This is one of the books that sparked my spending frenzy in getting Bob Shaw hardbacks. I hadn’t heard of it (although I may have been vaguely aware of its existence but not fully acknowledged it) and I bought it from Amazon I think and eagerly awaited its arrival as it was more or less a ‘new’ book for me.

How To Write Science Fiction

The book itself is split up into lots of segments. Perhaps Bob Shaw wrote it over a period of time and gathered it together only for publication or maybe it was designed that way. There are a lot of useful hints and tips on the act of writing itself, irrespective of genre.

Shaw says here that he has published 100% of the work he has written. Apparently he had totally forgotten about The Mercenary Mirage – published a couple of times including Overload after it was sent back unsold to him by Forrest J Ackerman: perhaps he totally forgot about other stories too?

It was an enjoyable read and felt like Shaw was talking to me, rather than me ploughing through a book – which can happen with some non fiction books. The tone is light and informal and the fact that it is in short sections helps the reader enormously as there are no big chunks to digest in one reading.

The first chapter deals specifically with Science Fiction, and it is here, right at the start that Shaw has a section headed The Reader Knows Best. The manner of the book is mainly pleasant Shaw doesn’t fluff up reader’s egos and repeatedly points out that publishing is tough. He gives the sage advice to look into what the market is looking for before embarking on writing a story as he details in the section entitled The Importance of Market Research. For a lot of people it’s the other way around: write a story then look to market it.

In the second chapter Shaw talks about ‘priming the subconscious’ and his little army of Brownies who deliver and develop story ideas, although he has no compunction against brownie cruelty at times by taking them by their (metaphorical) throats and demanding good ideas.

Shaw also talks about discussing ideas with other people. He worked at the same company as SF writer James Blish and they often bounced ideas around. Shaw then moves from ideas to plots.

It is when talking about plotting that Shaw brings up Light of Other Days – which is included in the book and is part of the chapter on plotting. Shaw reveals to us that he spent two years on the idea for Light of Other Days before committing it to paper. He then describes how he looked for the plot to best describe the idea. I found this to be the most interesting part of the book. That Shaw would take the time to develop plots for an idea until he was satisfied that he had presented the idea in the best possible form.

Chapter four delves a little deeper into Science Fiction itself, in particular the difference between hard and soft SF and ways on how writers can bluff their way through a story technology wise.

Shaw then takes a look at characterisation, human and alien. In this chapter Shaw informs us that his publisher initially rejected Ground Zero Man on the grounds that it ‘was by no stretch of the imagination …science fiction.’ And then goes on to say the same publisher picked the book up later. There follows a few other sections including one on alien names.

The next chapter discusses building worlds, and Shaw reveals to us some of the things that went behind his book The Ragged Astronauts, the first in a trilogy. This is a series which could be thought of as bordering on Fantasy and having little to do with Science Fiction.

Chapter seven discusses the staples of science fiction, rocket ships, ray guns and robots. Here he investigates the various ways science fiction writers overcome the Einstein barrier which prohibits faster than light speed travel. A short section looks at futuristic weaponry. Then there are a couple of sections on robot and computers.

The last chapters round things up. Bringing everything together, including the topic of selection, and grabbing the reader at the beginning and endings. There is an exceptionally useful section where he points out words in a paragraph and gives reasons why he chose those particular words over others.

The final chapter is called Going To Market. This chapter also contains questions and answers with Pamela Buckmaster from the Carnell Literary Agency.

The book was released in 1993 but contains a lot of important information and tips: mainly because they are all still relevant today.

This is the reissued edition of Vertigo, issued in hardback by Gollancz in 1991 – October 1991 according to Phil’s excellent bibliography of Bob Shaw. The original short story, Dark Icarus/A little Night Flying is presented as a prologue and then it’s as Vertigo. It was priced at £13.99 net. My memory seems to be failing me as I was convinced I bought this when it was first issued. But I didn’t. I did however purchase it recently online, at a much more reasonable price of £1.36 plus postage, which I think is great value for a good book in excellent condition.

So I got a second hard back copy of Vertigo, and this one is in much better condition. I won a copy on Ebay for 99p but it was ex-library. The new copy doesn’t have any pages ripped out of it and has no stamps. So I’ll give my thoughts on this novel now. I first read it in paperback way back in the eighties and went through the 99p Ebay one again recently before starting this review.

It was an enjoyable read. The novel is pretty close to mainstream in that it deals with everyday problems in the main, plain old fashioned human conflict. It would qualify very well for Theodore Sturgeon’s definition of Science Fiction: a human problem with a human solution but which would not have happened if not for the scientific content. (I’m going from memory here so forgive me if the quote isn’t exact.)

The scientific content of Vertigo is the easy availability of sort of jet packs aka CG harnesses which are used for personal travel. We all know what we’re like in cars and the jet pack is another form of this. Shaw develops all sorts of possibilities for the way people would behave with this new form of transport, and all sorts of social repercussions such as the more or less ceasing of airplane flights. Other problems brought about by this invention are the crimes and misdemeanours in three dimensions instead of being limited to flat surfaces on the ground.

The main protagonist for this story is Robert Hasson, a policeman going to Canada to recover from a horrendous accident.

As I’ve mentioned before this novel grew from the short story A Little Night Flying, also known as Dark Icarus, first published in Science Fiction Monthly in 1974 and also in the short story collection Cosmic Kaleidoscope (1976) and in other places. It was re issued as Terminal Velocity in 1991.

Hasson departs for Canada, physically and mentally shattered, recovering from of a nervous breakdown and taking a medication called Serenix. No drugs company in the world would call their product that so Shaw can get away with it.

To re acquaint myself with the novel – I did read it over twenty years ago and I’m not getting any younger, smarter or prettier- I started to leaf through it and found myself engrossed again, well into chapter three before I realised I was supposed to be reminding myself of the novel as a refresher, not a full read. I suppose that’s a compliment to Shaw’s writing and his talent. So I decided to re read the novel in full.

Shaw has a way with developing characters and situations. Vertigo is a relatively slow starter of a novel. There’s no major incident to incite events as prescribed by story experts all over the world. The baddies make themselves known relatively soon but plot wise Shaw carefully draws in the reader to Hasson’s situation.

Odd that I don’t recall the mention of Kafka’s Metamorphosis story. I used to be quite into Kafka, although I only have a hard back edition of The Trial and paperback edition of a collection of short stories – including Metamorphosis – and I can’t be sure but I think there might be a Penguin edition of Amerika stuck in some corner.

Gradually Hasson begins to feel better, with the help from Oliver Fan, from the local health food store and even tries but fails to fly in a CG harness.

The story gets ratcheted up a few notches in the last few chapters. Shaw adds some humanity to the one of the villains of the piece by making the repercussions of their actions more serious than their intentions. Head bully Pridgeon proclaims he didn’t know how dangerous the traps he set in the Chinook Hotel were. Chief villain Morlacher keeps threatening the secondary character Werry and seems implacable, intent on the protection of his property by any means he deems necessary.

A character – Barry Lutze – introduced early on becomes the final obstacle for Hasson in the last chapters as, to save Werry’s son, Hasson puts on a CG harness and heads upward into the night to the Chinook hotel and faces his fears, surviving the situation and comes out the other side alive and a stronger person.

Although it obviously doesn’t seem to follow the rules/requirements of story telling it does, and Shaw proves himself to be a master at doing this subtly. I’ve heard actors look at the beginning of a script and the end of the script to see if there is a proper character arc, character development and character progress. No actor would be disappointed with Vertigo. The unsteady, unconfident, frightened Hasson of the start of the novel grows throughout to be replaced by the confident and growing character at the end of the novel.