Ship of Strangers by Bob Shaw

Bob Shaw Omnibus including The Two-Timers, Ship of Strangers and A Wreath of Stars (Italian edition)
Bob Shaw Omnibus including The Two-Timers, Ship of Strangers and A Wreath of Stars (Italian edition)

The novel “Ship of Strangers” by Bob Shaw was published for the first time in 1978.

The survey starship Sarafand explores the frontiers of space to create maps of every planet discovered. Thanks to a propulsion system that allows it to instantly travel from one point of the cosmos to another, the time required to move from one planet to another is just what it takes to prepare for the jump.

The exploration missions are long and often boring but every journey to a new planet may hold unforeseen dangers, whether it’s hostile aliens or anomalies in space-time. It’s not a life for everyone and Dave Surgenor is one of the few who have managed to adapt well. New dangers will put to the test even his experience and skills.

“Ship of Strangers” is a novel inspired to “The Voyage of the Space Beagle” by A.E. van Vogt, which was actually the fix-up of four stories published over several years. In both cases, there’s a starship that explores the space frontier but the way in which this basic concept developed is definitely different.

A.E. van Vogt wrote a series of adventurous stories in which the starship has a crew of over a thousand members, including scientists and soldiers who heroically face the dangers that lie in space. Bob Shaw approaches the topic in his own way, therefore, in “Ship of Strangers” there are definitely dangers and adventures but the crew of the starship is much smaller and the author is more interested in the reactions of its members to the stress of their mission than in telling heroic deeds.

The crews of survey ships such as the Sarafand sign a two-year contract and at its end most don’t renew it. During their missions, there’s a risk of running into danger but in most cases they explore uninhabited worlds. After some time, a potentially hazardous situation becomes welcome because it breaks the monotony.

Human beings find it difficult to understand the immensity of the cosmos because they have a propulsion system that allows them to instantly cross any distance, just knowing the point of arrival. In time, however, the people who take part in frontier exploration missions understand that space is huge and planets are tiny dots in the middle of the void.

Dave Surgenor is part of the minority that has adapted to that kind of life and one of his tasks is to assist the newcomers who replace the ones who leave the service. In “Ship of Strangers” Bob Shaw tells some exploration in which Surgenor and the rest of the starship Sarafand’s crew face various dangers rather than the usual boredom.

Those explorers aren’t soldiers and even less heroes so when they’re facing unknown dangers they may have very human reactions, even negative ones. Facing the unknown, even the help of a very advanced computer sometimes fails to prevent Dave Surgenor and his colleagues from being taken by despair. In the end, they manage to survive more than anything because their survival instinct manages to get the better of their fears and in general of their irrational side.

A novel such as “Ship of Strangers” inevitably suffers a bit for the fact that the story is fragmented into various adventures that take place over a number of years. The crew of the starship Sarafand change over time and this makes Dave Surgenor the protagonist and the best developed character.

The good thing is that space exploration with its sense of wonder is brought down to a human dimension. The crew of the Sarafand, or any other similar starship, are trained to do their job but they’re basically ordinary people, for better or for worse.

It’s especially for this reason that I think that “Ship of Strangers” is overall a good novel. It’s not the best by Bob Shaw but I think it’s worth reading, especially if you’re a fan of this author.

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