A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire Read online

  Table of Contents

  A PHOENIX RISES FROM THE FUNERAL FIRES: An Introduction to Michael Bishop’s Revised First Novel by Paul Di Filippo

  CHARACTERS

  PROLOGUE

  BOOK ONE ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  BOOK TWO FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  BOOK THREE NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  BOOK FOUR THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  BOOK FIVE SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  AFTERWORD

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  KUDZU PLANET

  • PRODUCTIONS •

  Bonney Lake WA 98391

  A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire

  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.

  Praise for Michael Bishop’s

  A FUNERAL FOR THE EYES OF FIRE

  “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 The Vampire Tapestry

  “Michael Bishop is one of my favorite storytellers, and this edition of A Funeral for the Eyes of a Fire is 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 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 Are You There

  “Fine and rare . . . an impressive, fully realized achievement.”

  —Norman Spinrad, author of 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 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.”

  —David Zindell, author of Splendor

  Other Fairwood Press / Kudzu Planet Productions novels by Michael Bishop

  Brittle Innings

  Ancient of Days

  Who Made Stevie Crye?

  Count Geiger’s Blues

  A FUNERAL FOR THE EYES OF FIRE

  A Fairwood Press/Kudzu Planet Productions Book

  May 2015

  Copyright © 1975 by Michael Bishop

  Afterword “First Novel, Seventh Novel” © 1989 by Michael Bishop, but revised for this May 2015 edition

  Introduction “A Phoenix Arises from the Funeral Fires” © 2015 by Paul di Filipo

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Fairwood Press

  21528 104th Street Court East

  Bonney Lake, WA 98391

  www.fairwoodpress.com

  First published 1975 by Ballantine Books

  Published 1980 as Eyes of Fire by Pocket Books

  First hardcover edition published 1989 by Kerosina Books

  Cover & design by Patrick Swenson

  Book design byPatrick Swenson

  Kudzu Planet Productions

  an imprint of Fairwood Press

  ISBN13: 978-1-933846-49-1

  First Fairwood/Kudzu Planet Productions Edition: May 2015

  Printed in the United States of America

  eISBN: 978-1-62579-448-2

  Electronic Version by Baen Books

  www.baen.com

  This edition is in memory of my mother,

  Maxine Elaine Willis (1920-2013).

  *

  It is also for Klaus Krause,

  proofreader par excellence and long a faithful friend.

  A PHOENIX RISES FROM THE FUNERAL FIRES:

  An Introduction to Michael Bishop’s Revised First Novel

  by Paul Di Filippo

  Well do I recall receiving the October-November 1970 issue of Galaxy magazine in the mail. I had only discovered SF prozines a couple of years earlier, with a gift subscription from my parents to F&SF. And so each issue of the two magazines impacted with fresh explosive power as it rocketed into my mailbox.

  Of course, that issue of Galaxy contained “Piñon Fall,” the tenderly astonishing debut by one Michael Bishop. It registered keenly, imprinting his byline firmly in mind, and I took much enjoyment in his short-story output over the next several years, particularly a run of great tales in F&SF. Around this same time, Mike also became a part of Don D’Ammassa’s legendary fanzine Mythologies, in whose pages I also appeared, and so we had an extra-literary connection and friendship as well.

  Then in 1975 appeared something wonderful and much anticipated: a Ballantine Books paperback original, Michael’s first novel, A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire. As an impecunious college student, my budget for books was extremely limited, but I made sure to scrape together the $1.50 necessary to snatch it off the bookstore shelves, with it
s gorgeously lurid cover by Gene Szafran. (That volume is still in my collection today, natch.)

  I recall reading the book in a gulp and enjoying it immensely, even discussing it with local fans. But now, forty years on (can that incredible interval be veridical!?!), I find I retained little of the specifics of the story, other than the potent image of its jewel-eyed aliens. And so when I was offered the chance to get reacquainted with this book and share some thoughts on its new edition, I leapt at the opportunity to meet up again with an old friend from distant times.

