Planet of Ghosts and Other Stories

What remains when the world—and the universe itself—fades away?

Planet of Ghosts explores the thin veil between the living and the remembered. On a nameless desert planet, a small colony of Earth’s refugees discovers that the greatest threat to their new home isn’t the harsh environment, but a “contagion of memory.” As the past begins to manifest into visible, haunting phantoms, the survivors must build “spirit houses” to contain a history that refuses to stay buried.

Bishop's Other Stories include a lonely God seeking conversation at the end of time, a genetically altered dog leading an exodus off Earth, and more that animate the remains of human existence. Whether archaeologists excavating a “Walmart World Heritage Site” or William Howard Taft traveling to the future, Bishop asks: How do we carry our ghosts without being consumed by them?

This collection is a map for those who long for a better world, while knowing the past must accompany us on the voyage.