BLOODED ON ARACHNE

by Michael Bishop ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 12, 1981

A substantial first collection--hard-working but occasionally juvenile in tone--of previously-published stories (and two unfortunate poems) from Bishop's eleven-year career. Oddly enough, his style undergoes no perceptible evolution from his first published story, ""Pinon Fall"" (invasion of the insect people), to the recent ""Leaps of Faith"" (fleas and mental jumps). But there's a fair variety in approach: the fine irony of ""Cathadonian Odyssey,"" in which a spacewoman is shipwrecked on a world inhabited by telekinetic aliens (though it's marred by an unnecessary epilogue); the flair for the grotesque in ""Effigies"" (the attempts of a moribund race to grow fertile descendants from plant tissues) or ""The White Otters of Childhood"" (which uses sharks to take up A Canticle for Leibowitz where Miller left off); and two strong humorous pieces--a witty parody of the 2001 theme and the tale of a machine civilization disrupted by the arrival of an organic entity. In other stories, however, symbol-juggling and vivid backdrops prop up some rather limp ideas: a rite of passage on a desert world inhabited by spiderlike aliens; the rehabilitation of a cyborg; a dull semi-autobiographical future fantasy about Franco and Mao; and an oddment featuring moon walkers and gypsies. So: uneven but talented work from a skilled refurbisher of old themes--and of greatest probable appeal to fantasy fans with a taste for the whimsically bizarre.

Pub Date: Jan. 12, 1981

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Arkham

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1981

Categories: FICTION