  But the exercise was not one entirely or even mostly composed of nostalgia. I am happy to report that I found a novel which, were it to be issued as the debut book by a hot young writer in 2015—and please recall that Novice Michael Bishop was all of thirty years old in 1975—would be hailed as utterly hip and state-of-the-art SF, wrought with immense skill and compassion and wit. (As Mike reveals in his generous and fascinating “Afterword,” the text we see today has been majorly modified from that first printing, but not, I believe, so drastically as to utterly erase or even minimize the inspired words of his youthful avatar.)

  What are some of the salient, particularly stefnal attractions of this novel? Let’s start with the brilliant setup. Our protagonist, Seth Latimer, is the clone of a dead man, one of two such clones in fact, and relegated to almost servant status in the uncanny familial menagerie. Right away we have a potent character, one who operates from the fascinating outsider underbelly of society and status. His perceptions are bound to be piercingly skewed. Then, to add to the allure of the scenario, he’s trapped on an alien planet, Gla Taus, a world whose strange culture is detailed at entrancing length by Bishop, in the “thick anthropology” manner he became famous for, replete with alien myths and history, in a mode derived in part from the lessons taught by the novels of Le Guin.

  Next, Seth is promised his freedom and return passage to Earth if only he undertakes a diplomatic mission to a second alien world, Trope, which proves to be even more bizarre in its denizens and their beliefs and ways than Gla Taus. Now, I put it to you that most fledgling writers would have been content trying to capture only one invented world, a place inhabited by an Everyman protagonist of lesser oddity, in deference to the famously conservative C. S. Lewis quote about “strange world plus strange hero amounting to one strangeness too many.” And in fact Gardner Dozois’s comparable first solo novel from this same period, Strangers (1978), took just such a strategy. But Bishop, in a high-wire act so essential to the best SF, boldly piles on the weirdness and skillfully manages to make us savor every tasty morsel in his banquet of strange flavors, without indigestion.

  Having arranged this elaborate setup, Bishop goes on to deliver a story rich in ethical, political, religious and psychosexual conundrums, a gripping tale whose outcome is never predictable and whose emotional and intellectual ripples continue to spread beyond the final indeterminately unfixed page. The book succeeds in mapping its many exotic happenings onto our contemporary world—or vice versa—without being ham-handed or preachy. That’s the essence of fine science fiction, by my lights. And right out of the gate for its author, despite subsequent modifications!

  Mike cites many influences from the period of the book’s composition: Ballard, Ellison, Delany, Zelazny. I’d add two more: Jack Vance and Robert Silverberg. Bishop’s word portraits of his aliens and their geographical venues bring to my mind such classics as Vance’s “The Moon Moth” or The Last Castle. And Seth’s immersion in the Tropiard Weltanschauung harks to Silverberg’s classic Downward to the Earth.

  As far as casting its influence forward, I think that this book occupies a seminal place in the canon. Without its model, I doubt the novels of C. J. Cherryh, Octavia Butler, or Joan Slonczewski would read quite as they do. Michael Bishop truly showed us how to inhabit alien cultures both from the inside out and the outside in. Anyone dealing with such themes today owes him a debt, even if they have received his influence only through a chain of other writers.

  Having this polychromatic, stunning, shocking, and absorbing tale back in print today is a major victory for readers and scholars alike. The passage of forty years has not dimmed these eyes of fire.

  —November 2014

  Providence, Rhode Island

  Paul Di Filippo published his first story in 1977. Since then, he has produced over two-hundred more. Collected, many of his stories, along with his stand-alone novels and novellas, constitute a published canon of some thirty books. These include, among others, The Steampunk Trilogy (1995); Ribofunk (1996); Fractal Paisleys and Cyphers (both 1997); Lost Pages (1998); Joe’s Liver (2000); Little Doors, A Mouthful of Tongues, Babylon Sisters, and A Year in the Linear City (all 2002); Fuzzy Dice (2003); Neutrino Drag (2004); The Emperor of Gondwanaland (2005); Shuteye for the Timebroker (2006); Roadside Bodhisattva (2010); After the Collapse (2011); and WikiWorld (2013). Despite all actuarial stats, he hopes he is at the midpoint of his career. He lives in Providence, Rhode Island, with Deborah Newton and the ghost of H. P. Lovecraft.

