Michael Lawson Bishop (November 12, 1945 – November 13, 2023) was an American author. Over five decades and in more than thirty books, he created what has been called a "body of work that stands among the most admired and influential in modern science fiction and fantasy literature."Cox, F. Brett and Andy Duncan, eds., Crossroads: Tales of the Southern Literary Fantastic, New York: Tor Books, 2004: 223

Biography Michael Lawson Bishop was born on November 12, 1945, in Lincoln, Nebraska, the son of Leotis "Lee" Bishop and Maxine ("Mac") Elaine Matison. His parents met in the summer of 1942 when his father, a recent enlistee of the Army Air Corps, was stationed in Lincoln. Bishop's childhood was the peripatetic life of a military brat. He went to kindergarten in Tokyo, Japan, and he spent his senior year of high school in Seville, Spain. His parents divorced in 1951, and Bishop spent summers wherever his father happened to be based.Bishop, Michael. "Military Brat." Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series, Volume 26. Detroit: Gale Research, 1997.

Bishop entered the University of Georgia in 1963, receiving his bachelor's degree in English in 1967, before going on to complete a master's degree in English in 1968. In 1969, he married Jeri Ellis Whitaker of Columbus, Georgia. He taught English (including a course in science fiction) at the United States Air Force Academy Preparatory School in Colorado Springs from 1968 to 1972. After his service career, he taught composition and English literature at the University of Georgia in Athens. A son, Jamie, was born in 1971, and a daughter, Stephanie was born in 1973. Bishop left teaching in 1974 to become a full-time writer. In those early years of freelance writing, he would occasionally work as a substitute teacher in the public schools and as a stringer for the Ledger-Enquirer in Columbus.SFRA 2009 Program Book, Atlanta GA: Science Fiction Research Association Conference, 2009: 15

In 1996, Bishop became writer-in-residence at LaGrange College located near his home (built in the 1890s) in Pine Mountain, Georgia. Bishop taught creative-writing courses and an occasional January interim-term course. He held this position until Spring 2012.

In an interview in 2003, Bishop identified as a Christian.

Michael and Jeri, former counselor at Rosemont Elementary School, had two grandchildren, Annabel and Joel, by their daughter Stephanie. On April 16, 2007, their son Jamie, a lecturer in German and I.T. Studies, became one of the victims of the Virginia Tech shooting. Bishop and his wife subsequently advocated for stricter gun laws in the United States.

Bishop died from cancer at a hospice facility in LaGrange, Georgia, on November 13, 2023, one day after his 78th birthday.

Writing career Michael Bishop's first published professional fiction sale was the short story "Piñon Fall" to Galaxy Science Fiction in 1970. It was shortly followed by "If a Flower Could Eclipse", the first story in his Urban Nucleus (UrNu) cycle, Bishop's longest and most significant series of related stories. His shorter series, Glaktik Komm, in the subgenre of anthropological science fiction, consists of two short stories and two novels published in the late 1970s. While Galaxy Science Fiction and If magazines were publishing his science-fiction stories, the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction became Bishop's venue for his fantasy/horror stories. This early period is also noted for a number of high-profile novellas: in 1973 "Death and Designation Among the Asadi" and "The White Otters of Childhood" appeared on the shortlist ballots for both the Hugo and Nebula awards. The 1974 gonzo novella "On the Street of the Serpents" (including a character named "Michael Bishop") first appeared in an anthology of original stories. It would eventually lead to a contract for his first novel from Ballantine Books, the anthology's publisher.Bishop, Michael. "First Novel, Seventh Novel." A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire. Worcester Park: Kerosina, 1989. 11-12.

Bishop published fifteen solo novels, three collaborative novels, and more than 150 pieces of short fiction, most of which have been gathered into eleven collections. A major career retrospective collection, The Door Gunner and Other Perilous Flights of Fancy was published in February 2012 by Subterranean Press. His stories have appeared in such publications as Playboy, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, The Missouri Review, the Indiana Review, The Chattahoochee Review, The Georgia Review, Omni, and Interzone. His work has been translated into more than a dozen languages.

In addition to his fiction, Bishop published poetry (gathered in two collections) and won the 1979 Rhysling Award for his poem "For the Lady of a Physicist." He also had essays and reviews published in numerous newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, Omni Magazine, and the New York Review of Science Fiction. A collection of his nonfiction, A Reverie for Mister Ray, was published in 2005 by PS Publishing.

Bishop and British author Ian Watson collaborated on a novel set in the universe of one of Bishop's earlier works. He also wrote two mystery novels with Paul Di Filippo, under the joint pseudonym Philip Lawson. Bishop's collaboration with Steven Utley, the short story "The City Quiet as Death", was published in June 2009 on Tor.com.

Bishop edited seven anthologies, including the Locus Award-winning Light Years and Dark and A Cross of Centuries: Twenty-five Imaginative Tales about the Christ, published by Thunder's Mouth Press in 2007. His latest anthology, Passing for Human, was co-edited with Steven Utley and published by PS Publishing in 2009.

Bishop wrote 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, and Rhys Hughes.

