Most Popular Books by Michael Bishop

The Sacerdotal Owl and Three Other Long Tales gathers four of Michael Bishop''s unusual longer stories, from different stages of his almost fifty-year career, into a single remarkable volume. The title story is a deft mix of exotic Joseph Conrad and colorful 1930s pulp adventure. Next, in the early short novel And Strange at Ecbatan the Trees, Bishop imagines a far-future society on a harsh alien world facing three major calamitous challenges and turning to a fault-ridden genius to meet and overcome at least two of them. By contrast, "To the Land of Snow" follows the multi-year voyage of a 21st-century starship carrying a cargo of disaffected Buddhists colonists to a planet nearly twenty light years from Earth, all from the perspective of an unorthodox Dalai Lama born aboard the vessel itself. Finally, in the controversial "The Gospel According to Gamaliel Crucis," an evangelist for an otherworldly female redeemer-an evangelist who is also the navigator of an interstellar expeditionary force-sets out in scriptural format his testimony that this huge sentient insect represents the second coming of Christ. Discover the brave, far-ranging, unpredictable talent of Michael Bishop writing at his best at these longer lengths in four exciting subgenres of the SF and fantasy fields.

Collects twenty-five of Michael Bishop''s stories and novellas, all newly revised, in one volume.

In Earth and Mind: Dreaming, Writing, Being Michael Bishop examines very recent work by nine major French and Francophone writers: Bonnefoy, Risset, Stétié, Khoury-Ghata, Ben Jelloun, Velter, Bancquart, Pinson and Dupin, dealing with the mind''s complex modes of relating to its experience of presence to the world.

Seventeen of writer Michael Bishop''s favourite stories were handpicked from his previously uncollected works to create this compelling collection, providing an excellent overview of a career that includes award-winning science fiction, horror, fantasy, satire, space opera, and mystery. In ''A Tapestry of Little Murders'', a murderer attempts to escape along a literal road to self-destruction. A medical missionary, tortured by government thugs, reveals her dying wish in ''With a Little Help from Her Friends''. In ''The Procedure'', an operation to remove a tumourous growth will hopefully excise from the patient''s mind and body all tendencies toward faith and superstition. From futuristic mystery and Vietnam-era dark fantasy to theological speculation on Christ''s death, a variety of lyrical voices speak through these haunting stories. An essay by the author divulges the genesis of each story.

Gérard Garouste, Colette Deblé, Georges Rousse, Geneviève Asse, Martial Raysse, Christian Jaccard, Joël Kermarrec, Danièle Perronne, Daniel Dezeuze, Philippe Favier, Daniel Nadaud: after the eleven essays ofContemporary French Art 1, devoted to major artists from Ben Vautier and Niki de Saint Phalle to Annette Messager and Gérard Titus-Carmel, the present volume pursues its interrogations of thewhat, the how and the why of contemporary plastic production of some of France''s finest practitioners. If, as ever, such production can reveal elements of an interweaving of individualized preoccupations and modes, endless specificities demarcate and affirm originalities that pure theory and its leveling anonymity may obscure. Thus is it that Gérard Garouste is alone in that obsession with ''indianness'' and ''classicalness''; that Colette Deblé''s gesture is drawn implacably to the unseenness of female representation; that Georges Rousse plunges photography into the realm of matter''s poetic sacredness; that Geneviève Asse traverses a pure seemingness of abstraction to attain to an intimacy of silence; that Martial Raysse''s ''hygiene of vision'' may endlessly renew and hybridize itself. Christian Jaccard, too, will explore with uniqueness an art of materiality at the frontier of metaphysics; Joël Kermarrec will offer us the inimitable exquisite traces of surging desire and deception; Danièle Perronne''s boxes and stringings, her paintings and her sheetings will unfold a psychic infinity at the heart of form. And, if Daniel Dezeuze seeks namelessness and pure structuration, the latter yet surge forth via works that relentlessly identify a gesture so distant, we may feel, from the at once sobering and ceremonial microproliferations of a Philippe Favier or the tense but genial articulations of Daniel Nadaud''s sculptural imagination.

The British Land Rover 4x4 has grown from 1948 to become one of the world''s leading automotive brands. Exactly how it all came together back in the late 1940''s and early 50''s has been the topic of interest and debate for many years. This was until two Australian enthusiasts, Michael Bishop and Alex Massey quite literally stumbled across senior member of the original Land Rover development team, Arthur Goddard living in Brisbane, Australia in 2009. The discovery led to many of the myths and tales surrounding the early vehicles to be heard as it happened from Arthur''s point of view. Then to a trip by Arthur to visit his old work place in Solihull and to the vehicle that he helped bring to life back in 1948. The book contains both a technical and human side to this incredible story as well as a great reunion between Arthur and his old colleague Spen King who went onto design the Range Rover in the 1960''s. This is truly a unique story from the time of post War World two Britain to modern day Australia and how the iconic 4x4 grew up so quickly in the 1950''s to become the world leader that it is today.

This collection gathers together Michael Bishop''s mainstream stories set in Georgia or featuring characters from Georgia. Two stories, the opener and the closer, have conspicuous fantasy or science-fictional elements. The collection represents the culmination of a career-long project that Bishop did not fully realize he had embarked upon, but that he did always have in the back of his mind.