  CHARACTERS

  Humans

  Abel Latimer, isoget of Günter Latimer, lately slain

  Seth Latimer, his isohet

  K/R Caranicas, pilot of the Dharmakaya, an Ommundi Trade Company light-tripper

  Jauddeb

  Lady Turshebsel, Liege Mistress of Kier on Gla Taus

  Porchaddos Pors, Point Marcher of Feln, Kier’s Winter Capital

  Narthaimnar Chappouib, aisautseb, or patriot-priest, advisor to Lady Turshebsel

  Clefrabbes Douin, advisor to Lady Turshebsel and Kieri man-of-letters

  An aisautseb (patriot-priest), assigned by Lady Turshebsel to the Dharmakaya

  Various Kieri shopkeepers, aisautseb (patriot-priests), soldiers, servants, taussanaur (orbital guards), etc.

  Gosfi

  Ulgraji Vrai, Sixth Magistrate of Trope, political heir of Seitaba Mwezahbe, founder of the state of Trope

  Ehte Emahpre, his Administrative Deputy

  Commander Swodi, leader of the Palija Kadi surveillance force

  Captain Yithuju, driver of the lead vehicle of the evacuation convoy

  The Pledgechild, sh’gosfi heir of the departed Holy One, Duagahvi Gaidu

  Lijadu, her heir, fleshchild of Ifragsli, recently deceased

  Huspre, attendant of and advisor to the Pledgechild; a midwife

  Tantai, attendant of the Pledgechild

  Omwhol, a child, recently appointed keeper of the gocodre

  Various j’gosfi guides, administrative workers, surveillance-force personnel, etc., along with various sh’gosfi elders (midwives), laborers, children, etc.

  PROLOGUE

  Long ago there was a jongleur-thief in Kier, before Kier was yet a nation, and the name of the jongleur-thief was Jaud. Gla Taus, The World, was new in those days, only lately formed from the primordial slag, and in every situation in this new world Jaud acted out of the selfish center of himself. This was not unusual, for in the beginning the world was without law and the people had no word for conscience.

  Jaud’s disposition was merry and cruel at once, and he chose to live by stealing. After each theft he whirled before his victim and deftly juggled the items he had stolen: rings, bracelets, coins, seashells, beads, digging tools, and even weapons. Often his victims applauded these performances. Only rarely did the aggrieved Gla Tausian try to recover his belongings, for Jaud was impatient of those who interfered with his juggling, and throughout the land his deadliness with knife and hand ax was well known.

  In the infancy of Gla Taus, Jaud honored only Jaud and a few fellow thieves who served as his disciples and retainers, having recognized in him a sorcerer of chicanery and bloodthirstiness. For untold years, the Thieves of Jaud preyed upon the people of Kier before Kier was a nation. They made themselves a bastion in the Orpla Mountains, from which they undertook forays of theft, jugglery, and slaughter.

  But as time passed, people drew together against the indifference of Gla Taus and the cruelty o
f Jaud. From these first feeble bands tribes arose, and from the tribes chiefdoms, and from the chiefdoms primitive states, and from the primitive states a nation that called itself Kier. Kier exercised dominion through the authority of the first Prime Liege, whom everyone knew as Shobbes or Law. Only Jaud and his fellow jongleur-thieves failed to acknowledge the preeminence of Law, for they were free spirits obeying no statutes but those written in the runes of their blood. How could they know that the superstitious taboos of the first bands had become the inhibitory customs of the tribes? That the customs had become ordinances, and that finally Shobbes had had these ordinances codified in writing?

  In truth, Jaud and his family of cutpurses, clowns, and cutthroats did not know. Not until a contingent of Kieri soldiers captured one of their number after the fellow had robbed and slain an innocent citizen of a village on the Mirrimsagset Plain. For instead of ordering the beheading of the outlaw, Shobbes sent him back to the Orpla Mountains with this message: “Jaud, Shobbes has told me to say that at last the taboos, the customs, the rules, and the ordinances have become the Commandments of Law. And Law declares that no Kieri may steal from another or commit murder. Not even Jaud stands outside these Commandments. Shobbes demands that your thieving, juggling, and killing instantly cease.” The messenger bowed low before his lord, and Jaud struck off his head.