Movatterモバイル変換

[0]ホーム
URL:

  

Search SFE   Search EoF

 Omit cross-reference entries  

Shaw, Bob

Entry updated 13 January 2025. Tagged: Author, Fan.

Icon made by Freepik from www.flaticon.com

pic

Working name of Northern Irish author Robert Shaw (1931-1996), in Canada 1956-1958 and the mainland UK from 1973. He worked in structural engineering until the age of twenty-seven, then aircraft design, then industrial public relations and journalism, becoming a full-time author in 1975. Shaw was early involved in sfFandom, with stories and articles published in theFanzineSlant from 1951 and his first book beingThe Enchanted Duplicator (1954 chap) with WaltWillis, an allegory of fan andFanzine activities; he receivedHugos in 1979 and 1980 for his fan writing, which was also collected in such volumes asThe Best of the Bushel (coll1979 chap) andThe Eastercon Speeches (coll1979 chap); the former is a selection from his column "The Glass Bushel" inHyphen (two later instalments were to appear inScience Fiction Review in 1984) and the latter assembles five early examples of theSerious Scientific Talks (joky and only tenuously scientific) which were for many years highly popular atConventions [see Checklist below].

In the meanwhile Shaw published his first professional story, "Aspect" (seeMatter Transmission), withNebula Science Fiction in August 1954, followed by "The Trespassers" (his first professional sale but published second) in the December 1954 issue; during the mid-1950s he contributed several more stories toNebula and one toAuthentic Science Fiction before ceasing to write for some years. After a strong "come-back" tale – "... And Isles Where Good Men Lie" (October 1965New Worlds) – he published "Light of Other Days" (August 1966Analog), which established his reputation as a writer of remarkable ingenuity. Built around the intriguing concept ofSlow Glass, a kind ofTime Viewer through which light can take years to travel – thus allowing people to view scenes from the past – this story remains his best known. He later incorporated it, together with two thematically-related examinations of the theme, intoOther Days, Other Eyes (fixup1972; cut1974).

Shaw's first novel wasNight Walk (1967), a fast-moving chase story. A man who has been blinded and condemned to a penal colony on a far planet invents a device (seeInvention) that enables him to see through other people's and even animals' eyes, and thus manages to escape.The Two-Timers (1968), a well written tale ofParallel Worlds,Doppelgangers and murder, demonstrates Shaw's ability to handle characterization and, in particular, his talent for realistic dialogue. InThe Palace of Eternity (1969) he still more impressively controls a wide canvas featuring interstellar warfare, the environmental degradation of an Edenic planet, and humanTranscendence; the central section of the novel, where the hero finds himself reincarnated as an "Egon" or soul-like entity (seeEnergy Beings;Identity), displeased some critics, though it is in fact an effective handling of a traditional sf displacement of ideas fromMetaphysics orReligion. This intelligent reworking of well worn sf topoi was from the first Shaw's forte, as was demonstrated in his next novel,One Million Tomorrows (1970), anImmortality tale whose twist lies in the fact that the option of eternal youth entails sexual impotence – though only for males.

All Shaw's early books – which include alsoShadow of Heaven (1969; cut1970; rev vtThe Shadow of Heaven1991), involvingAntigravity, andGround Zero Man (1971; rev vtThe Peace Machine1985) – were published first (and sometimes solely) in the USA; and their efficient anonymity of venue may result from a highly competent attempt to appeal to a transatlantic audience. Only slowly did Shaw come to write tales whose placement and protagonists were distinctly UK in feel; and it could be argued, sadly, that his best work was his most impersonal. The fine first volume of theOrbitsville sequence – comprisingOrbitsville (1975),Orbitsville Departure (1983) andOrbitsville Judgement (1990) – can almost certainly stand, afterOther Days, Other Eyes, as his greatest inspiration. Like LarryNiven'sRingworld (1970) and Arthur CClarke'sRendezvous with Rama (1973), theOrbitsville books centre on the discovery of – and later developments within – a vast alien artefact in space (aMacrostructure, in fact), in this case aDyson Sphere. Within the living-space provided by the inner surface of this artificial shell – billions of times the surface area of the Earth – Shaw spins an exciting story of political intrigue and exploration, which in later volumes develops, perhaps revealing an undue impatience with the venue he had invented, into a heavily plotted move into another universe entirely.Orbitsville gained a 1976BSFA Award.

A Wreath of Stars (1976) may be Shaw's most original, and perhaps his finest, singleton. A rogue planet, composed entirely of antineutrino matter (seeAntimatter), approaches the Earth. It passes nearby with no immediately discernible effect. However, it is soon discovered that an antineutrino "Earth" exists within our planet (seeMatter Penetration) whose orbit has been seriously perturbed by the passage of the interloper. This is an ingenious, almost a poetic, idea, to which the plot only just fails to do full justice. Other books followed quickly: the overcomplicatedMedusa's Children (1977); theWarren Peace sequence – comprising the successfully comicWho Goes Here? (1977; exp as collWho Goes Here? And, The Giaconda Caper1988) and its disappointing sequelWarren Peace (1993; vtDimensions1994) – both beingjeux d'esprit akin to HarryHarrison'sBill, the Galactic Hero (December 1964Galaxy as "The Starsloggers"; exp August-October 1965New Worlds;1965), and suffering, as did Harrison's sequence, from rapidly diminishing inspiration;Ship of Strangers (fixup1978), a homage to A Evan Vogt in which the crew of the Stellar Survey ShipSarafand, after some routine adventures, confront a strikingCosmological issue (seeMiniaturization);Vertigo (1978; with "Dark Icarus" [April 1974Science Fiction Monthly] added as prologue, exp vtTerminal Velocity1991), an effectivepolicier set in a world transformed byAntigravity devices allowing personal flight; plusDagger of the Mind (1979) andThe Ceres Solution (1981), in both of which Shaw's ingenuity declined, for a period, into something close to jumble. He had meanwhile been writing short stories – his collections includeTomorrow Lies in Ambush (coll1973; with two stories added, rev1973),Cosmic Kaleidoscope (coll1976; with one story omitted and two added, rev1977),A Better Mantrap (coll1982),Between Two Worlds (coll1986 dos) andDark Night in Toyland (coll1989) – which again demonstrate his professional skills but tend to lack a sense of commitment, to the point that some later stories seemed strained, frivolous, anecdotal.

However, with theRagged Astronauts sequence –The Ragged Astronauts (1986),The Wooden Spaceships (1988) andThe Fugitive Worlds (1989) – Shaw returned to his very best and most inventive form, creating anAlternate Cosmos which allowed him to describe with joyful exactness the sensation of emigrating, via hot-airBalloon, up the hourglass funnel of atmosphere that connects two planets which orbit each other. After his pattern, later volumes lose some of the freshness and elation of the first, but the series as a whole emphasizes Shaw's genuine stature in the genre as an entertainer who rarely failed to thrill the mind's eye with a new prospect. At his best, Shaw was an ingenious fabricator and lover of the worlds of sf. [DP/JC/DRL]

see also:Agriculture;Alternate History;Arts;Asteroids;Comics;Conceptual Breakthrough;Doc Weir Award;Eschatology;FAAn Awards;Fantastic Voyages;Faster Than Light;Gravity;Humour;Imaginary Science;Moon;Nova Awards;Parasitism and Symbiosis;Perception;Physics;Satire;Scientific Errors;Scientists;Space Flight;Time Paradoxes;Toys in SF;Under the Sea.

Robert Shaw

born Belfast, Northern Ireland: 31 December 1931

died Stockton Heath, Warrington, Cheshire: 11 February 1996

works

series

Orbitsville

Ragged Astronauts

Warren Peace

individual titles

collections and stories

nonfiction

series

Serious Scientific Talks

  • The Eastercon Speeches (West Ewell, Surrey: Paranoid/Inca Press,1979) [nonfiction: coll: chap:Serious Scientific Talks: illus/pb/JimBarker]
  • Serious Scientific Talks 1982-1984 (Carshalton, Surrey: The Shaw Fund,1984) [nonfiction: coll: chap: front cover title isSerious Science:Serious Scientific Talks: pb/photographic]
    • A Load of Old BoSh: Serious Scientific Talks (Harold Wood, Essex: Beccon Publications/Confabulation,1995) [nonfiction: omni of the above two with additional material: chap:Serious Scientific Talks: pb/Sue Mason]
      • The Serious Scientific Talks (Reading, Berkshire: Ansible Editions,2019) [nonfiction: coll: ebook: exp of the above with further additional material:Serious Scientific Talks: na/JimBarker]

The Glass Bushel

  • The Best of the Bushel (West Ewell, Surrey: Paranoid/Inca Press,1979) [nonfiction: coll: chap: selected "Glass Bushel" columns fromHyphen:The Glass Bushel: illus/pb/JimBarker]
  • Fourteen Bob the Bushel (Granada Hills, California: VERIP Press,1995) [nonfiction: coll: chap: selection different from the above but overlapping:The Glass Bushel: pb/Larry Stewart]
  • The Full Glass Bushel (Reading, Berkshire: Ansible Editions,2020) [nonfiction: coll: ebook: all the "Glass Bushel" columns plus other articles fromHyphen: edited by Rob Jackson and DavidLangford:The Glass Bushel: illus/na/JimBarker]

nonfiction: individual titles

about the author

links

previous versions of this entry



x
This website uses cookies.  More information here.Accept Cookies
[8]ページ先頭
©2009-2025 Movatter.jp