Under Heaven's Bridge

by Michael Bishop, Ian Watson

Although no one knows whether the Kybers are machines or living beings, Dr. Keiko Takihashi, ship's linguist, is determined to save some of them from the approaching nova of one of their planet's suns

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy

Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

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

[Graham P · Rating 4 out of 5]

Under Heaven's Bridge is a brilliant and flawed novel, co-authored by two writers who typically subvert the tech-heavy space opera for exposes of alien cultures against human science & morality, Conradian views of being the 'other' in a land stranger than one's own, and of course, extraterrestrial religions. Here Bishop and Watson (two fine purveyors of transcendent ethno headtrips) guide their Japanese linguist hero, Keiko, through an exhibition on a far planet under a dual sun system ready to go nova. The rocky red-desert planet is inhabited by the slow and unsettling, Kybers, elongated alien forms that remind Keiko of the golden Kannon statues within the Buddhist temple of Sanjusangendo, Kyoto. These creatures are confounding pacifists (or so we think), physically comprised of both machine and flesh, and go into unexpected hibernation mode where they turn into statues neither alive or dead, yet locked in some spiritual inner gravity of the universal collective. When several of the Kybers try to defect and return to Earth with the ragtag crew, Keiko and Captain Hsi must decide if their good and godly intentions will risk the sanity of the human race...

Everything is in place for a watermark SF opus here, but really it feels like Bishop and Watson turned in a first draft, a damn fine first draft but an incomplete one at that. There's more to discover in the Kybers, as well as Keiko and Andrik's relationship towards each other, as well as the cold expanse of the Kybers dubious religion which at times makes enlightening Buddha feel like Cthulhu in his cold and soul-infiltrating slumber. No matter how critical I became on the characterizations, the lack of a consistent threat, or the unknown parallels unfulfilled, I really enjoyed this novel for what it was.

And that cover on the Ace edition of mine! You couldn't ask for a more WTF cover.

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was surprised to stumble across Michael Bishop's name on the cover of a novel with which I was completely unfamiliar; I thought I'd read all of his novels, though I'm not as well acquainted with the works of Ian Watson. It's a nice though unremarkable short novel that examines an interesting first-contact scenario. The contrast between the Japanese and alien and other human cultures is quite well done, although the ending wasn't completely satisfying to me. It was an interesting read.

[David Bonesteel · Rating 3 out of 5]

A team of interstellar explorers confronts the mystery of the Kybers, a part-organic, part-metallic race of aliens who seem blissfully unconcerned about the imminent supernova that will cast their planet adrift. Some believe that they may represent a higher plane of spiritual evolution, while others see them as a threat to mankind. The debate is brought to a head when a group of the Kybers request asylum.

Authors Ian Watson and Michael Bishop have developed some interesting aliens but are less convincing with their human characters. The behavior of the ship's crew is too unprofessional to be believable and the way national origin determines character is heavy-handed and potentially offensive. Nevertheless, the basic conundrum of the aliens and their enigmatic behavior retains interest.

[David B · Rating 3 out of 5]

A team of interstellar explorers confronts the mystery of the Kybers, a part-organic, part-metallic race of aliens who seem blissfully unconcerned about the imminent supernova that will cast their planet adrift. Some believe that they may represent a higher plane of spiritual evolution, while others see them as a threat to mankind. The debate is brought to a head when a group of the Kybers request asylum.

Authors Ian Watson and Michael Bishop have developed some interesting aliens but are less convincing with their human characters. The behavior of the ship's crew is too unprofessional to be believable and the way national origin determines character is heavy-handed and potentially offensive. Nevertheless, the basic conundrum of the aliens and their enigmatic behavior retains interest.

