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1980. Transfigurations
1980. Under Heaven's Bridge

1980, Victor Gollancz
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• Transfigurations [top]
  1st Edition: 1980, published in the UK by Victor Gollancz, hardcover, with yellow dustjacket, 362 pages, ISBN 0575028335.
  A portion of this book, under the title of "Death and Designation Among the Asadi", copyright 1973 by UPD Publishing Corporation, originally appeared in 'Worlds of If', February 1973.

Storyline: In a clearing of the great forest of the planet Bosk Veld, a strange, ape-like species of alien, the Asadi, act out their almost-incomprehensible rituals, rainbow eyes flashing, spinning like pin-wheels. Egon Chaney, in his anthropological study 'Death and Designation Among the Asadi' has shown how their life-style has apparently degenerated from a level of complex technological sophistication and devolved to a primal simplicity. Long after his disappearance in the forest, his daughter, Elegy Cather, comes to Bosk Veld to carry on his studies of the Asadi where he left off. With her is an intelligent ape, Kretzoi, physically adapted to resemble the aliens. Together with Thomas Benedict, Chaney's old partner, Elegy begins to unravel the enigma of the Asadi. As Kretzoi insinuates himself into their rituals, so we are drawn into what is perhaps the most convincing portrayal of the alien yet.

Transfigurations continues in the impressive vein of 'A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire' and 'Stolen Faces'; a controlled and fascinating work that confirms Bishop as one of the masters of what in the early 1980s was a new medium

1980, Gollancz, pbk

1981, Readers Union
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• Under Heaven's Bridge [top]
  Co-written with Ian Watson
  First published in 1980 by Victor Gollancz.
  Reprinted in hardcover in 1981 by the Readers Union (book club), 160 pages (reproduced by A Wheaton & Co Ltd, Exeter, UK)

Storyline: A multinational expedition has landed, from their orbiting starship Heavensbridge, on the planet Onogoro, a cold and dour world circling one star of a binary pair. Their objective is to investigate a strange alien race, known to the human visitors as the Kybers.
These aliens, dwelling in a great network of ruined palaces, are partly biological creatures and partly machine, with the ability to switch themselves off at will, thus appearing to 'die' periodically.
The expedition's linguist, a beautiful Japanese, and the impulsive Andrik Norn, aspiring specialist in alien behaviour, are together drawn into a fierce knot of passion and ultimate betrayal as they struggle to understand the strange origin and motives of the aliens-which, if true, could shatter humanity's concept of the universe. Meanwhile, other expedition scientists discover that the Kybers' sun is soon to blaze up in a nova. Yet the Kybers' sun is soon to blaze up in a nova. Yet the Kybers, when told this are not alarmed...
Under Heaven's Bridge is the first science fiction collaboration spanning the Atlantic. England's Ian Watson and America's Michael Bishop have created here a novle that is a landmark in science fiction.