In the course of a distinguished career now entering its fifth decade, Michael Bishop has amassed a large body of fiction notable for its intellectual range, narrative sophistication, and sheer stylistic elegance. This massive new retrospective, The Door Gunner (and Other Perilous Flights of Fancy), amply celebrates that career, offering one example after another of Bishop's unique - and characteristic - virtuosity. This generous volume contains a preface by Bishop scholar Michael H. Hutchins, a shrewd and sympathetic introduction by Jack McDevitt, detailed - and highly readable - story notes, and twenty-five stories and novellas, many never before collected, all of them newly revised for this definitive collection. The contents proceed in chronological order, beginning with Bishop's first professional story sale, 'Piñon Fall,'; and ending with 'The City Quiet as Death,' a recent collaboration with Steven Utley. Along the way, readers will rediscover a number of bona fide Bishop classics ('Blooded on Arachne,' the Nebula Award-winning 'The Quickening'), together with a varied assortment of equally memorable tales. These include the wonderfully titled - and mordantly funny - 'The Yukio Mishima Cultural Association of Kudzu Valley, Georgia,' 'Help Me, Rondo,' a moving account of the last days of disfigured character actor Rondo Hatton, 'The Angst, I Kid You Not, of God,' a whimsically serious reflection on violence and the sense of 'divine dread' that permeates the universe, and 'Miriam,' a beautifully concise re-imagining of the central spiritual drama of Western Civilization. Not one of these stories fails to delight, illuminate, educate, and amuse. Together, they constitute a landmark volume that readers will return to again and again, finding something new to appreciate every time out. The Door Gunner (and Other Perilous Flights of Fancy) is that rarest of accomplishments: a book that matters, that speaks clearly and from the heart about significant things. It deserves - and will doubtless achieve - a place on the permanent shelf.
Author
Michael Lawson Bishop is an award-winning American writer. Over four decades & thirty books, he has created a body of work that stands among the most admired in modern sf & fantasy literature. Bishop received a bachelor's from the Univ. of Georgia in 1967, going on to complete a master's in English. He taught English at the US Air Force Academy Preparatory School in Colorado Springs from 1968-72 & then at the Univ. of Georgia. He also taught a course in science fiction at the US Air Force Academy in 1971. He left teaching in 1974 to become a full-time writer. Bishop has been awarded the Nebula in 1981 for The Quickening (Best Novelette) & in 1982 for No Enemy But Time (Best Novel). He's also received four Locus Awards & his work has been nominated for numerous Hugos. He & British author Ian Watson collaborated on a novel set in the universe of one of Bishop’s earlier works. He's also written two mystery novels with Paul Di Filippo, under the joint pseudonym Philip Lawson. His work has been translated into over a dozen languages. Bishop has published more than 125 pieces of short fiction which have been gathered in seven collections. His stories have appeared in Playboy, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, the Missouri Review, the Indiana Review, the Chattahoochee Review, the Georgia Review, Omni & Interzone. In addition to fiction, Bishop has published poetry gathered in two collections & won the 1979 Rhysling Award for his poem For the Lady of a Physicist. He's also had essays & reviews published in the NY Times, the Washington Post, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, Omni Magazine & the NY Review of Science Fiction. A collection of his nonfiction, A Reverie for Mister Ray, was issued in 2005 by PS Publishing. He's written introductions to books by Philip K. Dick, Theodore Sturgeon, James Tiptree, Jr., Pamela Sargent, Gardner Dozois, Lucius Shepard, Mary Shelley, Andy Duncan, Paul Di Filippo, Bruce Holland Rogers & Rhys Hughes. He's edited six anthologies, including the Locus Award-winning Light Years & Dark & A Cross of Centuries: 25 Imaginative Tales about the Christ, published by Thunder’s Mouth Press shortly before the company closed. In recent years, Bishop has returned to teaching & is writer-in-residence at LaGrange College located near his home in Pine Mountain, GA. He & his wife, Jeri, have a daughter & two grandchildren. His son, Christopher James Bishop, was one of the victims of the Virginia Tech massacre on 4/16/07.
