Sawyer editorial in Science

So, earlier this week, in this blog post about the anthology of science-fiction stories that first appeared in the journal Nature, including one of my own, I wrote: "Now, if I could only find some way to also make an appearance in Science, the other big scientific journal, my life would be complete ... :)"

And indeed I now am in Science -- to my considerable delight! I was approached by the editors to write the Editorial for the current (16 November 2007) issue, which is a special issue on robotics.

(Yes, this is Science, the world's top scientific journal, published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.)

My editorial, on "Robot Ethics," deals with science fiction's attempts, and the present real-world follow ups, to come up with codes of rights and responsibilities for robots.

Interest has been huge: I just did six interviews for CBC Radio stations about this, and am about to do one live for the BBC, with another BBC one coming on Sunday morning.

Of course, one of the tie-ins for having me do this is the presence of a robot character -- Gunter -- in my latest novel, Rollback.

The editorial is available online (after an elaborate, but free, sign-up process) here (while the issue is still current), and permanently as a PDF from the journal, and and as a web page.

There's also a podcast version -- not the actual text of the Editorial, but a redaction for reading aloud.

In a year of lots of cool honors for me -- honorary doctorate, award from the Toronto Public Library, China's top SF award, Canada's top SF award -- this is one of the very coolest, and I am totally, totally thrilled.

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site