A FUNERAL FOR THE EYES OF FIRE
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MICHAEL BISHOP
Seth Latimer, a human member of a family of clones representing a far-future interstellar commercial combine, finds himself marooned on Gla Taus with no way home unless he joins a mission to a neighboring world to negotiate the transfer of a minority population from one planet to the other. The lure of trade expansion versus the grip of local custom and belief sets the story in motion. Secrets and treacherous intentions boil to the surface as diplomacy devolves into brutal expediency against a background of complex gender and religious polarization. The colorful details of alien settings and cultures are lovingly woven into this story of passionate individuals caught up in the sweep of history toward tragedy, change, and eventual renewal.
Click here to see all other titles in the Michael Bishop collection.
- June 2015 978-1-933846-49-1
- Cover design by Patrick Swenson
Seth Latimer, a human member of a family of clones representing a far-future interstellar commercial combine, finds himself marooned on Gla Taus with no way home unless he joins a mission to a neighboring world to negotiate the transfer of a minority population from one planet to the other. The lure of trade expansion versus the grip of local custom and belief sets the story in motion. Secrets and treacherous intentions boil to the surface as diplomacy devolves into brutal expediency against a background of complex gender and religious polarization. The colorful details of alien settings and cultures are lovingly woven into this story of passionate individuals caught up in the sweep of history toward tragedy, change, and eventual renewal.
Click here to see all other titles in the Michael Bishop collection.
“Originally framed decades ago in a period when new writers were bringing the insights of the softer sciences of anthropology, sociology, psychology and the like to bear on the SF tropes of adventure in outer space, A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire reads as startlingly modern. It’s sobering to realize how well the story fits our own age of economic crosscurrents and population upheavals, ideological resistance and fanaticism, and the venomous battles of evolving gender politics.”
— Suzy McKee Charnas, author of Walk to the End of the World and The Vampire Tapestry
“Michael Bishop is one of my favorite storytellers, and this edition of A Funeral for the Eyes of a Fireis his wholesale revision of his youthful first novel. So buy this book, take the battery out of the phone, curl up in your favorite chair, and spend a few hours in the company of a master.”
— David Gerrold, author of The Martian Child and The War against the Chtorr
“Eloquent . . . Michael Bishop brings to his work a poet’s love of language and a profound understanding, wedding those gifts to an imagination that knows no bounds.”
— George R. R. Martin, author of A Game of Thrones
“Michael Bishop is a spectacular writer.”
— Vonda McIntyre, author The Moon and the Sun
“Being handed A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire after all these years is like receiving an old photograph and falling immediately into reverie. Could that captured moment possibly be as good as you remember? The answer, of course, is a resounding yes. Michael Bishop's debut novel shines bright in this Twenty-First Century edition from Fairwood Press.”
— Jack Skillingstead, author of Harbinger and Are You There
“Fine and rare . . . an impressive, fully realized achievement.”
— Norman Spinrad, author of Bug Jack Barron and The Iron Dream
“His best work to date . . . The world Trope and its people are etched on my mind in a series of vividly alien images. . . . the story fascinated me.”
— Joan D. Vinge, author of The Snow Queen
“A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire is Bishop’s seventh novel, a brilliant rewriting of his first novel—not in any ordinary sense of “rewriting,” but in the sense of composing a whole new symphony based on his original themes and motifs, augmented by fresh ones. And now, in a remodeled hall, so to speak, that symphony sounds again, with sharper melodies and subtler grace notes, for Bishop is the exotic, cunningly metaphysical anthropologist of SF, the sublime his destination. Which is another way of saying: Listen, Word Wizard at Work!”
— Ian Watson, author of The Embedding and The Flies of Memory
“Michael Bishop’s A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire dares to go where few novels do: straight into the heart of what it means to be human. Ostensibly a clash-of-cultures story in the tradition of the best anthropological fiction, Funeral conveys a sense of human possibilities through characters who are differently human, transhuman, barely human, and all-too human. . . . It is impossible to read A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire without feeling one’s intelligence increased, consciousness expanded, soul uplifted.”
— David Zindell, author of Neverness and Splendor
— Suzy McKee Charnas, author of Walk to the End of the World and The Vampire Tapestry
“Michael Bishop is one of my favorite storytellers, and this edition of A Funeral for the Eyes of a Fireis his wholesale revision of his youthful first novel. So buy this book, take the battery out of the phone, curl up in your favorite chair, and spend a few hours in the company of a master.”
— David Gerrold, author of The Martian Child and The War against the Chtorr
“Eloquent . . . Michael Bishop brings to his work a poet’s love of language and a profound understanding, wedding those gifts to an imagination that knows no bounds.”
— George R. R. Martin, author of A Game of Thrones
“Michael Bishop is a spectacular writer.”
— Vonda McIntyre, author The Moon and the Sun
“Being handed A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire after all these years is like receiving an old photograph and falling immediately into reverie. Could that captured moment possibly be as good as you remember? The answer, of course, is a resounding yes. Michael Bishop's debut novel shines bright in this Twenty-First Century edition from Fairwood Press.”
— Jack Skillingstead, author of Harbinger and Are You There
“Fine and rare . . . an impressive, fully realized achievement.”
— Norman Spinrad, author of Bug Jack Barron and The Iron Dream
“His best work to date . . . The world Trope and its people are etched on my mind in a series of vividly alien images. . . . the story fascinated me.”
— Joan D. Vinge, author of The Snow Queen
“A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire is Bishop’s seventh novel, a brilliant rewriting of his first novel—not in any ordinary sense of “rewriting,” but in the sense of composing a whole new symphony based on his original themes and motifs, augmented by fresh ones. And now, in a remodeled hall, so to speak, that symphony sounds again, with sharper melodies and subtler grace notes, for Bishop is the exotic, cunningly metaphysical anthropologist of SF, the sublime his destination. Which is another way of saying: Listen, Word Wizard at Work!”
— Ian Watson, author of The Embedding and The Flies of Memory
“Michael Bishop’s A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire dares to go where few novels do: straight into the heart of what it means to be human. Ostensibly a clash-of-cultures story in the tradition of the best anthropological fiction, Funeral conveys a sense of human possibilities through characters who are differently human, transhuman, barely human, and all-too human. . . . It is impossible to read A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire without feeling one’s intelligence increased, consciousness expanded, soul uplifted.”
— David Zindell, author of Neverness and Splendor
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR