The Genesis of Calculating God
My most popular novel seems to be Calculating God, and ten years ago today is when I came up with the idea for it.
On Thursday, December 17, 1998, I was down on the shore of Canandaigua Lake in Upstate New York, borrowing my father's vacation home there. I had a contract to write a novel for Tor called Up to Code (second book on the two-book contract that had also included Flashforward), but it wasn't going well. I noted this in my journal for that day:
Tried outlining more of Up to Code, but it just isn't credible. Meanwhile, received a fan E-mail that praised to the skies my characters and how they integrate with my premises. Of course, I have no real characters at all in Up to Code. Thought seriously about completely revamping the premise.And, indeed, it was intriguing, to me and to a lot of other people: Calculating God came out in 2000, has been continuously in print since, was nominated for a Hugo and a John W. Campbell Memorial Award, was named the best SF novel of the year by both Borders.com and the Denver Rocky Mountain News, hit #1 on the Locus bestsellers' list, was my first national top-ten mainstream bestseller in Canada, has been translated into numerous languages, is widely taught at universities, and was the only book published as science fiction to make the Chapters/Indigo list of the 100 best Canadian-authored books of all time.
I first thought of making it more intimate: an alien ship and a human ship have a chance encounter in deep space; I then thought of an idea of an alien coming to Earth just to live with a human family, as a way of assessing the worthiness of our race.
And then it occurred to me to have an alien who was a "paleotheologist" -- someone looking for ancient fingerprints of God (although the word is really "theologian," not "theologist"). Carolyn suggested that maybe the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary layer is a galaxy-wide phenomenon, and he's come to investigate that.
I figured he could show up and say, look, I'm here to consult with a human paleontologist, and if all the rest of you leave me alone for the year I'll be here, I'll tell you how to cure cancer before I go (which suggests a kidnapping plot by someone desperate to have the cure right now). It's intriguing, anyway ...
Audible.com recently released an unabridged recording of Calculating God, and in March 2009, Tor is bringing out a new trade-paperback edition of Calculating God with a book-club discussion guide bound in.
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
4 Comments:
Fantastic book! Well deserving of all the accolades, congratulations. I read the first chapter as an excerpt online and it hooked me. It's the first book I reach for when somebody tells me they don't like science fiction.
This is the book that introduced me to your work, I received it as a gift in late 2005.
Its a fantastic read. You should be very proud of the result.
Not sure if this has been brought up here before...
...but have you thought about publishing your professional journal in any way?
I find the excerpts you do post fascinating...
Thanks, Scott! Maybe someday ... ;)
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