October Books 7) A Load of Old BoSh

[nwhyte]

7) A Load of Old BoSh: serious scientific talks by Bob Shaw

As a fan of Shaw's writing who never actually met him, I remember reading David Langford's obituary back in 1996 with sadness, but also with considerable curiosity; I deeply regretted never having heard him give one of his "Serious Scientific Talks". It's good that the then Eastercon got

Comments

[pgmcc]

I was lucky enough to meet Bob at a Convention in Trinity about 1993. He alluded to one of his favourite themes, "Star Trek - The other shift". His premise was that the same crew members couldn't man their positions around the clock, so there must be another shift.

He also told great stories about the time he was invited to a Star Trek convention and met the actors who played Scotty and Chekov.

Chekov introduced himself and said, "I believe you make money by making fun of me."

Shaw replied, "Yes". He hadn't the heart to tell Chekov that he considered his character too insignificant to include in any of his comedy skits.

[nwhyte]

Yep, those anecdotes are both in here (the first more than once)!

[dougs]

I was at the 1996 Eastercon, and was in his talk there -- my first (and therefore last) time I did so.

I purchased my Load of Old BoSh about two years ago, second-hand.

Both were excellent.

[bohemiancoast]

A Load of Old Bosh reprinted two previous collections of SSTs, and added one extra talk from a script I think. But I transcribed three or four from cassette tapes, which I am pretty sure I borrowed from the SFF library.

For many years Bob's fan writing has all been un-reprintable, due to what I believe is quite a common problem of one of his children believing that the fan writing should be attracting reprint fees. This is why it makes sense to appoint a literary executor for fan writing, but I digress.

[swisstone]

I'd heard a couple of the talks (including the 1995 Worldcon), and also saw Bob being interviewed (we used to have him at the Manchester Uni SF Soc semi-regularly) It was always hilarious.