A FEW LAST WORDS FOR THE LATE IMMORTALS
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MICHAEL BISHOP
This retrospective Michael Bishop collection of fifty short pieces (thirty-four stories, fifteen poems or prose-poems, and one amusing Moon-based play about writing SF, "The Grape Jelly and Mustard Method") spans the author's entire career, from "Asytages's Dream," written while Bishop was a college student, to "Yahweh's Hour," an acerbic but moving work of science-fantasy political satire composed in 2020.
The collection's most distinctive attribute, however, lies in the fact that no contribution is longer than 3,000 words and most are shorter, a kind of Palm-of-the-Hand Stories for lovers of short fiction, heartfelt pieces that afford the reader as much meat as they do flash.
"A Few Last Words for the Late Immortals," set on Saturn's largest moon, Titan, embodies a requiem for the entire human species. "Philip K. Dick is dead, a lass" memorializes in verse science fiction's preeminent bard of the reality breakdown." "Love's Heresy" and "The Library of Babble" appear to be channeling the labyrinthine mind of Jorge Luis Borges, albeit with surprising jinks all their own. And the list of narrative explorations grows and grows . . .
Humor and horror, music and whimsy, primates and pathology, mice and men, religion and rebellion: these stories and poems cover the waterfront of human experience while acknowledging the singularity of each human life.
Click here to see all other titles in the Michael Bishop collection.
- Edited by Michael H. Hutchins
- November 2021 978-1-933846-12-5
- Cover art by Josef Bartoň
- trade paperback
- Order below, or buy print or ebooks of this title from these dealers.
This retrospective Michael Bishop collection of fifty short pieces (thirty-four stories, fifteen poems or prose-poems, and one amusing Moon-based play about writing SF, "The Grape Jelly and Mustard Method") spans the author's entire career, from "Asytages's Dream," written while Bishop was a college student, to "Yahweh's Hour," an acerbic but moving work of science-fantasy political satire composed in 2020.
The collection's most distinctive attribute, however, lies in the fact that no contribution is longer than 3,000 words and most are shorter, a kind of Palm-of-the-Hand Stories for lovers of short fiction, heartfelt pieces that afford the reader as much meat as they do flash.
"A Few Last Words for the Late Immortals," set on Saturn's largest moon, Titan, embodies a requiem for the entire human species. "Philip K. Dick is dead, a lass" memorializes in verse science fiction's preeminent bard of the reality breakdown." "Love's Heresy" and "The Library of Babble" appear to be channeling the labyrinthine mind of Jorge Luis Borges, albeit with surprising jinks all their own. And the list of narrative explorations grows and grows . . .
Humor and horror, music and whimsy, primates and pathology, mice and men, religion and rebellion: these stories and poems cover the waterfront of human experience while acknowledging the singularity of each human life.
Click here to see all other titles in the Michael Bishop collection.
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"A jam-packed package of 50 short stories and poems, this career-spanning collection from Nebula Award winner Bishop (Unicorn Mountain) finds the last anthropologist of humanity sorting through its castoffs and press releases with alien eyes ('A Few Last Words for the Late Immortals') and poets singing of the extraterrestrial fetish collection gathered in humanity’s honor ('Secrets of the Alien Reliquary'). Trials of faith form the collection’s backbone; a disciple cares for an aging, paralyzed Jesus in 'Sequel on Skorpiós,' while the paroled murderer of a transgender teenager learns to repent not from the religious propaganda he’s forced to watch but from within in 'Yahweh’s Hour.' Humor plays a part as well, as in 'The Contributors to Plenum Four,' a gleefully irreverent collection of fake author bios whose works (with titles like 'Quasars and Cumquats') fill the pages of a phony anthology. But even the sweeter pieces contain sharp bits that stick in the throat, like the memory of a kindly elderly neighbor who develops Alzheimer’s in 'Tears.' The result will be a treat for any fan of speculative fiction."
— Publishers Weekly
"A wild ride into uncharted territory. Keep your head down."
— Jack McDevitt, author of Village in the Sky
“From the esteemed and well-loved Michael Bishop, A Few Last Words for the Late Immortals is a career-spanning collection of stories and poems—worth the price of admission for the poems alone, and then, all the stories! Not just for the completist, but for any reader who loves trenchant, quietly compassionate, evocative, often dark but always worth-your-while work written by a much-awarded laureate of speculative literature. Highly recommended indeed.”
— Jessica Reisman, author of The Arcana of Maps
“One of the most remarkable talents ever to emerge in speculative fiction, my hero Michael Bishop is a consummate storyteller, stylist, thinker, provocateur, and advocate for all that’s humane. No genre can contain him, but this terrific collection comes pretty close. It’s a prism, brilliant in all directions, and its light is sorely needed.”
— Andy Duncan, author of An Agent of Utopia
“A Few Last Words for the Late Immortals returns me to a golden age when I was discovering story collections for the first time. These tales and poems are by turns funny, thought-provoking, deeply unsettling, wonderful and weird. A Few Last Words has made me lose sleep for all the right reasons.”
— Bruce Holland Rogers, author of 49: A Square of Stories
"This is a retrospective collection of the author's short stories--three dozen all very short, accompanied by a selection of poems and a satiric play. Only a few of the stories were new to me and in fact I reread several of them less than a year ago. Most of these are stories original to this collection. They do not include his most famous work but even on his off days, Bishop writes better than most of his peers when they're firing on all cylinders. . . . Many of the entries tell a surprising amount of story in comparatively few words. The play is amusing. Here's your chance to read some very fine stories that may not be readily available elsewhere."
— Critical Mass
"A master of the form. Let me sing the praises of Michael Bishop."
— Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble
"Intelligence, invention, surprise, wit, and wisdom. Michael Bishop's work is a master class in all of the above."
— Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club
— Publishers Weekly
"A wild ride into uncharted territory. Keep your head down."
— Jack McDevitt, author of Village in the Sky
“From the esteemed and well-loved Michael Bishop, A Few Last Words for the Late Immortals is a career-spanning collection of stories and poems—worth the price of admission for the poems alone, and then, all the stories! Not just for the completist, but for any reader who loves trenchant, quietly compassionate, evocative, often dark but always worth-your-while work written by a much-awarded laureate of speculative literature. Highly recommended indeed.”
— Jessica Reisman, author of The Arcana of Maps
“One of the most remarkable talents ever to emerge in speculative fiction, my hero Michael Bishop is a consummate storyteller, stylist, thinker, provocateur, and advocate for all that’s humane. No genre can contain him, but this terrific collection comes pretty close. It’s a prism, brilliant in all directions, and its light is sorely needed.”
— Andy Duncan, author of An Agent of Utopia
“A Few Last Words for the Late Immortals returns me to a golden age when I was discovering story collections for the first time. These tales and poems are by turns funny, thought-provoking, deeply unsettling, wonderful and weird. A Few Last Words has made me lose sleep for all the right reasons.”
— Bruce Holland Rogers, author of 49: A Square of Stories
"This is a retrospective collection of the author's short stories--three dozen all very short, accompanied by a selection of poems and a satiric play. Only a few of the stories were new to me and in fact I reread several of them less than a year ago. Most of these are stories original to this collection. They do not include his most famous work but even on his off days, Bishop writes better than most of his peers when they're firing on all cylinders. . . . Many of the entries tell a surprising amount of story in comparatively few words. The play is amusing. Here's your chance to read some very fine stories that may not be readily available elsewhere."
— Critical Mass
"A master of the form. Let me sing the praises of Michael Bishop."
— Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble
"Intelligence, invention, surprise, wit, and wisdom. Michael Bishop's work is a master class in all of the above."
— Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR