Bob Shaw

[Dave]

Robert Shaw

born Belfast, Northern Ireland: 31 December 1931
died Warrington, England: 11 February 1996

Bob Shaw was a British author of science fiction novels and short stories, essays, reviews, SF interior artworks, cover art, and non-fiction books. He was also a structural engineer, aircraft designer, and a journalist.

He only began to write full-time in 1975, but he had his work published in SFF fanzines from 1951, and his first professional story, Aspect was published in 1954.

He is another author whose short stories are very often found to be the answers to queries in the SFF Chronicles Book Search forum where they are remembered for their hilarity, humour and wit. He was a great storyteller of tall tales or yarns.

He is probably still best known for his short story Light of Other Days (1966) and for his his novel The Ragged Astronauts (1986) and its two sequels.

He wrote 26 novels and a large number of short stories. The majority of his novels were standalones.

A list of his works is to be found here: Summary Bibliography: Bob Shaw

Wikipedia page: Bob Shaw - Wikipedia

 

[Fiberglass Cyborg]

There's a couple of Bob Shaw novels I remember fondly from my teens, though I haven't read much by him since.

In "The Ragged Astronauts", a pair of twin planets, one inhabited, orbit each other so closely their atmospheres actually touch. So, the invention of the hot air balloon is also the start of interplanetary travel. I've read the sequels too - the second, "The Wooden Spaceships", I thought was particularly good.

"Orbitsville" is about humans finding and settling in a Dyson sphere (or strictly speaking, Dyson shell!) I mainly remember the atmosphere of this one - he did a good job of conveying the sheer mind-boggling scale of the thing. I haven't read the rest of that series.

 

[JunkMonkey]

Orbitsville was one of those books that gave me a real Sense of Wonder when I was a kid. I read it serialised in Galaxy when Tandem were doing the British edition with f##d up numbering and those horribly stiff covers. I loved having to wait a whole month for the next episode of serial stories.