I remember reading a book some 30 years ago (late 1980s) about an experiment to transform a man for space travel. He basically became a gargoyle with thick grey skin and small wings for gliding.
The plot was very similar to the Netflix original movie The Titan. Does anyone have a lead on this?
Possibly Man Plus (1976) by Frederik Pohl?
From Wikipedia:
In the not-too-distant future, a cold war threatens to turn hot. Colonization of Mars seems to be mankind's only hope of surviving certain Armageddon. To facilitate this, the American government begins a cyborg program to create a being capable of surviving the harsh Martian environment: Man Plus. After the death of the first candidate, due to the project supervisors forgetting to enhance his brain's ability to process sensory input to cope with the new stimuli he is receiving, Roger Torraway becomes the heart of the program.
In order to survive in the thin Martian atmosphere, Roger Torraway's body must be replaced with an artificial one. At every step he becomes more and more disconnected from humanity, unable to feel things in his new body. It is only after arriving on Mars that his new body begins to make sense to him. It is perfectly adapted to this new world, and thus he becomes perfectly separated from his old world, and from humanity.
Some cover images show him as a gargoyle-like creature (the first one as red, but others disagree and I'm not sure if a color was implicit in the text):
The wings aren't for gliding, but rather are solar panels.
