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Count Geiger's Blues
An art critic for a great metropolitan newspaper reluctantly becomes a superhero in a novel of heroism. By the author of The Secret Ascension, Unicorn Mountain, and No Enemy But Time.
374 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1992
5 people are currently reading
145 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 - 13 of 13 reviews
January 8, 2025
Count Geiger's Blues is my favorite Michael Bishop book on Wednesdays. (Since you asked, the rest of the time it's Brittle Innings.) It's a study of the dichotomy between high-brow literary "art" and pop-culture entertainment, a cool Southern social-consciousness commentary, a tearjerker, a crackling good adventure tale, and probably another half-dozen or so more cool things that are both mostly fun and good for you. (Except the tearjerker part...but no spoilers.) Xavier Thaxton is a snobby fine arts editor of a suburban journal, but when he swims in a pond polluted with radioactive waste, he develops superpowers, and more importantly begins to enjoy rock music and comic books. It's a really funny story except for when it's not.
August 16, 2007
Xavier Thaxton writes for the Fine Arts section of his local paper, and he's a snob of the highest order. He is practically physically repulsed by any exposure to Popular Culture. Then, while camping out at a George Bernard Shaw festival, he takes a dip in a pond that has been tainted by radioactive waste. He soon realizes that he has become allergic to High Culture--only an equal exposure to Popular Culture can stem the symptoms. Eventually, he's forced to become the ultimate embodiment of pop culture: the superhero. He's about as good at it as you would expect some random middle-aged, over-educated, under-exercised shlub to be.
Bishop writes with a light touch here, and handles the satire of both High and Low Culture with style. But the ending (which makes perfect sense) is a revelation, giving this breezy satire some much-needed pathos and depth.
Bishop writes with a light touch here, and handles the satire of both High and Low Culture with style. But the ending (which makes perfect sense) is a revelation, giving this breezy satire some much-needed pathos and depth.
September 6, 2020
My 1995 booklog says:
"A/A+, sad & funny book, reread sometime."
Unfortunately, our local library copy has been lost. Maybe I'll see one in the used bookstore, when we can visit those again. In the sweet bye & bye....
"A/A+, sad & funny book, reread sometime."
Unfortunately, our local library copy has been lost. Maybe I'll see one in the used bookstore, when we can visit those again. In the sweet bye & bye....
November 10, 2019
This one jumped off the shelf and into my hands. I’m a Bishop fan from years back–having read and loved books like Ancient of Days, No Enemy But Time, The Secret Ascension (aka Philip K. Dick is Dead, Alas), and Unicorn Mountain–and I hadn’t even known that he had a new book coming out.
Not only that, but a book that really piqued my interest. Bishop’s doing his own version of Watchmen here–what if a “superhero” really existed in our world. But the operative word on the title page is that this is a comedy. For all his realism, Bishop is actually writing in the tradition of James Branch Cabell and Thorne Smith, warping our reality to actually satirize it.
It has confirmed my expectations. Xavier Thaxton is the Fine Arts editor at the local newspaper–a man who hates popular culture. But slowly he finds that popular culture is what he needs, and what he is becoming. The conclusion is a statement about “art,” that most nebulous of terms.
Not only that, but a book that really piqued my interest. Bishop’s doing his own version of Watchmen here–what if a “superhero” really existed in our world. But the operative word on the title page is that this is a comedy. For all his realism, Bishop is actually writing in the tradition of James Branch Cabell and Thorne Smith, warping our reality to actually satirize it.
It has confirmed my expectations. Xavier Thaxton is the Fine Arts editor at the local newspaper–a man who hates popular culture. But slowly he finds that popular culture is what he needs, and what he is becoming. The conclusion is a statement about “art,” that most nebulous of terms.
October 20, 2009
Mr. Mike Bishop is one of my teachers, and we read this after taking a graphic novel class with him. It's an interesting take on super heroes. Although it follows some of the typical hero motifs, Geiger is more or less your anti-superhero. Until he became a hero, he hated anything that was less than high class art, including comics. So, it's ironic that he becomes what he has always despised.
August 12, 2025
Fine arts critic Xavier Thaxton is a cultural snob in the southern metropolis of Salonika, who has no time for the lowbrow art of pop culture (including junk food, TV, rock music and comics), until he skinnydips in a pool with radioactive waste and suddenly develops severe allergies to high art. The only way to counteract his reactions is to consume low culture, eventually gaining some appreciation for the band Smite Them Hip and Thigh via his retropunk nephew The Mick. Unfortunately the widened scope of his cultural appreciation made his allergies worse, until he purchased a costume of a new comic book hero Count Geiger introduced by local indie comic publisher Uncommon Comics, eventually realizing he has similar powers as the character. The book strikes an entertaining balance between philosophical discussions on Nietzsche and superheroes, Dante’s Inferno style satire of cyberpunk, fine dining, strip clubs and even ball sports, shady businessmen and nuclear waste disposal, romance, comedy and tragedy. Known as a SF writer, Bishop's work here encompasses empathetic, humanist character portraits along the lines of Nick Hornby and some of the wit of Kurt Vonnegut.
June 13, 2017
De Michael Bishop había leído anteriormente "Jugadas decisivas", ¡y fue toda una sorpresa inesperada! Por eso, no dudé mucho en afrontar la lectura de "La transfiguración del Conde Geiger", facilitado por el mismo amigo que me había prestado la otra novela.
