October Books 7) A Load of Old BoSh

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 this collection of ten of his talks published in time for him to read, less than a year before he died. And they are pretty funny even on the printed page; the jokes are laboured, some of them are repeated, but they are hilarious, especially read out loud. One can well believe , the Eastercon chair of the day who contributes a foreword, that in the transcription process she sometimes found herself laughing so hard that she was physically unable to type.

Presumably sound recordings must exist of some of Shaw’s talks? Is there any chance of their becoming available on-line?

One thought on “October Books 7) A Load of Old BoSh

  1. I did tell you Girl Genius was going to win.

    GG wins because it’s drawn by the Foglios, who are themselves well-known and popular in geekdom; it combines romance with steampunk and adventure; it’s extremely well-drawn (whether you like the style or not is a separate issue, of course) and it’s been around for a long time, enough to build a very large and loyal fanbase.

    I expect it will continue to win until the Foglios are done with it, unless another challenger emerges. (I mentioned previously that I would myself vote for Namesake next year, but I wouldn’t expect it to win, or even come close. I doubt that anyone will beat the Foglios until they finish.

    Where have they posted the statistics? I wanted to see how all the voting went. I found the post for the 2010 awards but not the 2011, but obviously they must be SOMEWHERE as you give details of how the voting went.

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