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A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire
This is the collector's edition and contains the text of the 1980 version "Eyes of Fire".
Hardcover
First published February 1, 1975
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190 people want to read
About the author
Michael Bishop
306 books105 followersMichael Lawson Bishop was an award-winning American writer. Over four decades & thirty books, he 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 won 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.
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 won 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.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
January 5, 2025
A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire was Bishop's first novel. It was published in 1975 be Ballantine, before they changed the name of the company to Del Rey. I had been blown away by his novella Death and Designation Among the Asadi a couple of years before, so I picked this one up with high expectations. I remember enjoying it pretty much but thinking it didn't really live up to the earlier story's quality. It's an interesting exploration of anthropology but gets a little too tangled with religious and political philosophical overtones that makes it a bit hard to follow. Bishop completely re-wrote the book, and it was published in 1980 as Eyes of Fire (which I didn't read), and that version has been subsequently reprinted under both titles, so if one were to want to compare the two it would take some diligent research as to which was which.
December 4, 2017
This “anthropological SF” book has a somewhat confusing history. In 1975 Michael Bishop published his debut, A Funeral For The Eyes Of Fire. It didn’t sell well, but Bishop continued writing – books like Catacomb Years and Transfigurations. In 1978 David Hartwell of Pocket Books offered Bishop a contract to rewrite his first novel. The result was published in 1980 as Eyes Of Fire, with a cover almost identical to the first edition. To make things even more confusing, in 1989 Kerosina Books published that new version under the exact same title as the debut, something Bishop would have liked to have done in 1980 too, but didn’t, to avoid confusing potential readers. In 2015 Kudzu Planet reprinted the 1980 version, also as A Funeral For The Eyes Of Fire, yet again with another cover.
All that explains why Goodreads at the moment still has just one entry for the two texts. Both books differ tremendously however, and the differences are chronicled quite detailed in the 1989 edition, most explicitly in an afterword by Ian Watson, as well as in the extensive foreword by Bishop himself. Just to be clear, Bishop prefers the second version: he will not allow a reprint of the first book.
The differences are not a matter of rephrasing some sentences and the addition or subtraction of a few scenes. This is not simply a director’s cut like Green Earth. While the overall idea of the plot and the philosophical foundations of the story are more or less the same, the two protagonists have a very different relation to each other, the aliens’ anatomy differs, and the social reality on the planet were the bulk of the story is set, is significantly different. And while the debut had a first person narrator, this is a third person narrative. The fact that all names are changed too isn’t even that important.
Anyhow, it seems like Bishop took the basic ideas of his debut, and wrote a whole new book. Watson puts it like this:
The new novel is far more disciplined and tauter; but where another writer might merely have pruned excesses, Bishop has not merely reorchestrated but has written an entirely different symphony based on the same themes – and on several new ones.
Just to be clear: I’ve read the 1989 edition, and so this review can double as a review for 1980’s Eyes Of Fire too.
(...)
Please read the full review on Weighing A Pig
All that explains why Goodreads at the moment still has just one entry for the two texts. Both books differ tremendously however, and the differences are chronicled quite detailed in the 1989 edition, most explicitly in an afterword by Ian Watson, as well as in the extensive foreword by Bishop himself. Just to be clear, Bishop prefers the second version: he will not allow a reprint of the first book.
The differences are not a matter of rephrasing some sentences and the addition or subtraction of a few scenes. This is not simply a director’s cut like Green Earth. While the overall idea of the plot and the philosophical foundations of the story are more or less the same, the two protagonists have a very different relation to each other, the aliens’ anatomy differs, and the social reality on the planet were the bulk of the story is set, is significantly different. And while the debut had a first person narrator, this is a third person narrative. The fact that all names are changed too isn’t even that important.
Anyhow, it seems like Bishop took the basic ideas of his debut, and wrote a whole new book. Watson puts it like this:
The new novel is far more disciplined and tauter; but where another writer might merely have pruned excesses, Bishop has not merely reorchestrated but has written an entirely different symphony based on the same themes – and on several new ones.
Just to be clear: I’ve read the 1989 edition, and so this review can double as a review for 1980’s Eyes Of Fire too.
(...)
Please read the full review on Weighing A Pig
March 3, 2020
Full review: https://sciencefictionruminations.com...
"*First, a preliminary note on the publication history: I read the original, unabridged 1975 edition. However, Michael Bishop “completely rewrote” the novel in 1980 (according to ISFDB and his introduction to the later edition). The 1980 rewrite—initially titled Eyes of Fire but later confusingly released under the original title, A Funeral For the Eyes of Fire-–was the one republished and recently available as an eBook through SF Gateway according to Bishop’s wishes. I would prefer my readers, if they are interested in the volume, to not hesitate in snatching up the original. I suspect both are worth reading.
Fresh off Michael Bishop’s strangely wonderful And Strange at Ecbatan the Trees (variant title: Beneath the Shattered Moons) (1976) I eagerly devoured his first published novel, A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire (1975)—and with this work, bluntly put, he enters my pantheon of favorite SF authors. Bishop, completely in command of his narrative, weaves together a literary and anthropological tapestry filled with stories within stories and delicate interplay between these layers.
The deceptively simple premise unfurls into a complex [...]"
"*First, a preliminary note on the publication history: I read the original, unabridged 1975 edition. However, Michael Bishop “completely rewrote” the novel in 1980 (according to ISFDB and his introduction to the later edition). The 1980 rewrite—initially titled Eyes of Fire but later confusingly released under the original title, A Funeral For the Eyes of Fire-–was the one republished and recently available as an eBook through SF Gateway according to Bishop’s wishes. I would prefer my readers, if they are interested in the volume, to not hesitate in snatching up the original. I suspect both are worth reading.
