I was sad to read in the Guardian on Thursday of the death of Science Fiction writer Michael Bishop.

He was one of my favourite SF writers of the 1970s and 1980s.

I have read eleven of his books including two short story collections and the novel he co-wrote with British SF author Ian Watson.

His was always a humane approach to writing SF.

He had a knack for memorable story titles. From my early days reading the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction his story The White Otters of Childhood stood out as demanding to be read.

Then who could not be intrigued by And Strange at Ecbatan the Trees? (This story is also known as Beneath the Shattered Moons. So good he named it twice.)

And there is his novel Philip K Dick is Dead Alas.

Michael Lawson Bishop: 12/11/1945 – 13/11/2023. So it goes.

I see from George R R Martin’s blog that Phyllis Eisenstein died last month – from Covid-19 though she had suffered a cerebral hæmorrhage much earlier in the year. Another sad departure for a year too full of them. Not that this year is looking much better at the moment, vaccine apart.

I first read her work in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction way back in the day but it wasn’t till recently that I read her two novels relating the adventures of Alaric the minstrel, Born To Exile and In the Red Lord’s Reach.

I have another of her books on the tbr pile. It will be read with a sense of sorrow.

Phyllis Eisenstein: 26/2/1946 – 7/12/2020. So it goes.