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I've been reading Bob Shaw on and off for decades, but at the moment reading his books again serves as a kind of antidote for Cixin Liu . While there is no denying that exploring future science, technology and progress (or extinction) of humanity with a speculative hard science foundation is fascinating and relevant, Shaw isn't so rigorous about what science and physics is capable of, or indeed what is desirable. That's not to diminish Shaw’s writing as fanciful or pulp SF. Even his most outlandish ideas have a firm basis in reality or can be applied as being fairly accurate representations of the world we are beginning to see around us today. Most importantly, he considers the reasons why humanity can be pushed to develop dangerous technologies and considers the consequences. Even more importantly, he makes it thoroughly entertaining. First published in 1969, there are any number of recognisable contemporary world situations you could apply to the subjects he writes about ...

What I love about Bob Shaw's fiction is that you never know where he is going to take you. Some SF authors have certain themes that preoccupy them, but Bob Shaw seems to be more open to the richness that can come with imagining advances in technology, new worlds, other dimensions. You can go really anywhere. The Ceres Solution might seem to involve two disaffected young people, outsiders who aren't accepted among their peers - a common theme in science-fiction and fantasy - but Bob Shaw obviously has a different spin on it. One of those outsiders is Gretana ty Iltha on the planet Mollan. Warden Vekrynn has selected her for an observation mission to Earth. She has no intention of going to such a place of death, illness and violence, where the people have life spans so much shorter than the 50 centuries that the inhabitants of Mollan enjoy. Vekrynn however suggests that it is precisely an intense experience that would make her life truly interesting. Mocked for her appearance as...

Fire Pattern starts out as an investigation into the rare phenomenon of Spontaneous Human Combustion, incidents of which have been documented for centuries but never scientifically explained, and in a very Bob Shaw way, the author manages to take this in an entirely new direction, far away from where it started. All the way to Mercury in fact. Rayner Jerome is a reporter for the Whiteford Examiner, an employee with a little more professionalism and care about grammar and scientific accuracy than most of his colleagues. So when an extraordinary cases of Spontaneous Human Combustion occurs, Jerome spots some suspicious information and takes the time to investigate the matter thoroughly, much to the frustration of his boss who just wants a quick article. While pondering news of a NASA Quicksilver mission to Mercury to examine an unusual artefact that has been spotted on the surface of the planet's northern pole, Jerome discovers that there is a connection between recent case of SHC a...

A Wreath of Stars features Gilbert Snook, a man thinks of himself as a human neutrino, keeping to himself, avoiding society and any kind of involvement with people if he can help it, but ironically, it's the discovery of an anti-neutrino planet that puts him at the centre of a grand scientific discovery. Unhappy with having to flee the previous African nation where he was employed as an aircraft engineer against his will, Snook finds himself in a difficult position working as a teacher in the state of Barandi for workers in the diamond mines that are the lifeblood of the nation. His world is turned upside down by the discovery of ghosts in the mine who have been made visible through the use of special glasses devised to work in darkness. It turns out to be a whole world in another dimension inside the earth who have been shifted out of their normal orbit by the approach of Thornton's Planet, a recently discovered anti-neutrino mass that has passed close by Earth. With the assi...