Michael Bishop, an American author of science fiction, passed away last year. He won the Nebula Award twice, and was also nominated for several Locus and Hugo awards. Eyes of Fire was one of his "anthropological science fiction" novels, of which he wrote many between the late 70s and early 80s. He was never that famous within his chosen genre, but he is and was regarded as extremely influential.
In Eyes of Fire a human clone living on an alien world is sent as an envoy to a mysterious civilization several light years distant. Throughout the course of his mission several cultures come into conflict, and in the midst of their squabbles he comes to question both the nature of his employment and his own identity.
It's a floridly written novel that brought Frank Herbert's Dune series to mind, though comparisons between Herbert's books and Eyes of Fire are not always to Eyes of Fire's disadvantage. Frank Herbert was probably a better editor of his own work, more able to cut a story down to its essential elements, while Michael Bishop shows more facility with his characters. Herbert was better able to "cut to the chase," while Bishop was better with personalities.
Overall I think Eyes of Fire is a good early effort by an author who probably wrote better books later in his career. It's burdened with a lot of backstory -- the kind of backstory that Frank Herbert would have reduced to "aphorisms" in his more effective novels -- but I can't fault it in terms of plot, pacing and characterization. Readers less devoted to science fiction will probably find its opening chapters somewhat obtuse and turgid, but if you can get through these early chapters the larger narrative and its attendant "twist" are both rewarding.
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