Release date: August 30, 2020
Subgenre: Nonfiction, Humor, Fanwriting
About Slow Pint Glass:
Slow Pint Glass is a huge collection of Bob Shaw’s other fan and fan-adjacent writing not already included in The Enchanted Duplicator (1954 with Walt Willis; much reprinted; TAFF ebook May 2015), The Serious Scientific Talks (TAFF ebook November 2019) and The Full Glass Bushel (TAFF ebook June 2020).
Cover art by Jim Barker, a July 2020 reworking of his memorial piece for Bob Shaw first published in Tyne Capsule (March 2015; TAFF ebook September 2019).
The collection, compiled by Rob Jackson and David Langford, contains 167,000 words of fine fanwriting – more than The Serious Scientific Talks and The Full Glass Bushel put together – ranging from the early 1950s to the 1990s. First published as an Ansible Editions ebook for the TAFF site on 30 August 2020.
Excerpt:
From the Introduction by David Langford
Most of the humorists for which Bob shows admiration in the articles that follow – Patrick Campbell, Stephen Leacock, S.J. Perelman, James Thurber, Mark Twain – cultivated an air of bemusement at the vagaries of the weird world we live in. This was an attitude that Bob himself could always carry off brilliantly. What other writer, struggling with deadlines, would find himself fatally distracted by a noisy invasion of hot air balloons? Or be a fascinated eye-witness on the utterly memorable night when Brian Aldiss broke the bed? Or, in a perfectly ordinary visit to the loo at an SF convention, become entangled in the embarrassing toils of the Penis Fly Trap? See “The Writer’s Year”, “Once Upon a Tyne” and “Wetfoot in the Head” respectively.
Free at the TAFF Website
(Donations to TAFF appreciated)
About Bob Shaw:
Bob Shaw was a fan, fan writer, fan artist, novelist, structural engineer, aircraft designer, and journalist from Northern Ireland, noted for his originality and wit. He was one of the Wheels of IF and a great and influential fan.
Originally trained as a structural engineer, Bob Shaw worked as an aircraft designer for Short and Harland, then as science correspondent for The Belfast Telegraph and then as publicity officer for Vickers Shipbuilding before starting to write full-time. During the Troubles, Shaw and his family moved from Northern Ireland to England, where he produced the majority of his work.
He had nearly lost his sight through illness and suffered migraine-induced visual disturbances throughout his life. He went to the US to live with his second wife, then returned to England in the last months of his life. Shaw died of cancer on 11 February 1996.
He was well-loved and sought after wearing both his fan and pro hats. Professionally, he published his first story in 1951, and is best known for "Light of Other Days" (Astounding Science Fiction, Aug 1966), the story that introduced the concept of slow glass. Orbitsville and its two sequels deal with the discovery of a habitable shell completely surrounding a star, and the consequences for humanity. The first in this trilogy won him the 1976 British SF Association Award.
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