Bishop was twice awarded the Nebula: in 1981 for "The Quickening" (Best Novelette) and in 1982 for No Enemy But Time (Best Novel). He also received four Locus Awards and his work has been nominated for numerous Hugo Awards. In July 2009, "The Pile" was the recipient of the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Short Story of 2008.

Bishop was Guest of Honor at more than a dozen science fiction conventions including the 1977 DeepSouthCon, the 1978 Philcon, the 1992 Readercon, the 1992 World Fantasy Convention, the 1999 World Horror Convention, the 2005 Norwescon, the 2009 Science Fiction Research Association Conference, and Special Guest at the 2010 ArmadilloCon. He was also one of the organizers of the three Slipstreaming in the Arts conferences (1997–2001). In 2001, he was given an Honorary Doctorate of Humanities from LaGrange College. In May 2013, he was the Guest of Honor at Italcon 39, the Italian national convention of fantastic literature.

Overview of works

Early works Six of Bishop's first eight novels are set on other worlds (the other two are the part of his UrNu sequence of stories.) Critic and author John Clute writes that "…his early stories and novels display considerable intellectual complexity, and do not shirk the downbeat implications of their anthropological treatment of aliens and alienating milieux…"Clute, John. "Bishop, Michael." The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993. 126. In his major essay on these early novels, author Ian Watson writes "Michael Bishop is both an exoticist and a moralist. He is sometimes guilty, in the first respect, of a certain over-writing – underlying exotic venue by exotic diction – though the two become more organically integrated as his work progresses; and in the second respect of what one might call an over-scrupulousness on the part of his characters and his perceived attitude to them… These, however, are merely the consequence of aspiration and conscience; and as more of Bishop's work has appeared – and his reputation has grown – he has shown…a more coherent melding of exotic vision, ethics and style."Watson, Ian. "A Rhetoric of Recognition: The Science Fiction of Michael Bishop." Foundation 19. Dagenham UK: SF Foundation, North East London Polytechnic. June 1980: 5.

A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire When Bishop's first novel, A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire, was published by Ballantine Books in 1975, critics Alexei and Cory Panshin wrote that the novel "shows an interest in the anthropological comparable to Ursula K. Le Guin and a sense of the alien comparable to James Tiptree, Jr. But it is an individual work, Bishop's own and no one else's. A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire is highly imperfect. It is a pied mirror, everywhere reflecting brilliantly bright, everywhere cloudy. It leads the eyes inward, and ultimately reveals nothing clearly. Even so, it is the most impressive first novel so far seen in the Seventies." They go on to declare that "Bishop is one of the new and still rare breed of science fiction writer attempting to produce art without rejecting the pulp vigor that is science fiction's continuing strengths."Panshin, Alexei and Cory Panshin. Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Cornwall CT: Mercury Press. Aug. 1975: 49. The novel was nominated for a Nebula Award in 1975.

And Strange at Ecbatan the Trees Bishop's second novel (and first hardcover publication) takes its title from Archibald MacLeish's poem "You, Andrew Marvell". Published by Harper & Row in 1976, it is set in the same far future as his Hugo- and Nebula-nominated novella "The White Otters of Childhood." There are two surviving races, both genetically engineered by a third, the Parfects, who also manipulate the ongoing struggle between them. Richard A. Lupoff praised the novel lavishly, calling it "An eccentric, accomplished performance; and impressive and admirable one . . . a delightful book, a new treatment of a somewhat familiar theme, but crafted into a strange shape and told with such fineness of presence and such impressive language that it hardly matters what the book is about."Lupoff, Richard A. "Richard Lupoff's Book Week." Algol 27, Winter 1976-1977: 32 Reviewer Keith L. Justice writes "If Bishop never published another word of fiction, he would still have to be considered a milestone writer in the development of contemporary sf… Writers such as Le Guin, Tiptree, and Bishop are developing a whole new generation of artistry."Justice, Keith L. "Paperbacks." Delap's F&SF Review, Dragonwood Press. Feb 1978: 27.

Stolen Faces In Stolen Faces (published by Harper & Row in 1977), a recently demoted commissioner has been reassigned to a colony planet to govern a compound which isolates the sufferers of a leprosy-like disease. Ian Watson writes that the novel is "about deceit, maskedness and discovery of self-truth…a harsh, arctic tale by contrast with [And Strange at Ecbatan the Trees] where the terrain may be stark but there is a mannered elegance in the tone of voice; it is a tale executed in an argot-ritualistic style."Watson, Ian. "A Rhetoric of Recognition: The Science Fiction of Michael Bishop". Foundation 19. Dagenham UK: SF Foundation, North East London Polytechnic. June 1980: 10. Critic Richard Delap writes "There is an abundance of exploitable elements in Bishop's story, so it is astonishing to see how the author keeps them under strict rein, always with a highly keyed visual sense but also with a literary flair that says more by implication than by direct description. The writing itself is crafted with a precision that becomes obvious only as the novel progresses."Delap, Richard. Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Cornwall CT: Mercury Press. Oct. 1977: 36-37.

Transfigurations