by K. J. Bishop
‘Vision Splendid’ was written for Gillian Polack’s anthology Baggage, for whose theme of Australian cultural baggage I tried to address what I see as a wilful narrowness in Anglo-Australian culture.
The title is taken from A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson’s poem ‘Clancy of the Overflow’ (1889), a romanticised portrait of a drover:
And the bush hath friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him
In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars,
And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended,
And at night the wond’rous glory of the everlasting stars.
I thought of ‘Clancy’ when I had written the story and considered the contrasts between Australia’s preferred self-portraits of national character and the reality of many people (especially women) who don’t resemble the favourite archetypes and whose experiences are left out of popular narratives.
The quote in ‘The Crone Meets Her Son’ is from Franklin Rosemont’s text ‘Freedom of the Marvelous’ (Catalogue of the World Surrealist Exhibition, 1976): ‘To overcome the contradiction between these marvelous moments and the everyday, to actualize the Marvelous in everyday life – that is the surrealist project.’
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A great many thanks to my beta readers – Gillian Polack, Kirby Crow, Laurie Bland, Andrew van der Stock, and especially Nick Tramdack, to whose detailed critique I’m much indebted. Extra thanks to Gillian for her skilful editorial work on ‘Vision Splendid’ and to Michael Cisco for his valuable input on ‘When the Lamps are Lit’. My gratitude also to Jean-François Le Ruyet for correcting my French, to Mum and Dad for their patient answers to my many questions about Australian historical detail and for Dad’s help concerning the number Pi, and to all those who were generous with sundry assistance and advice. Last and most, huge thanks to my husband Stu for all of his support and critical feedback.
ALSO BY K.J. BISHOP
THE ETCHED CITY
IAFA William L. Crawford Fantasy Award 2004
Ditmar Award for Best Novel 2004
World Fantasy Award for Best Novel nominee 2004
‘Have you seen a split cranium, growing flowers like a window box? I saw that, a mere hour ago.’
Fleeing the ghosts of their past, a healer and a killer escape from the ruined Copper Country to the city of Ashamoil. But as they salvage new lives from the debris of the old, they will discover that the ghosts of the past are also the ghosts of the future.
As comic and tragic destinies play out, art will infect life, dream and waking fuse, and splendid and frightening miracles will bloom.
Editions in print:
Publisher: Spectra (November 23, 2004)
ISBN-10: 0553382918
ISBN-13: 978-0553382914
UK readers: Kindle e-book available on Amazon.co.uk
‘…nothing’s quite rocked my world like KJ Bishop’s The Etched City, a heartbreak of a fantasy novel.’
– Junot Díaz
‘…fantasy as high literature, our world skewed to a hard right angle.’
– James Sallis, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
‘In New Worlds (1964) Ballard said that speculative fiction would never achieve maturity until it possessed the moral authority of a literature won from experience… Without doubt, Bishop’s fiction has earned that authority.’
– Michael Moorcock, The Guardian
‘This is a challenging novel, both in the themes and questions it subtly poses, and the metaphors it disguises indivisibly amidst beauty and monstrosity… An amazing first novel, not only for the skill of writing, complexity and richness of invention it displays, but also for the themes it is willing to confront.’
– William Thompson, Interzone
‘The Etched City… is thoroughly unpretentious but unafraid to delve deeply into all manner of mysteries. It features a cast of hard-bitten loners who, for all their bitterness and fatigue, are still passionately full of life.’
– Gahan Wilson, Realms of Fantasy
COPYRIGHT
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organisations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © K.J. Bishop 2012
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
First edition 2012
ISBN 978-1-62590-203-0
Cover design by K.J. Bishop
For information please visit www.kjbishop.net
‘The Art of Dying’ © K.J. Bishop 1997. First published in Aurealis #19, October 1997.
‘The Love of Beauty’ © K.J. Bishop 1999. First published in Aurealis #24, October 1999.
‘We the Enclosed’ © K.J. Bishop 2004. First published in Leviathan 4: Cities, Night Shade Books, 2004.
‘Maldoror Abroad’ © K.J. Bishop 2003. First published in Album Zutique #1, Ministry of Whimsy Press, 2003.
‘Alsiso’ © K.J. Bishop 2004. First published in The Alsiso Project, Elastic Press, 2004.
‘The Memorial Page’ © K.J. Bishop 2002. First published in Fables and Reflections #2, April 2002.
‘Last Drink Bird Head’ © K.J. Bishop 2009. First published in Last Drink Bird Head, Ministry of Whimsy Press, 2009.
‘Between the Covers’ © K.J. Bishop 2005. First published in The Devil in Brisbane, Prime Books, 2005.
‘Two Dreams’ © K.J. Bishop 2008. First published in New Horizons #1, June 2008.
‘The Heart of a Mouse’ © K.J. Bishop 2010. First published in Subterranean Online, Winter 2010.
‘Saving the Gleeful Horse’ © K.J. Bishop 2010. First published in Fantasy Magazine, March 2010.
‘Mother’s Curtains’ © K.J. Bishop 2012. Previously unpublished.
‘Beach Rubble’ © K.J. Bishop 2003. First published in Borderlands #1, April 2003.
‘Domestic Interior’ © K.J. Bishop 2008. First published in New Horizons #1, June 2008.
‘Vision Splendid’ © K.J. Bishop 2010. First published in Baggage, Eneit Press, 2010.
‘Madame Lenora’s Rings’ © K.J. Bishop 2011. First published at www.kjbishop.net, September 2011.
‘She Mirrors’ © K.J. Bishop 2012. Previously unpublished.
‘When the Lamps are Lit’ © K.J. Bishop 2009. First published in Electric Velocipede #19, Fall 2009.
‘The Crone Meets Her Son (on a battlefield)’ © K.J. Bishop 2007. First published in Electric Velocipede #13, Fall 2007.