarities, perfectly capable of commenting upon them in primeval fashion.

Along with the life/death relationship Bishop, Death and Designation among the Asadi also delves into at least two more significant themes.  Isolation, socially and culturally, is one.  Though residing amongst a seemingly chaotic alien group, Chaney remains external, strong feelings of alienation the result.  Among the Asadi is a young male who Chaney comes to call the Bachelor.  Observing Chaney for as much as Chaney observes him, circumstances beyond the xenologists’ understanding contrive to isolate the Bachelor from his species, in turn relegating both of them to pariah status.  Though unable to communicate, the Bachelor thereafter becomes a significant parallel and juxtaposition to Chaney.  So affected by the unspoken relationship, in fact, Chaney’s decisions late in the story hinge upon it, his course of action rash from most perspectives but logical within the limits of the story.

Wrapped around isolation is Mircea Eliade’s concept of the Eternal Return.  Structure-wise, the first two-thirds of story peel back layer after layer of Asadi culture until a complete cycle is described.  The last third, however, begins a new cycle, one which answers some of Chaney (and the reader’s) most maddening questions, while simultaneously invoking a cycle of greater—and more mysterious—import.  The last page most certainly a return, Bishop encapsulates Eliade’s ideas perfectly in story, as well as at multiple levels within Asadi culture.

In the end, Death and Designation among the Asadi is as realistic a look at a truly alien group as is possible in literature.  The basic premise of the story (Asadi culture) detailed yet simple, Bishop relates an experience among an extra-terrestrial culture that operates at numerous levels.  From the personal confrontation of life and death to isolation—both cultural and societal, Bishop rounds off his wonderful creation by intertwining the concept of the Eternal Return at differing scales.  (Such a solid foundation of ideas, in fact, Bishop was able to expand the story to novel length, Transfigurations, published six years later, the result.)  Written with purpose from the first word onwards, the novella remains a fine balance of all things literary, and given the vivid evocativeness with which the Asadi are portrayed, it’s impossible for them not to leave an impression.

After all, there is a reason Joachim has chosen to spotlight Michael Bishop’s work…

~

Links to previous Michael Bishop Guest Posts [updated]

“Allegiances” (1975) (review by Peter S.)

A Little Knowledge (1977) (review by Heloise at Heloise Merlin’s Weblog)

Blooded on Arachne (1982) (selections) (review by Carl V. Anderson at Stainless Steel Droppings)

Brighten to Incandescence (2003) (review by MPorcius at MPorcius Fiction Log)

Brittle Innings (1994) (review by James Harris at Auxiliary Memory)

Catacomb Years (1979) (review by 2theD at Potpourri of Science Fiction Literature)

“Death and Designation Among the Asadi” (1973) (review by Jesse at Speculiction…)

“In Rubble, Pleading” (1974), “Death and Designation Among the Asadi” (1973), and “The White Otters of Childhood” (1973), (review by Admiral Ironbombs at Battered, Tattered, Yellowed & Creased)

No Enemy But Time (1982) (review by Megan at From Couch to Moon)

“The Quickening” (1981) (review by Max at Pechorin’s Journal)

~

Links to my three previously posted reviews of Bishop’s work

A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire (1975)

And Strange at Ecbatan the Trees (1976)

Stolen Faces (1977)

#aliens #bookReviews2 #experimental #michaelBishop #sciFi #scienceFiction #shortStories #spaceOpera #technology