Ship of Strangers

by Bob Shaw

The chronicle of adventures of the survey ship Sarafand as it journeys through space exploring and mapping newly-discovered planets. The mission brings them into contact with man startling life-forms and menacing aliens. On one world the Sarafand sends out six survey modules and seven return one of them is a shape-changing malevolent alien - but which? On another planet they discover a humanoid civilisation which can move around in time. Suddenly the Sarafand investigators are marooned millions of years in the past. Finally the Sarafand and its crew are stranded in a distant galaxy where everything - including them - is shrinking inexorably to zero size

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Short Stories, Space Opera, Artificial Intelligence, Aliens

Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Bob Shaw was born in Northern Ireland. After working in structural engineering, industrial public relations, and journalism he became a full time science fiction writer in 1975.

Shaw was noted for his originality and wit. He was two-time recipient (in 1979 and 1980) of the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer. His short story Light of Other Days was a Hugo Award nominee in 1967, as was his novel The Ragged Astronauts in 1987.

Reviews

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 rounding down.

Ship of Strangers is collection of reworked stories from the SF magazines. They all follow the same lead character and occur on the same deep space exploration vessel.

So as other reviewers have pointed out, it’s basically Star Trek.

That’s fine. Shaw’s writing style is always pleasing to me in an intangible way. I connect with it but I haven’t been able to express why that is.

Anyway, the short vignette format was a disappointment to me after the first two stories ended too abruptly. The alien being in the first story and the 7000 year background got my attention, and to have the coolness ripped away by the sudden ending was lame. The rest of the book followed suit until the final story, which was just plain absurd.

Oh well, this was worth reading only because I like Bob Shaw.

[Mario · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slow start, but after first two stories ended, it got really interesting. I also liked that it felt like watching a five episode TV series. Now I kind of wish there were few more 'episodes' in it.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh so much fun! Each 'episode' a little smarter, and richer, than the previous. The last episode a bit overdone, but still fine. The episodic nature of the adventures of a crew of explorers reminds me a tiny bit of Star Trek, but this crew is only 12 members* and there is no captain.*

The book also fits my request for 'no villains/ bad guys.' Friends, I can go along with your argument that there needs to conflict for there to be a story. But that conflict does not have to be against evil, or be suspenseful, or be dark, or include intrigue. My favorite new SF books are The Martian and The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. This is now one of my favorite old books of that type.

I do hope that I can find more by Shaw.

"That was the trouble with beta-space transportation, the popularly named Instant Distance Drive--it was the first form of travel which did not broaden the mind. [Crew member] was five thousand light-years from Earth, but because he had not done it the hard way, hopping from star to lonely star, he was mentally still inside the orbit of Mars."

To a bully: "[I]f you had as much ability to hurt people as you obviously have the desire, you'd be a deadly conversationalist indeed--as it is, you are merely pathetic."

Some sexual innuendo, some heavy drinking... this is not quite as 'clean' as ST, but it is more realistic, at least given the premise and attitudes of the time.

**Do not read this spoiler if you think that maybe someday you'll read the book, much less if you actually plan to! Well, there is the ship's AI, which is often referred to as Captain, because it does have the power to make many important decisions. I found it very interesting that the AI is truly logical, and does not, like ST's Data, Asimov's robots, or many other logical thinkers, have any interest in being more like humans or even being able to understand us better. And with no actual captain, the crew dynamics are pretty darn interesting.

[Vivone Os · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pisano u formi romana, ali je zapravo zbirka kratkih priča koje povezuje nekoliko likova (od kojih je Dave Surgenor glavni lik u svima) te svemirski brod Sarafand sa svojim AI-em Nepolom koji posadi služi i kao kapetan i kao navigator. Sarafand je brod Kartografske službe koji putuje do nenastanjenih planeta mapirati ih za možda buduće naseljavanje i sl. Posada pritom upada u različite zanimljive situacije i probleme.
Nisam znala što očekivati i priče su mi se baš svidjele (sve osim zadnje koja je bila malo pretjerana). Iako se baš vidi da je pisana 1978. godine (svi puše u svemirskom brodu, u samo jednoj priči se pojavljuje ženski lik koji muškarci smatraju objektom…), ideje koje je Shaw imao su zanimljive. Susreti s drugim rasama ili vanzemaljskom tehnologijom i kako im pristupiti, nošenje sa samoćom, psihološkim stresom i raznim drugim izazovima na dugom svemirskom putovanju… svih ih se dotaknuo kroz svoje priče, koje tjeraju čitatelja na promišljanje. Lagano i brzinsko štivo koje ću pamtiti.

[Brian Clegg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bob Shaw was a solid performer amongst British SF writers in the second half of the twentieth century. He's perhaps best remembered for Other Days, Other Eyes, which has the very clever conceit of 'slow glass' - glass that it takes light years to pass through - but Ship of Strangers is a more straightforward story of interstellar exploration, featuring a survey ship that specialises in surveying uninhabited planets.

Shaw does a respectable job - it's readable and the challenges faced by the protagonists are imaginative. Most of all, it reminds me of what I really miss about older SF books - it's only 160 pages long and couldn't be used as a doorstop. In format it's effectively a set of linked long short stories (or short novellas), with the main character Dave Surgenor involved in a series of adventures from unexpected alien encounters to a bizarre new cosmological phenomenon.

The only things that date the book are the use of tapes for data storage (it's remarkable how often their obvious flaws weren't spotted), smoking onboard a spaceship, and a sole female character, who is rather clumsily portrayed. Because it never really makes it to page-turning heights, I've only given it three stars, but for the inventiveness of the ideas, and the challenges presented for problem solving it deserves four. Oh, and I can't help but feel that 'Dave' is a nod to 2001.

[Stephen Theaker · Rating 4 out of 5]

This fix-up contains five stories about the crew of the survey ship Sarafand. The Sarafand is only sent to map lifeless planets, which has fascinating psychological effects on the crew, something Bob Shaw handles with remarkable skill, and it also leads to some intriguing and unusual plots. At times they are closer to thought experiments such as the prisoner's dilemma than they are to other science fiction short stories, though Shaw doesn't shortchange us on spaceships and aliens.

In the first story, the ship encounters an ancient and dangerous lifeform; the conclusion is a Tyke Tyler style reversal of expectations. The second considers the effect that dream tapes (a kind of virtual reality), and the resulting virtual girlfriends, have on the all-male crew. In the third story the crew discovers some mysterious alien technology; the story really strikes homes with its depiction of the fear a man left alone in a spacesuit in a hostile environment would feel. The fourth story regards contact with an alien, time-travelling Shangri-La - plotwise it's probably the weakest and most contrived of the stories, but psychologically it's still very interesting. The final story is a mind-blowing humdinger that the blurb-writer should be shot for spoiling.

They aren't identified as separate stories, with chapter headings appearing within the stories as well as between them, but they are clearly discrete, with time passing between them and characters changing - though the protagonist, Surgenor, is constant throughout. In fact, a key feature of the book is that ever-changing cast, and Surgenor's reflections on why he keeps doing the job, year after year, while others come and go. The title, Ship of Strangers, derives from the way the crew relate to each other; never making strong personal connections, trying to avoid any intimacy and arguments. They don't want to care when their friends leave, as they inevitably will, so they try not to care at all. Surgenor knows he is emotionally damaged, understands the need for it, and questions whether he could stand a return to the full range of human emotions, but still wants to try, one day, when the time is right.

[Sebastian · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF@45%, and I’d only got that far by skimming a lot. Some vintage sci-fi ages like fine wine, while some of it ages like a bit of feta cheese that fell out of the grocery bag and is now developing a life of its own in the trunk of your car. This collection of loosely tied stories about a fellow employed by the Galactic Cartographic Service to map out uninhabited worlds tends more towards the latter than the former, with plots and twists and puzzles and ideas that may have sounded amazingly fresh and innovative in the fifties or even before that, but a book published in 1978 should have been able to do better.

[Sterling Wesson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This starts out as just okay and ends with a great piece of science fiction. It’s basically a set of loosely connected short films, and I would caution going into it with the perspective of it being one big novel. There are a few anarchisms that show in the present time (most notably the sorting of women characters into either completely helpless and subservient to men or tomboys who secretly have a feminine emotive side) but most of it still holds up quite well. You can certainly feel Shaw’s influence by A.E Van Vogt in this book.

[Colin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good space adventure about a survey ship and the crew on board discovering and mapping new planets. Travelling through space they encounter strange Alien life. The book consists of three stories of which i found the third adventure the best.

[Pat · Rating 4 out of 5]

(This cover. Good grief, this cover.) Interesting and a little strange and much more focused on the vagaries of the human experience than I anticipated.

The book is episodic, with one character appearing in all of them. Each episode has a central puzzle that must be solved, but the emphasis isn't on the details of the solution. (Thank you; thank you; thank you: that gets so tedious, when I have to try to figure out what they're talking about and also how the solution is supposed to work; and we have all this jargon flying around.) Puzzles are solved, and the solution isn't always detailed, but I can think about how it might work, and that's actually enough for me.

Because while the first story was the kind of puzzle story I figured I was in for, later stories managed to home in on the ways in which human beings react to things. For example, if you're expecting workers to be off-planet for years and you provide them with an electronic device that gives them an imaginary home life complete with spouse, what if they fall in love with that simulated person--and then find out that someone else has the same spouse in their simulation? What if you were part of a group that misunderstood the greeting ceremony of a culture and committed genocide?

Characters are more believable than I've found in some other science fiction, especially Dave Surgenor (the sojourner), who appears in all the stories and is pov character in all but one. As the stories progress, he becomes a world-weary man a little puzzled and unsure about living in the world off the ship. Other characters react in interesting and believable ways. In other words, Shaw has populated his universe with human beings who screw up and bully each other and despair and sacrifice themselves and think through solutions to their problems.

They also act sexist. Given when the stories were written, it should be no surprise that there are a lot of dated elements. Everybody smokes. All the time. On the space ship, where--you know--you'd expect somebody to insist that the air should probably remain clean, given that it's all the air they have. And, steak. They seem to eat nothing but steak. And, until the last story, everybody on the ship is male because they may have to change a tire on the vehicles once in a while, and apparently no woman in the history of the universe has ever been competent to do that. So Shaw shoehorns in a woman who drinks and smokes like a man, and when it seems the crew is trapped in another part of the universe she's considered some sort of object to be passed around as breeding stock. Because, yes, there would, indeed, be some knuckle-dragger who would, indeed, come up with that.

Aesop is an interesting character: paternal and unemotional and human-like enough that at the end Surgenor feels compelled to say goodbye. But not so anthropomorphized that Aesop feels compelled to respond as anything but a computer. (No singing "Daisy, Daisy" here.)

This was a more interesting read than I anticipated, with some great little moments. (Surgenor emerging from the shadow of the ship in the last line of the book is nicely symbolic.) A number of readers have considered this not one of Shaw's best works; I'm interested to read more of his stuff and see if I agree.

[Warwick Stubbs · Rating 3 out of 5]

More of a 2.5. A collection of re-written short-stories that make up a book length novel, however, although there is a main character's viewpoint for the entirety, the stories themselves are never tied in with later events, so lack some narrative 'weight'. Which is a bit disappointing because there is definite potential for that. But it does deserve some credit for interesting ideas including a 7000 year old shape-shifting being trying to escape the planet it's stuck on, the use of a 'time-bomb' that hurtles the ground crew into a geological past, and the final story where the ship jumps into unknown territory where the laws of physics are causing the universe to contract. Bob Shaw always had interesting ideas, his fiction short-stories are testament to this, but the novels often ended up feeling padded to extend that idea.

What is really frustrating about this book though is Shaw's attempts to "create" a female character with fully realised autonomy. He creates situations where men see her as a piece of meat and has other men respect her as the human being she is, but then dumps all over that with things like:

It was rare to find women among the Cartographical Service field crews. This was partly because of the physical demands - every crew member had, for example, to be able to change a survey module's wheels under any conditions...

Doesn't sound all that demanding, to be honest with you. Time and again it feels like Shaw is trying to write an autonomous human being to show up his fellow sexist SF writers - "hey, you guys are doing it all wrong" - except it turns out that he can't escape those sexist tropes embedded within either. Thankfully, but also, disappointingly, since it detracts from the main plot line, this only occurs in the final story. Otherwise, it's a complete sausage-fest.

[Roddy Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fix-up novel, centred around Dave Surgenor, one of the crew of the Sarafand, a vessel of the Cartographical division of the Space Navy. The Sarafand is a space-borne pyramid, and its mission is to help chart the stars and planets in the ever-expanding sphere of known space.
One could be forgiven, reading the first story, for thinking it remarkably similar to van Vogt’s ‘Voyage of The Space Beagle’ which begins with a re-edit of van Vogt’s 1939 story ‘Black Destroyer’.
In both tales, a highly intelligent alien predator attempts to gain access to the ship and is finally outwitted and destroyed.
In Shaw’s tale the creature is identified by Aesop, the artificial intelligence which runs the ship and plots its jumps through hyperspace.
Although this is not Shaw’s best work by any means, there are some interesting stylistic touches which again are reminiscent of van Vogt techniques. Cardan, the creature in the first tale is initially captured – along with its parents – with some tractor beam force by an unknown ship. The parents were dropped into the gravity field of a sun and Cardan abandoned on a hellish world orbiting one of a pair of binary suns.
Seven thousand years later we pick up the tale…
Later, one the crew, Targett, is sent to investigate potential alien artefacts which turns out to be a plain littered with semi-intelligent still functioning autonomous weapons which (as might have been expected) target Targett.
Shaw’s technique is to introduce tantalising mysteries which the reader is forced to think about. Who were the occupants of that first ship? Who created these weapons and why were they abandoned?
I am of the opinion that had Shaw supplied answers to these questions it would have been to the detriment of the book as a whole.
Less is more, as they say.

[Pete · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bob Shaw is one of the most under-appreciated modern SF authors. His first stories and novels appeared in the 60s, and some of his novels were published in the original Ace SF Specials series. Thus, he is associated with the New Wave of science fiction. However, he is atypical of the new wave authors in that Shaw is clearly writes hard SF with his works generally focusing on a hard SF concept, e.g. slow glass (Other Days, Other Eyes), immortality (One Million Tomorrows) or time travel (The Two Timers). However, Shaw's does bring a New Wave sensibility to his works. The hard SF concepts are viewed through a human lens, and his characters are a cut above those typically found in hard SF. Ship of Strangers is a fix-up novel comprised of five linked stories about a survey ship. Each story has a strong hard SF idea, but the effect on the crew is Shaw's central concern. The final story has one of the most audacious SF concepts that I can recall.

[Jan Jackson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bob Shaw. Underrated, and undervalued. A book of philosophy - as the best SF is - about what human is at the edge of knowledge. About physics, and personality. Maybe a tad clunky on characterisation, but an interesting trip through redemption and survival.

[Otherwyrld · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review to follow

[Nick J Taylor · Rating 2 out of 5]

Couldn't get into it. Probably my fault. I'll come back to it.

[Antonio Ippolito · Rating 3 out of 5]

Deliziosa fantascienza retrò, sebbene pubblicata nel ’78 (ma chissà che i 5 racconti, di cui il libro è il fix-up, non siano ben più antichi). Un po’ ispirato alla “Crociera nell’infinito” di Van Vogt, un po’ a “Star trek”, presenta i casi incontrati dall’equipaggio della Sarafand, nave esplorativa del Servizio Cartografico: dovrebbe dedicarsi a pianeti senza vita, dato che a trattare con gli alieni pensano diplomatici e militari; ma qualche alieno spunta sempre.. e anche qui, come nel “Viaggio della Space Beagle”, il primo episodio riguarda proprio un subdolo alieno. Nei cinque episodi incontreremo anche viaggi nel tempo e resti di civiltà aliene dimenticate, fino al viaggio conclusivo in un vero e proprio Nulla oltre-cosmico, estremamente suggestivo.
Shaw si conferma scrittore di razza: anche se nessuno dei personaggi è approfondito, le descrizioni hanno un tocco sicuro. Il protagonista, Dave Surgenor, è quasi l’unico filo conduttore: la maggior parte degli altri personaggi dura per un solo episodio, proprio perché la solitudine dei viaggi nello spazio logora quasi tutti.. è questo il motivo del titolo originale, “Ship of strangers” ovvero “Nave di sconosciuti” (ripreso anche nell’edizione tedesca: “Captain Aesop und das Schiff der Fremden...”, ed è anche il motivo di una certa malinconia esistenziale del protagonista, che si chiede se non abbia buttato via i suoi vent’anni di vita nel Servizio Cartografico.
Come si è detto, un romanzo piuttosto retrò: l’equipaggio è ancora esclusivamente maschile, anche se quanto meno non si fa più finta che non esistano pulsioni: un episodio è dedicato a litigi tra i membri dell’equipaggio per nastri che permettono di passare la notte come se si fosse con una donna.. non è Malzberg, ma è già qualcosa.
Nell’ultimo episodio, forse il più recente, compare addirittura un membro femminile dell’equipaggio; curiosa la giustificazione che il protagonista dà alla propria misoginia:
“Lui stesso sapeva bene che che la stragrande maggioranza delle mappe che aveva aiutato a tracciare non sarebbero mai state utilizzate; ma nello stesso tempo, capiva che dovevano essere tracciate, che le informazioni dovevano essere raccolte e registrate.. anche se gli riusciva difficile spiegare esattamente perché. La maggior parte delle donne, invece, non capiva il senso di questa vaga fedeltà all’etica scientifica, e Surgenor, quando lavorava con loro, cominciava a provare un senso di incertezza sullo scopo di tutta la sua vita”.
Altri membri dell’equipaggio si abbandoneranno ad atteggiamenti meno riflessivi. Ma il finale sarà per il meglio.
Curiosità: Il nome dell’astronave deriva da un’antica città fenicia, citata nella Bibbia.
Buona traduzione di Delio Zinoni per uno smilzo volume di 130 pagine ma senza evidenti segni di “asciugatura”, e stampato in un insolito carattere, più tondeggiante; buon racconto horror di Robert Bloch in appendice, “Nina”, molto ben tradotto da Laura Bianchi.

[Peter Dunn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is only 160 pages long but Bob Shaw packs in at least two decent well thought through characters (Surgenor and Aesop) which is rare in science fiction, and a set of very clever linked short stories with some great science fiction “what if” concepts at the heart of each one.

Some of the most interesting bits of dialogue come in Dave Surgenor’s conversations with the ship’s computer. I wonder if there is a small joke lightly hidden in here about another famous science fiction Dave who had difficult conversations of a different kind in a certain Kubrick movie from 10 years previously?

For a forty plus year old book only one piece of tech is dated (with a reference to tapes to record data) but this has almost no impact on the plots which pack in some inventive cosmology and references to a number of truly alien aliens. I do like the race which keeps their blood supply in a pool at the bottom of their wheel like body and they keep physically turning to “circulate” the blood.

[Bob Pony · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book quite a lot. Except for the very, very end, where it feels like an editor said 'But you must!'...and things were summed up in awkward fashion. In any case, be prepared for a slapped-on ending. But that shouldn't take away at all from a very interesting collection of short stories, all centered on the crew of a deep space survey ship. Each story is distinct, they may share some characters, but there's no interdependency between them. Each is it's own thing. It's episodic, like a season of TOS Star Trek. And each story has a twist (or a meander), that reminded me of The Twilight Zone. There are some fun scifi ideas here. And I adore the cover art (it's by Angus McKie). Well worth a read. Except for that ending.

[Mark White · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an oldy that I had forgotten on my shelves but decided to reread. It is a good example of a popular SF style of the time: a series of short stories in which the same cast of characters face a series of challenges, overcoming them with cunning or luck. It's a pretty good example of the style and has more character development than was common at the time. Unfortunately I found the setups for each story very contrived. And surely you can have an exciting adventure without terminating the universe? It's a decent effort but there are better of this style out there and Shaw himself has done better in other books.

[David Russell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rather average. Each chapter is essentially a short story, some demonstrating Shaw’s fantastic imagination. But Orbitsville this is not and stringing these stories together as if one novel does not work, nor develop the main character. The last story was rather cheesy and this just seems like several star trek episodes where you know the good guys will always come out unscathed. This phrase is used too much, but is appropriate here: Meh.

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a novel, rather five vignettes about strange incidents which occur to the crew of an explorational spaceship tasked with mapping uninhabited planets (a meld of Ordnance Survey and Star Trek), as chronicled by a long-standing employee. Published over forty years ago and it shows. It does include some intriguing scientific concepts and an attempt at character development for the narrator, but for me an underwhelming disappointment.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was pretty entertaining. It’s like a series of relatively short vignettes about the experiences of a prospecting crew in deep space. It was light-hearted and even a bit thought-provoking at times. It’s got a bit of tropey gendered stuff occasionally, but otherwise holds up reasonably well. I was pleasantly surprised.

[Malcolm Cox · Rating 3 out of 5]

This reads more like a short story collection as the crew run through an episodic sequence of situations. This was an enjoyable romp that perhaps suffered from no discernible character development. Some fun ideas here.

[Toby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reasonably entertaining nonsense

[Will Sargent · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pop! Here I am with another review...

This one's a neat and tidy boys' own series of adventures from sf craftsman Bob Shaw. Quite straight-laced, a svelte 230 pages of planet-skimming fun, originally published as 5 sequential stories in the old sf mags of the 70s.

Ghosts, shapeshifting aliens, abandoned automated ET missile silos, shrinking space, expanding space, military dropships, and... a woman. Yes, a woman! - described in great physical detail. Her age, too. Welcome to the bum-pinching 1970s, boys.

I suppose this could have been played out upon any blokey oil rig / arctic gas exploration backdrop, with sooty-faced engineers and cartographers sacrificing their home life to earn big at the dangerous far edges of 'the bubble'.

It's Ice Road Truckers without the fake CGI crash sequences. We're on the edge of human activity, yearning for wives, girlfriends and sunday lunch with extra gravy while the dollars pour in.

Think The Thing meets Hicks, Vasquez and Spunkmeyer but English. Yes, English English, children. No Californian heat. No Maine lobsters. No 'batshit crazy' 90 year olds hanging out at gas stations using the C-word every 5 chapters.

There's rec room / maintenance deck banter / fisticuffs interspersed with traditional sf excitement, written simply and sharply, not unlike Arthur C and Heinlein. Its easy-going nature reminded me of Silverberg's Hawksbill Station - a recent read i'd recommend. Both books explore the frustrations of captivity, the long pauses between action, be it work or prison-based.

Obviously with Shaw you're going to get fantastic hard science, and blokey 1970s sexism.
VR 'tapes' (references to physical media always tickle me, despite having used tapes myself in 80s IT departments) containing the 1976 equivalent of those seedy smartphone AI 'companions' are used to satiate the needs of our horny heroes - a lightweight curved bowl placed under the pillow transmits romantic romps and titilating tales into the brain as our blue collar surveyors push out the zeds.

I suppose the VR bowl could double up as a drool tray - or worse - as the excitement crescendos during virtual bedtime shenanigans (sorry).

Much fun ensues when one of the team feeds the 'tape' of his virtual companion into the ship's CPU - Mother... I mean, Aesop. Yes, it's all very Alien, which is fine. After which, the ship's AI wonders what the hell's going on with it's decision-making processes. Welcome to our world, mate. This is actually really funny.

I do enjoy Shaw's books. Easy to read but buzzing with cool ideas. Rarely does an author give you 10 books that are all absolute bangers. My bookshelf now groans with Bob Shaw classics. Who needs Heinlein and Silverburg, eh?

You can sense how some of his novels developed from the shorts in this book. The characters are a touch wooden compared to his chunkier works Wreath of Stars, Palace' and Days Eyes, but the science shines.

A solid 3 stars. Nightwalk and Medusa's Children still to be read.

Boom! Gone! [smoke and glitter].

[Raj · Rating 3 out of 5]

The men of the Cartographical Service are always on the edge of known space, travelling to new worlds and mapping the ever-expanding surface of the Bubble of the Human Federation. Dave Surgenor is one of the few people who lasts beyond his original five-year contract, becoming one of the most experienced hands on the survey ship Sarafand.

This book is structured into a bunch of disparate adventures of the crew of the Sarafand with several recurring characters but it's really Surgenor and the ship itself that are the protagonists. It feels like several related short stories have been linked together, since there's little connecting each set-piece, but I don't really have a problem with this and enjoyed seeing how the crew solves each of the problems it faces, from sending out six survey modules and getting seven back to facing a time-travelling species on a dead world.

The title refers to the idea that although there are only twelve crew on survey ships, they never become intimate with each other, remaining "wilful strangers", jumping from planet to planet and never settling down.

An enjoyable book from a pretty solid author.

[Jon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very slow to start with and appears to comprise of several short stories stuck together, with little follow on between them (Pretty much only the central character and the 'ship'). Most of the stories are pretty average with little character development, even the central character only getting some attention.
The book is saved by the last story where there is some nice scientific idea extrapolation that I have not come across before - in fact I was left wanting for more with this (Not necessarily a bad thing in a story).
Again though, the character suffers a little - there is some development here, but it's a bit wishy-washy and Disney like (cue sailing off into the sunset). The cynic in me just wants to add a final chapter where relationships all break down and someone ends up as a desolate alcoholic - maybe that's just me!

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

More a series of connected short stories than an actual novel but that's ok. Some are better than others. They are mostly of the type I grew up reading. Big on ideas, less so on character. Still one I particularly enjoyed was really just a maths puzzle. Somewhat dodgy sexual politics in the final story which left a bad taste.

[Jonathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Defenestrate reason: Unmemorable.