[Stephen Rowland · Rating 1 out of 5]

Promises so much and delivers virtually nothing. Collaborative works never seem to... work. I don't understand the point of them either, not that I've ever tried to discover one. Ian Watson is one of the best science fiction writers of the second half of the 20th century; Michael Bishop is a tepid hack affecting profundity. Like Philip K. Dick working with Zelazny, collaborations in general seem an attempt to smother unique literary voices and original ideas in deadening mediocrity. The stronger writer is diminished by the weaker. What you get is always second-rate. I'm getting worked up. You get the point. (Edit: I find the cover art on this one fucking hilarious, and then I ask myself why I spend on time on books with this sort of cover art in the first place.)

[Pete · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have read several novels by both Bishop and Watson. I recently read Bishop's Stolen Faces, a strange and under-appreciated novel, and I had hoped that Under Heaven's Bridge would also be a sleeper. After a promising start in which unusual biomechanical aliens are discovered, the book just struggled to elaborate its theme. Given that the aliens are both organic and inorganic, they seem to live a internal virtual reality that presages the idea of cyberspace. Now, this could be a misreading on my part because I found some of the writing rather strained.

[Pete · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good 70s style scifi, with weird robo-aliens interstellar romance, and hamfisted xenophobia metaphors. I'd reccomend as a quick read

[Margaret Windsor · Rating 3 out of 5]

ok. ending rather unsatisfactory. some interesting ideas.

[KJo · Rating 2 out of 5]

I came upon this mysterious novel in quite the odd way. I was at a playground watching my younger cousin, and there happened to be one of those tree boxes filled with books. There was a bunch of children's books inside (as there should be) but there were a couple of adult novels in there as well. Most of these books were science fiction, and as a looked through them the cover of this particular book caught my eye, because as you can see the cover is absolutely insane.

Now the book is called Under Heaven's Bridge, and it is worth mentioning that the particular tree box I found it in was at a playground in a church camp. Maybe its previous owner believed it was religious text due to the word "Heaven" in the title, whatever the reason it found its way into that little tree cubby it has now come to my possession. Because after seeing such a marvelously batshit cover which featured a potato stick man holding up a potato stick baby, and two people kneeling to said baby, with one of the kneeling people being naked, I just had to read it.

So, I took this odd little book home with me, and oh boy was it something. I feel like it properly reached my expectations of being weird. From the potato stick aliens (called kybers) feeding their skin to allow humans to reach enlightenment (their skin tastes like vinegar), to referring to semen as a planted seed, this book checked all boxes for a wild fever dream like read.

And that's why I gave it two stars. This novel was bad, weird, and uncomfortable. And even though I was expecting it to be that way I'm still giving two stars. I mainly read Under Heaven's Bridge, because of the humor of a book with such a weird cover being in a tree box in a children's playground.

With all of that being said I will now pass this book on to another tree box where some other unfortunate soul can stumble upon it.

[Devero · Rating 2 out of 5]

Un romanzo di SF abbastanza ben riuscito, con diverse idee interessanti, non sempre ben presentate, e un finale semi-aperto. A parte il personaggio principale, ben costruito, gli altri sono per lo più abbozzati. Gli alieni restano un parziale, raccapricciante enigma.

[Stephen Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

CARRY ON WITH THE KYBERS

This is a chilly little novel, with a rather bleak feel to it, not unlike the Onogorovian landscape. As with many SF books this is a novel of ideas and there’s nothing wrong with that. However, although a couple of the characters are reasonably well fleshed out for the most part they lack any real depth, and this, compounded with the absence of any cohesive plot, leaves the reader with a somewhat empty feeling. That said, the ideas are very interesting and some of the descriptive prose is nicely written, particularly when depicting the desolate planet on which the team are based. Perhaps it’s because this is a collaborative project that the book lacks an emotional centre. With a greater regard for the human aspect it would have been a much better novel.

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bishop must have become a much better writer after this one - or maybe co-author Ian Watson was to blame for the awful dialogue. Do some writers get their dialogue from fan conversations at conventions? Seriously.

[Steven]

Michael Bishop & Ian Watson