Tal y como me pasó en aquella ocasión, empecé el libro sin saber muy bien que esperar, salvo lo que decía el resumen en la contraportada. A las primeras páginas, me parecía una simple historia de super-heroes, eso si, con algunos personajes muy carismáticos pero nada fuera de lo normal. Como sea, es precisamente el personaje principal, el que va dando el contrapunto en la historia, ya que Bishop lo presenta como alguien que odia todo lo que tenga que ver con cultura popular, pero que al final, acaba irremediablemente convertido no sólo en un admirador de la misma, sino en un símbolo de ella, además de, de hecho, necesitarla para seguir con vida. Así, a lo largo de la novela se nos va presentando una confrontación en el arte elevado y lo que a veces llamamos "arte chafa", teatro vs cómics, sinfonías vs bandas punks, festivales de teatro vs entretenimientos de cantina, etcétera. Y es en ese maremágnum de opuestos donde Xavier Thaxton finalmente se encuentra a si mismo, renacido como un héroe de historieta, pero cuyas batallas no son precisamente las que esperamos de un ente súper-poderoso como el que se ha convertido.
Al final, es lo interesante de la novela, el hecho de que confronta dos mundos que algunas personas pueden considerar opuestos (pero que tienen muchos más puntos en común de lo que pareciera a simple vista), mostrando que es posible moverse entre ambos sin ningún problema, requiriendo solamente un poco de voluntad para aceptar las diferencias, y sacar lo mejor de ellas.
No se me hizo tan satisfactoria como "Jugadas decisivas", sin embargo está muy entretenida y tiene sus buenos momentos. Creo que lo más interesante es el modo en que al final, nuestro héroe, acaba resolviendo sus batallas más difíciles, sin importar las consecuencias.
Tal y como me pasó en aquella ocasión, empecé el libro sin saber muy bien que esperar, salvo lo que decía el resumen en la contraportada. A las primeras páginas, me parecía una simple historia de super-heroes, eso si, con algunos personajes muy carismáticos pero nada fuera de lo normal. Como sea, es precisamente el personaje principal, el que va dando el contrapunto en la historia, ya que Bishop lo presenta como alguien que odia todo lo que tenga que ver con cultura popular, pero que al final, acaba irremediablemente convertido no sólo en un admirador de la misma, sino en un símbolo de ella, además de, de hecho, necesitarla para seguir con vida. Así, a lo largo de la novela se nos va presentando una confrontación en el arte elevado y lo que a veces llamamos "arte chafa", teatro vs cómics, sinfonías vs bandas punks, festivales de teatro vs entretenimientos de cantina, etcétera. Y es en ese maremágnum de opuestos donde Xavier Thaxton finalmente se encuentra a si mismo, renacido como un héroe de historieta, pero cuyas batallas no son precisamente las que esperamos de un ente súper-poderoso como el que se ha convertido.
Al final, es lo interesante de la novela, el hecho de que confronta dos mundos que algunas personas pueden considerar opuestos (pero que tienen muchos más puntos en común de lo que pareciera a simple vista), mostrando que es posible moverse entre ambos sin ningún problema, requiriendo solamente un poco de voluntad para aceptar las diferencias, y sacar lo mejor de ellas.
No se me hizo tan satisfactoria como "Jugadas decisivas", sin embargo está muy entretenida y tiene sus buenos momentos. Creo que lo más interesante es el modo en que al final, nuestro héroe, acaba resolviendo sus batallas más difíciles, sin importar las consecuencias.
September 7, 2020
Meh. I quite liked the premise of the book and the linking together of your standard superhero storylines with art critique and Nietzsche. But I found it hard to care much about any of the characters, the plotlines were predictable, and there was too much suspension of belief on the NON-fantasy elements of the story (e.g., Xavier just happening to bump into a total stranger who not only shares his brand-new-to-the-world physical disorder, but decides to spontaneously tell Xavier all about it).
May 22, 2015
An intellectual snob is exposed to mutagenic radiation which forces him to give up everything he loves"," and which also endows him with super-powers. A poignant study of the conflict between body and spirit.
November 8, 2015
ultimately its a novel that wants to have its cake and it eat too. Be a satire and a serious novel.
I thought the premise and specifically its take on the subjectivity of taste and changing values, was great and challenged me on my own predilections. There arent enough fiction that make me question my own personal values.
I thought the characters Xavier, and the mick were great. Bishop struggles with others however.
The main problem is the plot with its focus on the superhero origin story and the resulting cleanup should have been a side plot. The book is intersperesed with segments from other characters to drive sympathy... but it was unnecessary and was really just a sideplot.
I thought it was a cheap tactic to have xavier die at the end from his radiation. I really dont know what point was trying to be proven here or make a comment on the "reality" vs "fiction"... but it all seemed a bit rushed and not particularly well written - just trying to tie up loose ends.
3 stars because its clever, but its a shame because it could ahve been a lot better.
I thought the premise and specifically its take on the subjectivity of taste and changing values, was great and challenged me on my own predilections. There arent enough fiction that make me question my own personal values.
I thought the characters Xavier, and the mick were great. Bishop struggles with others however.
The main problem is the plot with its focus on the superhero origin story and the resulting cleanup should have been a side plot. The book is intersperesed with segments from other characters to drive sympathy... but it was unnecessary and was really just a sideplot.
I thought it was a cheap tactic to have xavier die at the end from his radiation. I really dont know what point was trying to be proven here or make a comment on the "reality" vs "fiction"... but it all seemed a bit rushed and not particularly well written - just trying to tie up loose ends.
3 stars because its clever, but its a shame because it could ahve been a lot better.
June 7, 2007
Another one that I don't really remember, so I must have been bored by it and given up.
March 2, 2009
Too many half baked ideas sink this initially promising Southern superhero spoof.
November 6, 2024
Boring, deadly boring and depressing. It made me rethink my principles of not leaving a book half-finished. It's not even worth commenting on.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews