Night Walk

Bob Shaw must have been an optics aficionado or something - a consistent nucleation point for his works. Night Walk, Shaw's first novel, is kind of a spy thriller, hard SF mashup. Sam Tallon is a spy in the employ of the empire that controls Earth, who find himself in sole possession of the galactic coordinates to a new habitable world, a rarity with how random long distant space travel is. The problem is that Tallon has stolen the coordinates from a rival start-up empire, and buddy it's a long way back to Earth. Tallon believes that he has failed his mission once he's capture by the enemy, permanently blinded, and stuffed into a prison a thousand miles from the nearest space port. It's only then that we are introduced to the science that will serve as his crutch to get him home; a pair of spectacles that allow him to see through the eyes of nearby sentient creatures, human or otherwise.

I wish that Shaw had done a more through job of exploring the possibilities of this technology though. Far too often, Tallon remarks that he just "forgot" that he could switch his vision from his trusty dog companion to his assailants, or a a creature with a unique vantage point on the action. There are numerous occasions like this where I found myself internally screaming at Tallon to do something inventive with the central technology, and most of the time Shaw refuses to provide him with the IQ to do so. Right at the end Tallon also suggests that with the vision might come some amount of emotion or internal perspective. Okay, dang, that's cool, wish we could've explored that more too. None of this is helped by the fact that Tallon is typically insufferable, and not in way that's positive for the narrative or his character. He's catty and sarcastic from beginning to end.

Shaw has a very specific and pleasing way of blending semi-hard science with the narrative of his novels. He never lingers too long on exposition (à la Neal Stephenson) but always wants the reader to have a least a little bit of an idea as to how his ideas could work. It's a fine line and Shaw shows a habit of toeing it masterfully. He's creative with not just his science, but with his world building too - the little bit of it here was enjoyable. I love the struggle through the jungle surrounding the prison, I though the narrative was clear and concise, and I think that when he's really cooking Shaw can write characters that are a cut above his contemporaries.

Though I think in many ways Night Walk has a similar amount of problems as A Wreath of Stars, I think I prefer this work instinctively. My gut tells me there's more here to like, even if it doesn't live up to the potential that I see in it.