[Transfigurations (S.F. MASTERWORKS)] [Author: Bishop, Michael] [November, 2013]

by Michael Bishop

The Hugo- & Nebula-nominated novella “Death & Designation Among the Asadi” (Worlds of If, '73) forms the 1st part of Transfigurations, a novel published in 1979 by Berkley Putnam. The story continues when the daughter of the anthropologist who studied the Asadi, a hominid-like race on the planet Bosk’veld, investigates his disappearance. In the journal Foundation, John Clute writes that the novel is "a fever of explanation. Hypothesis builds on hypothesis [as more data is added to the original observations], & much of the resulting construction is beautifully crafted, almost hallucinatory it is so plausible. But of course these explanations are never enough–-& the intellectual tact by which Bishop makes them almost but not quite fit the data they are meant to make transparent is perhaps the strongest part of this extremely dense and carefully thought-through novel." Legendary science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon writes "Michael Bishop’s Transfigurations is as complex, as carefully thought-out, & as compelling an sf novel as you’ll find anywhere, ever."

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Aliens, Science Fiction Fantasy, American, Short Stories

Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Michael 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.

Reviews

[Glenn Russell]

Get ready for adventure and excitement to blow your mind. Really blow your mind.

Transfigurations is American author Michael Bishop's 1979 science fiction novel about anthropologists and their encounters with a jungle tribe on a distant planet in the far reaches of outer space. As a once avid reader of cultural anthropology myself, detailed studies like Colin Turnbull's The Forest People, Raymond Firth's Tikopia Ritual and Belief and Michael Harner's Hallucinogens and Shamanism, I found Mr. Bishop's book an enthralling page-turner. And, to be more precise, Transfigurations treats readers to not one but two adventures.

I could only locate a handful of reviews of the book and none going into any depth. Perhaps the novel's relative obscurity is a good thing since the many surprises are not given away by reviewers or the publisher. Thus a reader is left to make their own discoveries. And let me assure you, many of the discoveries will be positively jaw-dropping.

Keeping in the spirit of not revealing any more than I should in my capacity as reviewer, I offer the following bare bones outline on each of the two adventures in the hope you will seek out a copy and read for yourself.

ADVENTURE #1
The first third of the novel was previously published in novella form under the title Death and Designation Among the Asadi. Here anthropologist Egan Chaney recounts his field work among the Asadi in a rain forest on the planet BoskVeld.

There are a number of mysteries looming around the Asadi. Other than small insects, why is this tribe of about 500 (considered the optimum number for a tribe on any planet), the only form of animal life in the forest? Since they do not use either spoken words or any form of sign language, what are the details revolving around their evident eye communication? Why are social relations among the Asadi so extremely antisocial? And most dramatically, what is the relationship between the uncommunicative Asadi, a tribe with no detectable tools, arts or crafts, and their distant ancestors, the Ur’sadi, supposed builders of temples?

As for the Asadi themselves, they are nearly as tall as humans when standing upright, creatures of grey flesh and heads heavy with draping fur. When the sun comes up, they assemble on a rectangular forest clearing the size of a football field where they stroll around with no apparent purpose, sometime engage in violent, loveless sex, sometimes bend at the waste to glare at one another. In many ways, the Asadi are more like chimpanzees than humans.

But, as Egan Chaney himself admits, we shouldn’t be too quick to judge. There are those Asadi eyes as per his report: “like the bottoms of thick-glassed bottles. Except that I’ve noticed the eye really consists of two parts: a thin transparent covering, which is apparently hard like plastic, and the complex, membranous organ of sight that this covering protects. It’s as if each Asadi is born wearing a built-in pair of safety glasses.”

Chaney goes on to chronicle how the Asadi eyes change colors with dazzling speed, sparkling and zooming through the complete visual spectrum in seconds. Moreover, these changes appear to be controlled and self-willed in the same way human speech is self-willed; in other words, the Asadi choose the colors they flash as we human choose the words we speak.

Over a series of weeks living among the Asadi, Egan Chaney admits their behavior simply does not make sense. But then there is a first dramatic event, then another and another and another. In the aftermath of these striking happenings, when Egan Chaney reluctantly departs the forest in a futuristic helicopter and returns to his colleagues in town, he is a much changed man. So much so, in a matter of days, Egan Chaney returns to the forest, never to be seen again.

ADVENTURE #2
Six years following Egan Chaney's disappearance, his daughter, Elegy Cather, now a twenty-three year old university educated anthropologist, is joined by Chaney's prime colleague, fellow anthropologist Thomas Benedict, in her quest to enter the forest to study the Asadi and, most importantly, find her missing father. Elegy's quest forms the bulk of the novel.

Elegy has some serious help in her expedition in the form of an extraordinary creature designed to assimilate itself into the Asadi tribe: genetically engineered from both the genes of chimps and baboons (please keep in mind we are in the distant future and this is science fiction), Kretzoi is outfitted with an Asadi-like mane of hair and surgically implanted eye lenses to replicate Asadi eyes. With a human-like capacity for abstract thought, Kretzoi can directly communicate with Elegy via American sign language. I found the inclusion of Kretzoi one of the most fascinating aspects of the story.

Michael Bishop has a background in anthropology. Another fascinating aspect of his novel: these futuristic social scientists make direct comparisons between their own work with the Asadi and the insights of twentieth-century anthropologist Colin Turnbull in the field with African pygmy (The Forrest People) and among the Ik, an African tribe kicked out of their hunting grounds and left to starve (The Mountain People).

And how about those ancestors, the Ur’sadi? Egan Chaney made a number of stunning discoveries he noted in his field report and, along with some substantial material evidence, his field report made its way into the town’s archeological museum. And closely related in some mysterious way to the Ur’sadi is a purplish-black blind creature looking like a cross between a bat and a winged lizard. What’s that all about?

Lastly, there's the issue of human boredom and hatred culminating in brutality toward "the other." In an interview, Michael Bishop spoke out against such stupidity: "In any event, it outrages me to see people treat other people as something less than human for any reason at all: race, class consciousness, religious differences, sex or sexual orientation, intellectual pride, etc. But because the human condition, along with ignorance and/or greed, continually triggers brutality, I have no shortage of outrage, and outrage often fuels my fiction."

Again, I purposely went light on plot and detail so as to leave the excitement of the adventures to each reader.


American author Michael Bishop, born 1945

[Ira (SF Words of Wonder) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Check out my full, spoiler free, video review HERE. The first 80ish pages of this novel comes from the novella, "Death and Designation Among the Asadi" (1973), I’d give the novella 5 stars. The set up in the novella is so intriguing that I’m sure you will want to read the rest of the story to find out what happens. So, what is this about? Anthropologists in the future are studying an alien race called the Asadi, and there are many mysteries surrounding them. Where did they come from, how do they communicate with each other, what do they eat, is there some tie to humanity. As the story progresses you will get some things answered and some things theorized/speculated on by the anthropologist. Overall, a very fascinating story that is smartly written with whit/humor and some very vivid (at times horrific) scenes that will probably stay with you for a while.

[Graham P · Rating 4 out of 5]

Error-prone symbiosis and evolutionary repulsions fuel this novel extended from Bishop's novella, 'Death and Designation of the Asadi.' This 1979 re-imagined novel reads like an anthropological fantasia as the Glaktik Komm officials send a team to Boskveld (a planet split by rain forest and steppe lands) to infiltrate the Asadi race: a group of alien primates with bejeweled kaleidoscope eyes who may have a cellular connection to our own earthbound and hirsute selves.

Once Komm xenologists Ben and Elegy enter the jungles with their genetically-modified earthborne chimp impersonating an Asadi ('Kretzoi' is one of the more animated characters), action falls short in a mildly disappointing way, but what bewilders is the actual grotesque elements described in the process of alien host and unknown hostee. Who knew evolution could be so cannibalistic?

What follows in the 2nd half is mostly insane discourse (with many info dumps rattled off in chunky dialogue) on assimilating their chimp into this strange ceremonial clan, who use the Denebola sun to power their orb-like eyes. Yet it's with further invasive techniques, they find that the Asadi may not be as dimwitted as originally thought. There's the 'meat sibling' horror, the carnivorous ceremonies in the sacred clearing, the 'eye books', the search for a missing scientist in a time-slipping pagoda, and even more wild, there's the Huri race - subterranean eyeless creatures that resemble dragon-bats yet fly with the clumsy dexterity of pigeons, and get this, they are made of sentient fungus and communicate with sonar pings only.

One can tell that Bishop's ideas overflow and inundate the action, and at times the story itself suffers from it. While 'Transfigurations' feels like Silverberg's 'Downward to Earth' and Bishop's own 'Stolen Faces' in equal doses, it has its own unbridled charms that solidify Bishop one of my favorite writers of the 1970s. Grotesque without being sinister; wide-eyed without being detached from reality, and cleanly narrated without the manic and chop shop pyrotechnics of his brother-at-arms madman, Ian Watson.

It really is a scientific adventure novel whose strength is the anthro SF elements and the wild hijinx of odd lifeforms in transition. I really wish Bishop wrote more Glaktik Komm works.

[Simon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Xenological science fiction, a sub-genre of SF that generally appeals to me. And the premise sounded interesting.

An alien species (much like terrestrial apes) are discovered on a planet and appear to have degenerated into a barbaric state and exhibit bizarre and inscrutable behaviour. After an anthropologist attempts to live among them and bares witness to strange rituals he ends up abandoning the human camp and disappears among them forever. Years later his estranged daughter arrives determined to find him and along the way hopefully gain a greater understanding of these mysterious alien beings...

The first part of the book is the missing anthropologist's last writings and recordings (that apparently was originally published as a short story) and the rest is the protagonist's story who is tasked with assisting the daughter in her efforts to find her father.

It was an engaging read throughout but ultimately left me somewhat dissatisfied in the end. It certainly wasn't as mind blowing a conclusion that the introduction (by Pat Cardigan) led me to expect. Still, worth a read if the premise appeals.

[Jersy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tbh, I only read the first 1/3 of the book, containing the original novella Death and Designation among the Asadi. It felt like it was perfect on it's own and I fear any continuation would ruin it for me.
It's pretty much a must read if you like alien cultures, or foreign, (more primitive) cultures in general. The descriptions of the Asadi behaviour is fascinating and Chaney's reaction on point. The style fits perfectly, however, it's also my biggest criticsm since this reads like A LOT of discovery and horror writing descrbing some variant of the "Other", be it different tribes, Dracula or the fish people of Innsmouth. I'm a bit over it, but that's just me and I wouldnt want to change it. It's just too effective.
Bishop shows aliens that feel familiar enough to provoke a reaction but very unique and, well, just alien. Their lack of socialisation and communication in a human sense was intruiging but also made it feel like it was actually from another place.

[Marco · Rating 4 out of 5]

Michael Bishop's "Transfigurationen" enthält sowohl die ursprüngliche Novelle, als auch die Fortsetzung als Roman. Beides Klassiker des Genres.

Bishop schreibt anthropologische Science Fiction. Die ersten 140 Seiten enthalten die Ursprungsidee als Novelle "Tod und Bestimmung der Asadi" auf der Bishop später seinen Roman "Transfigurationen" folgen lies.

Der Anthropologe Egan Chany reist auf einen fernen Planeten um die Primaten Asadi zu erforschen. Sein Bericht ist als Tagebuch verfasst. Er erzählt von einer faszinierenden Spezies, welche den heimischen Primaten ähnelt, aber auch sehr unterschiedlich ist.
Sein Bericht ist sehr atmosphärisch. Er orientiert sich hier an den Erzählungen und Berichten tatsächlicher Forscher. Zwischenzeitlich hat man das Gefühl Jane Godall zu folgen.
Die Asadi wirken bekannt; sind aber gleichzeitig sehr fremdartig durch ihr Verhalten. Immer mehr verfällt Chany seiner Forschung und verliert sich in den Außerirdischen Wesen. Der Sense of Wonder bleibt beim Leser sehr hoch. Erst beobachtet er nur, bis er dann auf seine Art Teil der Eingeborenen wird.

Bishop beschreibt aber auch grausame Bräuche der Eingeborenen. So entsteht auf der einen Seite Faszination, aber auch eine beklemmende Angst vor dem Unbekannten.
Für den Leser zeigen sich so unangenehme Passagen, welche trotzdem faszinieren. Diese 140 Seite Novelle sind grandios.

Danach setzt die Handlung einige Zeit später an. Ein befreundeter Wissenschaftler und die Tochter Chanys versuchen herauszufinden, was mit Chany passiert ist. Im zweiten Teil baut Bishop die faszinierende Kultue der Asadi weiter aus und es bleibt packend.
Im Vergleich zur Novelle wirkt der Teil aber schwächer. Eine weitere Erklärung hätte es gar nicht gebraucht. Bishop macht im ersten Teil sein Meisterstück zur anthropologischen Science Fiction. Alles danach kann nur schwächer sein.

"Transfigurationen" ist eine absolute Empfehlung. Bishop beschreibt glaubhaft die Kultur und Religion einer Außerirdischen Rasse. Das ganze atmosphärisch und spannend. Gerade die Novelle erinnert durch den Tagebuchstil an Dan Simmons "Geschichte des Priesters" aus "Hyperion".
Leider ist "Transfigurationen" nur noch antiquarisch erhältlich. Die paar Euro Investitionen lohnen sich aber allein schon für die Novelle. Wer dann mehr möchte, liest einfach weiter.

[Gentleman-and-scholar · Rating 3 out of 5]

I only learned that this novel is the extension of a prior novel after I was half way through it. I would say this explains a lot.

The first part was really interesting, well written and full of suspense and mystery. The more I read through it, the more I wanted and I was really interested in learning how the story would unfold after Elegy's arrival on Bosk Veld.
The second part however was weaker in comparison. Even though the suspense was not missing and the explanations offered on the past of the Asadi were very intriguing, it just did not feel the same. So, what went wrong with the second part? FWell, first of all the writing seemed to change for the worse, and reading things like "they nested like headless, rubbery foetuses" or "as irretrievably as some crippled whore's dream of paradise" is a bit off putting. Also, as a result of focusing more on the Asadi, the characters felt a bit underdeveloped and flat -I wouldn't expect a post apocalyptic woman who has travelled through the starts in search of her long lost father and as part of a ground breaking mission to be sleeping around to spite her casual lover/colleague, for example. Finally, the second part pretty much gave all the theory/background in two massive info damps with no room for processing or time for digesting it, quite different from the slow release of information/speculation of the first part.

A good book overall, but I feel I could have read the "Death and designation among the Asadi" and not have missed that much.

[Mike Franklin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Transfigurations is an SF Masterworks book comprising an initial section which had originally been published in a magazine in 1973 as a report on a First Contact situation. This was later added to in 1979 to make it into this full novel.

Humanity is engaged upon colonising the planet BoskVeld despite it having an indigenous primate analogue species that appears to be a devolved form of a once highly intelligent and technological species. No one really understand them or how they devolved and all attempts to do so have so far failed.

I really wanted to like this book, but I just couldn’t; it is badly written, none of the characters are in the least bit sympathetic, the science is appalling and the moral attitudes throughout even worse. The prose is enough to make normal purple prose look bland – The stars looked like microscopic screw heads rotated into the hidden template of the universe. – and that’s a moderately restrained example. I just felt like I was drowning in similes! However, this is nothing compare to the pain of the dreadful science. I hate any invented aliens that are meant to be highly intelligent and technological and yet the author has given them a highly impractical mechanism of communication. Scent/pheromones and skin pigmentation are two of the favourites. Yes, there are some animals that use such means but for high level communication they are desperately impractical. Scent is slow to propagate and colour only works when you are directly looking at the other creature. Neither is practical for an advanced intelligence. Bishop makes this worse with communication by changing iris colour requiring the aliens to have to stare fixedly at each other’s eyes to have a conversation. Please! Evolution is way better than that!

Then it turns out (this is not really a spoiler) that they can actually photosynthesise through these same eyes - Each neo-Ur’sadi was a living factory capable of supporting itself anywhere on the planet – so long as it had access to sunlight and water. – the idea that a motile animal could even begin to get sufficient energy for life from photosynthesizing light through such a small area as their eyes is ludicrous and Bishop seems to have forgotten that plants don’t just photosynthesise light; they must also draw up nutrients through their roots to process using the energy. Not very practical for a motile ape analogue. And don’t even get me started on the cannibalism aspect. Or the mostly messed up view of synesthesia - Maybe it was the noise of their flashing that sliced through my dreams and woke me up. – this in reference to light reflected from lamp posts.

As for the moral attitudes They seem to think it’s perfectly acceptable to take a genetically enhanced Earth ape that is intelligent, self-aware, fully capable of understanding normal and scientific conversation and communicating itself by sign language and then treat it like and animal, including cosmetic surgery to make it look like the native alien apes. I suppose at least it’s not misogynistic; my usual problem with ‘classic’ science fiction. Then follow this up with a mostly indifferent to xenophobic attitude to the aliens (the first intelligent aliens yet found) and it just goes from bad to worse.

I finished this book somehow, in the vain hope that it was going to improve, but that’s several days of reading I’ll never get back. I found almost everything about the book implausible and, frankly, unpleasant. Possibly there is some deeper meaning that I’m missing. Maybe I can’t see the wood for the trees. But, for me, I’ll never find the wood plausible if the trees that make it up fail to be plausible.

[Duane · Rating 4 out of 5]

The novel is based on an excellent novella, Death and Designation among the Asadi, a runner-up for the 1973 Hugo Award, narrowly beaten out by Gene Wolfe’s The Death of Doctor Island. It’s anthropological sf, a strange sort of sub-niche. The mc goes on a journey to an alien planet and lives among the inhabitants in an effort to understand them and identifies a little too closely with them (they are humanoid but definitely alien). The novel resolves some of the unanswered questions left by the novella, however the overall quality isn’t up to the same level-the novel was completed some time after the original story and some of the impetus may have been lost.

I admit to having been completely captivated by the original novella, back when I first read it (in the 1974 Annual World’s Best SF, which was a superior volume with standout stories). The only story I liked better in the book was R.A. Lafferty’s Parthen, about which I’ll write someday, but not now. I just thought it was so extremely different from what I was used to, and sought out other Bishop work in hopes that it reached the same level or was written in the same style (it never did, either way). I like Bishop’s work okay. He’s done some very readable tales, is a competent wordsmith in all respects, but there was just something about that novella that was superior in my opinion.

Because I went on a reading hiatus during the period when Transfigurations was published (1979, my first year in college), I didn’t even know it was out there. Otherwise I’d have read it long ago. Might’ve liked it better, though I doubt I’d have been as effusive in my praise as Theodore Sturgeon or John Clute. The second half of the book just really doesn’t work for me. It’s obvious that it was written later, and the style and sense of it are subtly different.

Still, it’s a very good-to-excellent read, a tad dry if you’re not into science, by a not-quite-big-name sf author.

[Tristan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Originally published in 1979, this novel is constituted of an earlier novella and its sequel.

The novella, now a lengthy prologue, is a great read, full of mystery and marvels with a world-weary, anarchic anthropologist trying to make sense of the behaviour of an utterly alien species on a distant planet. The low tech sci-fi helps keep the reader’s concentration on the observation of weirdness after weirdness. It’s engrossing.

The follow-up is nowhere near as satisfying. It is full of absolutely extraordinary imagination, as weird and alien as it gets, but the attempt to stitch together a series of bewildering tableaux with lengthy exposition just falls horribly flat. The author rationalises everything rather than leaving the reader’s imagination wallow in the Lovecraftian bizarreness - actually a plot point contrasting left brain rationalism with right brain intuitiveness - but these rationalisations are all infodumps. There’s no way the protagonists had enough clues to guess at such detailed explanations for utterly alien things. It’s grating. The ideas are amazing but no one in real life monologues cosmic explanations off the cuff like that.

The characters are all unpleasant (either through self-pitying cynicism or sheer entitlement) and their motivations and actions are not coherent. Coldly logical one moment, petulantly emotional the next, there is no consistency in their actions from one moment to the next. They are just cyphers to present the infodumps one after another. There’s no story in this adventure, no plot, no character development. It all feels forced. The find-the-vanished-dad adventure trope was heavily dated even at the time of writing. The remarkably random sex and the love triangle side plot feel particularly false, just an add-on as such things were expected in 1970s sci-fi.

There’s an interesting moral quandary at the end, but that only highlights the complete lack of any ethical considerations for any of the actions in this supposedly scientific exploration. In fact, every action taken is startlingly unethical, which makes proceedings rather unpleasant to read, particularly as none of the protagonists elicit any sympathy in the reader. I was definitely on the side of the aliens all the way through, however horrific their slowly unveiled behaviour was. And any sympathy was reserved for Kretzoi, the genetically and surgically altered ape, who is asked to take insane risks and do the most revolting things at the behest of ungrateful human handlers.

The ideas presented here are all extraordinary but not well stitched together. A very weird book. Very well written, erudite, and compelling, making for a good read but an unsatisfactory overall experience.

[Brendan Newport · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an anthropological science fiction novel. Although anthropology is really the study of human societies, so perhaps 'extraterrestrial anthropology' is a better description. Bishop is one of the novelists associated with anthropological science fiction, and his later novel - No Enemy But Time is equally distinctive. The field though includes Ursula LeGuin, whose Left Hand of Darkness and The Word for World is Forest are the best known, but her Always Coming Home is I think, one of the greatest contributions to the genre.

Equal to Always Coming Home I think are Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow and the sequel The Children of God. And Russell is supremely well-informed for the subject, she's a professor in anthropology, with her Ph.D. in biological anthropology gained from the University of Michigan and she taught anatomy.

So Bishop's novel has some competitors. And it does a pretty good job. Bishop's aliens, the Asadi, are very very alien, though seemingly distantly related to humans. They possess a society and history that departs hugely from that of any human culture. There are echoes of The Sparrow, written years later, inasmuch as the Asadi have an awful secret, which changes our perspective of them entirely.

As with the later No Enemy But Time Bishop's spacefaring human society of Earth's future isn't Western-based, and that provides for an interesting perspective on its own. Without the usual Americans, Russians, Chinese and Brits-with-plummy-accents dominating, we are provided with Afro-Asian-centric characters. This is portrayed in a ambiguous manner; the human society makes every effort to protect the Asadi from-the-off, but suffers from a lack of discipline in other areas.

The book's weakness is that the first third is taken-up with a fictional monograph published by the books narrator, Thomas Benedict, and a lost anthropologist, Egon Cheney. The introduction of the daughter, Elegy Cather enables the novel to revert to a traditional narrative structure and it picks-up no end. So if reading this novel, stick with it.

[Jesus Flores · Rating 3 out of 5]

Esta interesante todo lo de los Asadi y Ursadi y Huri, y la parte donde cuenta el ritual me pareció fascinante. La parte de Egon recontada por Ben.
Y toda lo de Kretsoi y la misión también está interesante.
Mi primer pero es todo lo de las conjeturas que hacen Ben y Elegy de cómo o porque los Asadi son como son, y la relación con los Huri, que son interesantes, pero como bien dicen cuando critican al otro son conjeturas basadas en sus observaciones y que no hay forma de probar, y hasta ahí llega la crítica, ni siquiera un "esta otra alternativa", es solo "no me suena" y el otro diciendo "es tu mente lógica que no te permite ".
Y lo otro que también me pareció un añadido innecesario a la historia, es la "relación" de Ben y Elegy

3 stars

SPOILERS
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dentro de las conjeturas a la que llega Elegy, sobre un posible vinculo, ancestro común entre humanos y Asadi, que pudiera haber dado para al menos una discusión más allá queda así flotando sin más, incluso cuando Egon les explica lo que intentaron los Huti y pues no, es para expandirlo más y tampoco, creo que eso es lo que más me molesto de todas las conjeturas, que al final solo quedaron en la plática entre Ben y Elegy, como un infodump que ni siquiera puedes tomarte en serio, como entonces porque

[Carl Barlow · Rating 3 out of 5]

Something about this book has dated. The writing style is mannered and accessible, with that middle-class apathy characteristic of many seventies novels (which sits well with the sweltering jungle setting). The subject is interesting: an exploration of just how alien aliens can be (and, possibly, how alien humans can be). But it doesn't go far enough - there are few shocks and revelations (the lengthy 'explanation' for proceedings is actually rather prosaic); and there is a missed opportunity for the laying-on of atmospherics and downright weirdness. Cut out a hundred pages, perhaps even remove the alien aspect altogether and set everything in a terrestrial jungle, and then have J G Ballard as an advisor, and this would have stood the test of time much better. I know Transfigurations was well received on publication (indeed, it has been republished as an SF Masterwork), and it remains a very readable book... but it wasn't what I hoped.

[Joachim Boaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full review: https://sciencefictionruminations.com...

"Note: A slightly shorter version of this review will appear in Big Sky, # 4 (a fanzine put together by Pete Young).

On the surface, Michael Bishop’s anthropologically inclined science fiction appears deceptively simple. In his first novel and unacknowledged masterpiece A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire (1975), the premise (moving an alien people from a planet) evolves into a vast and complex anthropological tapestry filled with stories within stories creating an almost claustrophobic doubling of characters. In Stolen Faces (1977) the biological mystery of a virulent disease grows, tumor-like, into a brilliantly nightmarish exploration of bodily and societal decay and the gravimetric forces of memory.

Bishop’s Hugo- and Nebula-nominated novella, “Death and Designation Among the Asadi” (1973) follows a similar pattern. This novella—conceived [...]"

[William Repass · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel compelled to actually write a review of this one, maybe because the three-star rating utterly fails to express my conflicted feelings on it even more than usual. Transfigurations is chock-full of fascinating ideas about xenoanthropology, but it can be a strange mix of, at times evocative, at times clumsy writing that does a disservice to those ideas. The standalone novella, "Death and Designation Among the Asadi," appears to have been airlifted from a earlier stage of Bishop's career and dropped unrevised into a more mature piece of fiction. There are so many unintentionally funny moments that could have been saved, had the book as a whole showed a sense of humor. This is a classic case of flawed ambition, which to my mind is always preferable to polished mediocrity. The lack of consistency here doesn't ruin the worldbuilding, but does detract from an otherwise unique and thought-provoking vision.

[Stefania Portaluppi · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Asadi, a tribe of strange primatelike creatures with a spectrographic language, are living on a planet called Boskveld and they were being investigated by the cultural xenologist Egon Chaney, when he disappeared six years ago. Now his daughter Elegy and his friend Thomas Benedict, accompanied by Kretzoi, a baboon-chimpanzee hybrid who has been surgically altered in order to resembled the Asadi, are ready to visit Boskveld to verify the controversial claims of intelligence and meaningful rituals among the uncommunicative aliens.

The story is pretty good and engaging. It is also very dense and dry but continually fascinating, with several plot twists, many speculations about the true nature of the Asadi - and all the speculations seems realistic since they are all very well explained - and even startling revelations about the Earth's past which made the story even more interesting, original and complex. Didn't know the author before finding this book in a small yard sale. I'm very curious to read Bishop's novels now.

[Lakmus · Rating 2 out of 5]

It really was ok, but just kinda meh all over. There were the two lengthy speculations that can pretty much sum up the entire book in a blogpost; the first part was pretty exciting, but the language was somehow changed in the second part that made it a drag. None of the midnight adrenaline rush to get on with the story that I love good books for.

And the people were flat and weird. Primitive racism in species that mastered inter-stellar travel just doesn't seem likely. Ben and Elegy - don't even seem humans. In fact, they most resemble poorly built movie characters, who are made to kiss on screen for the sake of kissing on screen.

Meh.

[Peter Moyes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Michael Bishop takes us on a strange, circuitous yet circular journey through the story of a race found on the planet Boskveld that has a really alien relationship with its world. Are they primitives advancing or Advanced beings regressing. Anthropologist daughter of a man who went missing 6 years before seeks answers and you will keep turning those pages partly because you will need to know the answer.

[O K · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first 30% of this book is near 5 stars. I believe it is the original publication as a long story. After that in a larger book form it goes side ways, then it gets interesting again, and it goes side ways and make you ask why lengthen the original idea and choke the dark apprehensive mood of that first 30% of the book.

Still if nothing else, read at least that 30% of the book, it is written so well.

[Jane Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had originally done a Google search for "Anthropological SF" and this was one of the books that came up. It was quite effective, bit it was too earthy, gritty, meaty for me to enjoy the reading experience.

[Cathie Stumpenhaus · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pace of the book is slow.

[ScottM · Rating 4 out of 5]

Story initially reminded me off Silverberg's Downward to the Earth. Interesting aliens, would've been nice to find out more of a backstory to them. Easy read.

[Cam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great follow up to the novella

[Blogul · Rating 2 out of 5]

Boring. Did not like the writing style.

[Lisa A Salchak · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF

[Tal Taran · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the private journals of Tobias Taylor: There are no more SF Masterworks left… oh, how I wish that is never the case. Let me trudge this lonely road long after the lights dwindle to nothing. Sat here, just me and her, best friends surrounded by books, in the library at the end of the world.

DEATH AND DESIGNATION AMONG THE ASADI is both fascinating and haunting. Bishop’s choice to write science fiction from an anthropological/xenological perspective leaves the lights twinkling a little too darkly on a winter’s night. He manages to capture how in the eyes of humans something unknown, or perhaps more exact, something ‘unknowable’ (at least to the species in its current evolutionary form) equals something sinister. All this is unsurprising given we take the word ‘sinister’ from the Latin for ‘left’ which simply equates to ‘different’.

In the end, once we've made it through the novella extension, the protagonist’s creation of two species’ entire evolutionary workings only goes to illustrate how badly we as humans consistently treat other species because we think due to a glimpse of intelligence they pose a threat.

[Tyler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anthropologist Elegy Cather travels to the planet Bosk’veld to investigate the disappearance of her father who was studying the strange, hominid-like race called the Asadi. The first section of the book relives the father's journals as he ensconces himself within the Asadi group. Then we follow Elegy and she retraces his steps and uncovers much of the mystery surrounding the unusual alien species.

This was a great SF novel - the author was an anthropologist so we get a realistic sense behind the story of the Asadi. It's also a mystery - searching for the missing father but also for the meaning behind the Asadi's seemingly meaningless rituals and actions. A lot of thought obviously went into how the Asadi came into be, regressing from an apparently intelligent species millions of years ago, and their reliance on the mysterious blind "huri" bats that sometimes appear.

I thought it was an intelligent, well-plotted story that had few negatives; definitely one of my favourites, and a top "alien contact" novel.

[Ilyhana Kennedy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Possibly deserves three and a half stars.
Reading Transfigurations was quite a divergence for me. I've never really been into sci-fi, so am hardly a good judge. I very nearly put this one down several times. It gets pretty gross.
The author has an incredible imagination, weaves a highly complex story from enough 'science' to befuddle the reader into some kind of credulity.
It's a thriller mystery of sorts and this element works to keep the pages turning.
I found the character depictions lacked some maturity in the writing of the dialogue.
I don't know that this book has encouraged me to read more sci-fi but I did appreciate the fantasy stretch. Also have to take into account that it was completed back in 1979 and the author could not have guessed at the changes technology would generate in the next decades.

[Edward Davies · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although an interesting book with a fascinating conceit, I couldn’t help being distracted by the character of Elegy (appropriately named due to her involvements towards the end of the book) who, intentionally or not, comes across as a huge slut. Her sexual relationship with the narrator seems to come out of nowhere, and then she has sex with someone as well. That aside, this story which features some pretty obvious links with the Bible story concerning the Transfiguration of Jesus, manages to be entertaining and mysterious by leading us slowly into the world of the Asadi and only revealing their true nature towards the very end of the novel.

[JSS · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the beginning, which was genuinely creepy. However, I found the characters became a bit silly and non-realistic as the book progressed and certainly weren't like any scientists I know. Some parts of the book are a bit dated, especially the scientific theories discussed and all this left-brain right-brain nonsense. I was also annoyed by the scientific impossibility of some parts of the book. It's ok to bend the scientific rules a bit in SF, but the impossibility of the photosynthesis explanation in the book was disappointing.