Fresh off Michael Bishop’s strangely wonderful And Strange at Ecbatan the Trees (variant title: Beneath the Shattered Moons) (1976) I eagerly devoured his first published novel, A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire (1975)—and with this work, bluntly put, he enters my pantheon of favorite SF authors. Bishop, completely in command of his narrative, weaves together a literary and anthropological tapestry filled with stories within stories and delicate interplay between these layers.
The deceptively simple premise unfurls into a complex [...]"
October 1, 2025
A diplomatic mission consisting of an Earthman (Gunnar) and two Glaparcans (Stephen and Anders) arrive on the planet Trope to negotiate a deal to resettle a troublesome Tropean sect called the Ouemartsee - which would achieve two goals - giving the Ouemartsee a homeland free of harassment and ridding the ruling Tropeans of a thorn in their political sides. The Tropeans have a ritual where their birthfathers' eyes are powdered and hung around their necks (a dasca-nol) after a mystic gives a
reading of their Last Vision. The smooth running comes to an end when Gunnar has the dascra of the ruling Magistrate stolen by an Ouemartsee boy and the revelation that the Glaparcan motives are sinister becomes evident. This is the original Michael Bishop novel not the extensively rewritten one from 2014, but is beautifully written, especially for a first novel!
reading of their Last Vision. The smooth running comes to an end when Gunnar has the dascra of the ruling Magistrate stolen by an Ouemartsee boy and the revelation that the Glaparcan motives are sinister becomes evident. This is the original Michael Bishop novel not the extensively rewritten one from 2014, but is beautifully written, especially for a first novel!
June 4, 2025
Not a "great" read, but a solid "good" read, and that was just what I was craving.
If you have a copy of this original paperback first edition DON'T READ THE BACK COVER DESCRIPTION!! It spoils one of the final reveals. (I just read the Goodreads description: It's an exact reprint, thus spoiling that aspect of it again...). While that spoiler isn't detrimental, it does undermine the main character's naivety and the reasons why he was being asked to handle the negotiations. I genuinely liked the characters, and their dilemmas were well handled. The book very much felt like a 70s SF novel (if that means anything to anyone...)
It is interesting that in this debut version of this novel, every single character is identified with male pronouns and often exhibit male stereotype gender norms, despite the race being asexual, and the main character admitting that he never figured out how they reproduced. This was a definite missed opportunity for Bishop to use they/them pronouns, or attempt to write without pronouns at all, so in the end, the book, at least to a modern reader, ends up feeling like it's filled with nothing but males. Choc-block sausage fest!
I enjoyed the writing, and the first-person perspective, opposed to the revised third-person narrator of the Eyes of Fire version, helps to follow the struggles and dilemmas of the main character as he struggles with his part in this relocation attempt of the Ouemartsee.
If you have a copy of this original paperback first edition DON'T READ THE BACK COVER DESCRIPTION!! It spoils one of the final reveals. (I just read the Goodreads description: It's an exact reprint, thus spoiling that aspect of it again...). While that spoiler isn't detrimental, it does undermine the main character's naivety and the reasons why he was being asked to handle the negotiations. I genuinely liked the characters, and their dilemmas were well handled. The book very much felt like a 70s SF novel (if that means anything to anyone...)
It is interesting that in this debut version of this novel, every single character is identified with male pronouns and often exhibit male stereotype gender norms, despite the race being asexual, and the main character admitting that he never figured out how they reproduced. This was a definite missed opportunity for Bishop to use they/them pronouns, or attempt to write without pronouns at all, so in the end, the book, at least to a modern reader, ends up feeling like it's filled with nothing but males. Choc-block sausage fest!
I enjoyed the writing, and the first-person perspective, opposed to the revised third-person narrator of the Eyes of Fire version, helps to follow the struggles and dilemmas of the main character as he struggles with his part in this relocation attempt of the Ouemartsee.
February 17, 2019
I can see why he rewrote it.
sony-or-android
January 18, 2022https://eclectictheist.wordpress.com/...
He admired the original edition tremendously.
He admired the original edition tremendously.
April 7, 2015
Gunnar Balduin, and his brother Peter, have left Earth (where they lived in a future Atlanta) to find the freedom of living away from Earth. With two Glaparcans, they are traveling to the planet of Trope to convince a small religious sect, the Ouemartsee to relocate to Glaparcan.
Tropeans have no mouths, but "talk" mentally. They are very rational people, but the Ouemartsee are a throwback to their earlier civilization. Tropeans have a complicated system of spiritual rebirth that they undergo a number times.
Gunnar iis kept in the dark by his brother and the Glaparcans about the true nature of their quest.
This book is one of the best I have read that presents truly alien culture in science fiction. The aliens are recognizable people (men, there are no any women in the book at all), but also deeply different from human.
Tropeans have no mouths, but "talk" mentally. They are very rational people, but the Ouemartsee are a throwback to their earlier civilization. Tropeans have a complicated system of spiritual rebirth that they undergo a number times.
Gunnar iis kept in the dark by his brother and the Glaparcans about the true nature of their quest.
This book is one of the best I have read that presents truly alien culture in science fiction. The aliens are recognizable people (men, there are no any women in the book at all), but also deeply different from human.
March 19, 2011
Another random book that appeared on my to-read pile from nowhere in particular. This was Michael Bishop's first book, which he apparently re-wrote as Eyes of Fire. It was overly complicated and just plain weird and vaguely beautiful. And a bit annoying and hard to read. With rather odd aliens without mouths. 3.5 of 5.
July 1, 2013
Definitely a first book.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews