Ancient of Days

by Michael Bishop

Paul Lloyd and his ex-wife, RuthClaire, discover a living descendant of a hominid species long thought extinct, homo habilis

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, Speculative Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Anthropology

354 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1985

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

[Michael Battaglia · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the ideas I always found fascinating, from my youthful days playing junior anthropologist with a Time-Life reference book or two, was the notion that there was a period of time or two during human history where different species of the human race were alive simultaneously and how that would have been to encounter someone who was sort of like you but from a different branch of the general family tree. We make so much of differences between us that really come down to perception and prejudices and sociological divergences more than actual differences that can be measured by science that I used to wonder what it would have been like to have coexisted with an older version or a parallel branch of early man.

Now, considering the population of any given early species of man was probably about what we can cram into a good sized housing block, such encounters probably didn't happen too often but the possibilities seemed intriguing. Something about it must have interested Michael Bishop as well because he takes the flint crafted ball and runs as far as he can with it, taking what should be a patently absurd premise and turning into something that almost convinces you for four hundred pages that its possible in this world, and maybe ours.

He has a history of doing that. His later work, "Brittle Innings" takes the equally nonsensical idea of Frankenstein's monster surviving into the early twentieth century and joining a baseball team and while a heaping spoonful of honey laced nostalgia helped that one go down easily, here he doesn't rely on our golden hued memories of a simpler time to carry the book along. Instead the underlying conflicts are uglier and thus more easily believed even if the somewhat light hearted narration at times can be disconcerting.

Paul is a fellow who runs a fancy restaurant in a small town in Georgia (successfully, I might add, which seems to surprise him as much as it does the rest of us) who is called to the house of his recent ex-wife, artist Ruth-Claire, after she gets spooked by something she sees in the yard. Expecting her to point out a tiny spider and scream over it, he's a bit thrown off when he gets there and finds a strange not quite ape-man hanging out in a tree. As it turns out, its not an actual ape but an example of the thought to be extinct Homo habilis, a predecessor to the current species of mankind. Paul's all for using this newcomer to get back with the ex-wife he still hasn't really gotten over but Ruth-Claire has other ideas, all of which involve befriending the Homo habilis and attempting to acclimate him to civilization. Thinking that she's gone a bit daffy, he goes along with it and before long she's getting him to wear clothes and teaching him sign language and maybe even falling in love with him, which doesn't go over well in some quarters. Since people exist who don't like it when people fall in love with what they consider the wrong members of their own species, you can imagine how well they take the idea of falling for someone who is a cousin to the human race. Thus the fun begins.

What follows then is an adorably shambling plot that really isn't so much a plot at all as a general progression of events until we all seem to agree at the same time that we can stop. Having Paul as the narrator to this both helps and hurts the book, since he's close enough to the events to have reasons for front row seats (especially as Ruth-Claire and Adam, which is what the fellow names himself, get more famous as the news spreads throughout the world) but also capable of proving to us that Ruth-Claire isn't some kind of lunatic or someone out to make a buck (it would have been interesting to set this in the twenty-first century, where we all know Adam would have a Twitter account and his own social media channel). Unfortunately at times this means putting up with his attempts to hijack the narrative by going on about how he hasn't gotten over his ex-wife or giving us ample time to spend with his underlings at his restaurant, at least one of whom Bishop saddles with an accent that probably sounds aurally correct but reads awful on the page, as she gives us Southern baked wisdom with a side of one upside your head.

In the midst of all this interestingly the sanest person winds up being Adam, who (spoilers, I suppose) eventually winds up being given the power of speech via surgery that seems far-fetched but probably theoretically possible (it seemed to me that he learned speech way too quickly, especially for someone whose brain isn't wired for spoken language . . . but brains are funny things). His presence grounds the narrative since he's by turns calm and out of sorts, agitated and reflective, frustrated and accepting, very aware that he's part of a dwindling breed given opportunities that he could never have dreamed of and insisting on understanding the universe both on his term and its terms. To that end Bishop doesn't go the Heinlein route and turn Adam into a mouthpiece for his (presumed) politics, or use him to satirize contemporary but instead goes for a more ruminative approach as Adam ponders the nature of God and his place in the scheme of things, trying different avenues to reach that end. That, more than the floundering about with his impact on the world at large or using him as a platform to show the not very surprising fact that violent racists generally are not very bright or well informed people, seems to form the core of the book and not the fumbling attempts to show what it would be like for a caveman to be living in the world of today, ground that was frankly covered more thoroughly in that now forgotten cinematic masterpiece "Encino Man". What he does here that works more effectively than "Oog not understand television" is to position Adam as part of a dying tribe forced to either adapt to the present day world at the risk of becoming unrecognizable to himself or simply fade away and let the new guys have a turn at wrecking the place. A couple times in the course of the novel the characters reference Ishi, a Native American who was the last of his tribe and emerged from the wilderness in the early 1900s to live out the rest of his days in a world that was probably bewildering at times (coincidentally I bought Theodora Kroeber's biography of him a week or so before starting this book, which was sort of an odd confluence of events that really doesn't mean anything) and that winds up being the closest comparison the book can make, especially as Adam attempts to use his new insights to connect the farflung past of his people with whatever the future holds and keep it vital even as members die off. Thanks to the narration, it never becomes quite as elegiac as it could be, and while the story ambles its way along triumph and tragedy in equal measure it never seems to be looking for a reason to build to anything as much as an excuse to settle finally, to relax and say, we know how the story can end, so let's just find a good spot to close the book. And in that sense, having Adam being the observer and not our witness to events works brilliantly, because he's close and real enough to touch but distant enough that we can see the long arc of how he'll fade away. Its the same as sitting with a centenarian who is one of the last of their era and seeing the tired look in their eyes from carrying the burden of so many stories of so many departed and reaching that point with them where they can say, I've told you everything there is, now let us all sleep, close off the rest of this lingering weight so all you that remain can leave history to itself and fall forward freely, into all your separate unknowns.

[EmBe · Rating 3 out of 5]

In seinem Roman "No enemy but time" hat Bishop seinen Menschen in die Urzeit zu menschenähnlichen Vorfahren geschickt. In diesem Roman ist es umgekehrt, hier verschlägt es einen Australopithecus, Vertreter einer 3 Millionen Jahre alten vormenschlichen Art, in die amerikanische Provinz der Gegenwart. Er ist womöglich der einzige Überlebende seiner Spezies, der es gelungen ist in einem unterirdischen Höhlensystem in Ostafrika relativ unbehelligt die Neuzeit zu erreichen. In Amerika gelingt es einer Künstlerin, in deren Grundstück der Vormensch auf der Suche nach Eßbarem eindringt, ihn an die Kultur zu gewöhnen, sich selbst mit diesem Affenmenschen vertraut zu machen, so dass sie sich immer näher kommen. Adam, wie dieser genannt wird, ist sehr gelehrig, bald benimmt er sich wie ein Mensch, lernt sogar lesen und schreiben. Das eröffnet ihm die menschliche Geisteswelt. Später lässt er sich auch noch am Kiefer operieren, damit er auch sprechen kann. Der Erzähler, der Ex-Mann der Frau sieht das mit Sorge und anfangs auch mit Eifersucht. Er ist ein sehr gemischter Charakter, der seine Vorbehalte überwindet und sich später auch mit Adam anfreundet.
Durch einen Zeitungsbericht von einem abgewiesenen Anthropologen wird diese Beziehung publik. Das ruft auch die Einwanderungsbehörde auf den Plan. Doch die Künstlerin und der Affenmensch haben inzwischen geheiratet und die Ehe auch vollzogen, so dass Adam kein illegal Eingewanderter mehr ist.
Aber auch den örtlichen Cu-Clux-Klan ruft das auf den Plan, die in Adam einen Untermenschen und die Ehe einen Verstoss gegen die gottgegebene Ordnung sehen. Ein Mordanschlag schlägt fehl und ein Clan-Mitglied stirbt dabei.
Als das Paar längst bekannt ist und die Öffentlichkeit nicht mehr scheut, wird ihr Baby entführt. Der Entführer will die Scheidung. In einer dramatischen Aktion wird der Verbrecher gestellt, doch für das Baby ist es zu spät. Von da an wendet sich Adam von der menschlichen Kultur ab, seine Bemühungen um Akzeptanz gibt er auf.
Mit seiner Frau unternimmt er eine Reise zu einer karibischen Insel, einer der Zwischenstationen der Verschleppung der Australopithecen aus Afrika, wo er nach seinen Artgenossen sucht. Es wird eine Reise zu den gemeinsamen Wurzeln, bei der auch Voodoo-Riten eine Rolle spielen.
Bishop hat sich in diesem Roman dem "mainstream" geöffnet. Nicht weil der Roman in der Gegenwart angesiedelt ist, sondern in der Erzählweise. Es ist ein Kunstgriff, den Ex-Mann, einen Restaurantbesitzer erzählen zu lassen. Für ihn haben wissenschaftliche Fragestellungen nur eine marginale Bedeutung. Die zentrale Fragestellung, was einen Menschen ausmacht, wird vor allem an der Entwicklung von Adam deutlich. Durch seine "Vermenschlichung" tritt seine fremde, seine kreatürliche Eigenständigkeit als Australopithecus zurück. Auch wenn er es nicht schafft, als Mensch akzeptiert zu werden, sein vormenschliches Leben bleibt im Dunkeln.
Bishop nimmt sich hier künstlerische Freiheiten heraus, denn ob ein Australopithecus mit nur 2/3 Gehirnkapazität eines Menschen diesem ebenbürtig sein kann, ist mehr als fraglich.
Es gelingt Bishop, ein fast episches Garn zu spinnen. Man kann die Handlung sehr gut nachvollziehen, sie ist aber dennoch nicht vorhersehbar. Die Charaktere sind glaubwürdig. Für den SF-Leser mag die Erzählweise des Stoffes eher ungewohnt sein, lesenswert ist der Roman allemal.

[Mariab · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book seems to have actually three books in one.
The first is the most interesting of all and keeps the reader into his story.
The author seems to take the position of a distant and indifferent father who gives his readers his point of view but does not try to convince them (us) about his reason. But then turns incisive and definitely seems to take a "indoctrination" course.
The last book is the worst of the three and there is where the apologetic tone becomes dominant, to be quite heavy in the final dialog.
Then, there are plot knots difficult to "digest". Like the transformation of the main character -in an incredibly short time: six or eight months!- from a primitive person without spoken language in to a quasi postmodernist philosopher.
And also the fact that although the secret about the location of the small village of "gens" is declared as a matter of utmost importance, the characters behave quite carelessly about covering their tracks, and are discovered, (twice!) through the simple method to follow them.
I wasn't expecting too much, but I'm a bit disappointed

[Kay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Been a long time since I read any Michael Bishop but No Enemy But Time is one of my all time favourite sci-fi novels. Ancient of Days features Homo Habilis, which attracted my attention. Basically, not as excellent as the Nebula winning No Enemy But Time, however still an interesting read and I am glad that it was reprinted.

Ray Smillie

[Joe Harrington · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read several reviews that dismissed part 3, even to the point of not finishing it. I must disagree. If the entire book had been anything like the last 50 pages or so, I would have rated it 5+ stars.

I can't say I agreed entirely with the theological thought in the final section, but it forced me as a reader to really dig deep into my own theology. Bishop's dialogue between Loyd and the unknowable was a masterpiece.

[Kelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really slow read...

[Simon Mcleish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally published on my blog here in October 2002.

After the death of Philip K. Dick, Michael Bishop seemed to be the author most willing to follow in his footsteps. He has written a direct tribute (Philip K. Dick is Dead, Alass) but, more importantly, has taken on the question more central to Dick's output than any other, "What does it mean to be human?"

Ancient of Days is explicitly (at least, for a novel) about this question. It concerns a surviving member of the species homo habilis, an ancestor of modern humans thought to be long extinct, who turns up as a refugee on the American coast near Atlanta, Georgia. There, he is hidden and befriended by an artist (RuthClaire Loyd) living on a remote farm; eventually they marry. Taking the name Adam, he sets out to find his identity, embracing theology and art, fathering a child and eventually undergoing surgery so that he is able to speak instead of being forced to use sign language. With his gentle, but slightly alien outlook, Adam is a figure reminiscent of Michael Smith in Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land.

Like Smith, Adam has to face a variety of difficulties and misunderstandings
These include the jealousy of RuthClaire's former husband, the narrator of the novel; intrusive attempts by anthropologists to treat him as a scientific specimen; a tele-evangelist who tries to take advantage of Adam's instant celebrity and interest in spiritual matters; and, most seriously, attacks by the local Klu Klux Klan, who find his marriage to a white woman disgusting. Bishop makes his point by contrasting the actions of Adam and his enemies - it is our behaviour which makes us human, not our genes. Adam is revealed to be human in the ways that matter, with his attackers exposed as lacking in human virtues. (The narrator is mainly just confused rather than having an abiding hatred for Adam.)

The attacks on Adam brigh real tragedy to the novel, especially as it explores the stupid inhumanities of racism. Its major flaw is that Adam is made far too saintly to ever really come alive as a character (something which could also be said about Michael Smith), though the other characters go a fair way to making up for this. It has strangely never been as well known as its companion novel, No Enemy but Time (which features a time traveller joining a group of homo habilis), but to me Ancient of Days is one of the best science fiction novels of the 1980s.

[Katie Lynn · Rating 1 out of 5]

I may have been able to give this a higher rating if the last section had been left out, but I found myself saying "finally!" by the time I finished. The entire book is nothing remarkable, but that final section went off the deep end and came off as pretentious with failed grandiose attempts at being profound.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Years ago--back in the 80s, actually--I read a novella, "Her Habiline Husband" by Michael Bishop, in an anthology, "The Best Science Fiction of the Year # 13" edited by Terry Carr, published in 1984 ( all the stories, including Bishop's, were published in 1983). The story stayed with me and, so, it was with some excitement, that, recently, I picked up "Ancient of Days," seeing it as an expansion on the story of the Habilene (it was published in 1985--and somehow I had missed it when it came out; I picked up the used paperback at a Half Price book store). The novella that I read-and remembered--was the first part of three parts making up the book.
As a blurb says, "This is a fine, engrossing novel..." and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Slow in parts, perhaps too slow overall for many readers, I enjoyed that as I wanted to take my time with this story. I consider it anthropological fiction, a genre which I like, which includes such books as "Esau" by Philip Kerr and Bishop's own "No Enemy But Time." And, as I was reading the book, I kept thinking of one of my favorite books, "Ishmael" by Daniel Quinn ( published in 1992). "Adam," the Homo Habilis character in "Ancient of Days," reminded me of Ishmael, the telepathic gorilla. Ishmael is a philosopher and critic of human society; Adam, a relic whose species supposedly became extinct 1.5 million years ago, becomes an artist and a poet and also studies theology. He wants to resolve the theological conflicts surrounding him on Twentieth Century Earth, which, of course, have only continued into the 21st Century...
Another blurb which I can't improve on... Gene Wolfe states, "This magical novel certifies his insight into primitive and civilized minds and their stories."
Michael Bishop was born on November 12, 1945, in Lincoln, Nebraska and died on November 13, 2023, in LaGrange, Georgia.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Michael Bishop was the special guest of honor will very science-fiction convention I cheered in August, so in preparation for meeting him, I scouted out a number of his books, including this one. I think this one may be my favorite.

Ask yourself what would happen if a supposedly extinct hominid was suddenly discovered to be not so extinct. That's the underlying premise of this book. What sets it off from the usual run is that the narrator is one of the more unlikable individuals are likely to encounter. He's smug, opinionated and convinced that he knows everything that needs to be known–that is, everything that he's interested in. He also tends to hang onto situations and individuals long after anybody with common sense would've given up and moved on.

In other words, easy retaining enough that you keep reading, not just because it's a great story beautifully written, but, at least in my case, because I kept hoping to see him get his comeuppance. Which he does, in a way, but in the end this book is the story of a truly noble savage whose savagery turns out to be not as bad as that of the civilized human beings among whom he finds himself.

Ancient of Days is out-of-print, which is a shame–perhaps Mr. Bishop will find some way to fix that–but if you can manage to lay hands on a copy, be prepared to be entertained in a delightful and thought-provoking manner.

[Pete · Rating 4 out of 5]

Michael Bishop was one of the finest writers to choose science fiction as his chosen genre. None of his novels or stories are mainstream SF, and he tended to push the literary boundaries of the genre. Not all of his efforts that I have read succeed entirely, but his works are always rewarding because he does stretch boundaries. This novel is divided into three parts. The first two are arguably the most successful, but they are also more conventional. The third part stretches the boundaries of science, religion and metaphysics, and the reader's reaction to this part would necessarily depend on where you stand on these issues. Regardless, the story of Adam, a Homo habilis that has survived to modern times, is alternately moving and hilarious and mind-binding. Some readers found it difficult to believe that Adam could become the eloquent and philosophical hero of the book, but they forget that he is not a Homo habilis transported from the past to our time. He is a modern representative of another branch of humanity whose personal experiences and handicaps have shaped his ego. I gave this book 4 stars because I did not find the final act as successful as earlier parts, but it was still wonderfully imaginative and entertaining.

[Luis · Rating 2 out of 5]

I started this book with no clue about the author or the story itself. I liked very much all the first part, but as the pages started to pass I went down in my enthusiasm. The fact that there are no chapters but the whole book just divided in three long parts doesn't help at all to make the experience more attractive. The last fifty pages took me more than a week to read, it was hard for me to get myself into finishing it. Finally I did it. My rating of course reflects this final feeling. If I had to rate it when I was at the beginning I would have given it another star or even two.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This should really probably get a 2.5. It started off with an unusual premise, intelligent storytelling, and interesting characters, but then the plot just seemed to go from meandering to contrived and the characters became more irritating with each turning page. Some of its main themes, which were quite interesting, just never seemed to materialize or resolve in any satisfying way.

[Ketan Shah]

Similar in theme to Michael Bishop's other anthropological SF . If you enjoyed this,you'd probably enjoy Isaac Asimov's and Robert Silverberg's :The Ugly Little Boy" and "Borderline" by the French SF writer Vercors. You might also Pat Murphy's Rachel in Love and Robert Silverberg's The Pope of the Chimps and Frank M Robinson's Waiting

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book begins very compelling, and takes an absurd premise and makes it believable. The problem is that the second half of the book abandons science in favor of some mystical mumbo jumbo. Bishop is unquestionably a good writer but this book seems to be a bit of a misfire for him.

[Don LaVange · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of my favorite sci-fi's. About the survival of a lone australopithicus! I enjoyed it, and my daughter melissa has read it several times.

[Milo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book was really a easy fast read... Kinda sad, when u think about the ignorance of man...... and how the innocent pay.... i guess it's a vicious cycle.....
i really did enjoy this.... made me think.

[Peter · Rating 1 out of 5]

I can't buy the premise; read 100 pages and have decided it's not worth finishing.

[Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

As others have said, started excellently but in the second section, around page 100, it takes a left turn into annoying stupidity. One of the fewer-than-10 books I didn't bother to finish.

[Don · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the first 2/3 of this book. That final third was just too quasi-religious and philosophical for me.

[Kathei · Rating 4 out of 5]

Adams story. I liked this.