Robert J. Sawyer

Texas Public Radio interview

Rob — Tue, 08 May 2012 19:59:37 +0000

A fabulous 18-minute Texas Public Radio interivew with me about Triggers, conducted by the masterful Dan Skinner, is online here. Give it a listen!

Texas Public Radio describes the interview thusly:

30 years ago: working at Bakka

Rob — Tue, 08 May 2012 19:28:09 +0000

Just about exactly thirty years ago, I started the best summer job I ever had. I worked at Bakka, the science-fiction bookstore in Toronto, for four months in the summer of 1982. What an education in bookselling!

Here are some of my memories of that time (from a 10,000-word autobiography of me from 2002 that appears in Contemporary Authors Volume 212):

Many writers have long resumes, listing all the odd jobs they did to support their craft. Not me; I’ve only ever had two jobs since graduating in 1982. Ryerson hired me to return for the following academic year to help teach television studio production techniques to second- and third-year students. I graduated in April 1982, and the job at Ryerson didn’t begin until September — meaning I had four months off with nothing to do. I’d moved away from home after my second year at Ryerson, and had bills to pay.

Enter John Rose, the elfin proprietor of Bakka, Toronto’s science-fiction specialty bookstore. I’d been a regular customer of the store for eight years by this point, and John offered me a summer job. The pay was just $4.25 an hour; I probably could have found something somewhat more lucrative, but the chance to work in a science-fiction store was too appealing to pass up.

I worked the cash desk, shelved books, and counted inventory — but there was one part of the job I managed to avoid. Books go into bookstores on a returnable basis, meaning if they don’t sell, the retailer can return them to the publisher and owe nothing. But for paperback books — the format back then that most science fiction was published in — only the covers of the books are returned. They’re ripped from the body of the book, and the store destroys what’s left. The other clerks, who were long-term employees, all had to do this, but I managed not to have to do it; I said — only half-kidding — that I thought it would scar me for life.

I really didn’t end up making any money at Bakka. As an employee, I was entitled to a 40% discount on everything in the store, and I spent almost my entire earnings buying books.

Still, in June of that year, John Rose did something remarkable. He took me to the annual convention of the Canadian Booksellers Association. It was, in many ways, a crazy thing to do — John had to (a) pay me my wages for the day I attended, and (b) pay a fee to get me in. But John knew I wanted to be a writer, and he thought I should really see how the retailing industry works. The CBA convention — now called BookExpo Canada — is where publishers come to show retailers their upcoming books, and where big-name authors sign copies of their new books for retailers (the comparable American event is, not surprisingly, called BookExpo America).

That summer was an incredibly eye-opening experience for me. Many of my writing colleagues are astonished about how savvy I am about the business of publishing; well, the seeds of that came from that summer working in a bookstore, and that day at the CBA.

I went on to a successful writing career after working at Bakka, but I wasn’t the only one. In the two decades that have followed, several other Bakka employees — all hired long after I’d left — went on to writing careers, including Tanya Huff, Michelle West, Nalo Hopkinson, and Cory Doctorow. In honor of the store’s thirtieth anniversary in 2002, John Rose asked each of us to write an original SF story to be published in a limited-edition anthology. He couldn’t afford to pay us for the stories, but we all agreed — we all owed John far too much to worry about doing some work for free.

[My story for that anthology, "Shed Skin," went on to become a Hugo finalist, after having been reprinted in Analog (where it won the annual AnLab Award for best shorty story of the year) and was the seed from which my novel John W. Campbell Memorial Award-winning novel Mindscan grew; of course, that novel was dedicated to John Rose.]

Triggers reviews including Wall Street Journal and Publishers Weekly

Rob — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 16:45:21 +0000

Reviews for Triggers by Robert J. Sawyer:

“Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning science fiction author Robert J. Sawyer returns with a new hard science fiction novel which pulls together elements of a gripping political thriller with cutting edge psychological insights to create a story that works on many levels. Triggers has the pacing of an episode of 24 and the philosophical sensibilities of an Isaac Asimov novel, so any readers who were introduced to Sawyer through his television series FlashForward will find it particularly interesting.” –Andrew Zimmerman Jones in Black Gate

“Sawyer should be applauded for a wonderfully diverse cast, as readers are immediately introduced to a powerful female secret service agent, an impressive African-American female doctor who is the president’s primary physician, and the interesting Dr. Singh, who is actually Canadian, which is Sawyer’s own nationality. The book juggles an impressive cast of characters, which Sawyer does excellent job of keeping both straight and complex. A powerful novel.” –BookBanter

“A thriller’s pacing and a chilling near-future world. Sawyer’s strength is in the overarching ideas of his stories, and he certainly delivers here.” –Booklist

“Sawyer’s novel not only posits new ideas on the workings on the mind, but also offers a unique viewpoint on the roots of terrorism; not to mention a possible solution.” –FFWD, aka Fast Forward Weekly (Calgary, Alberta)

“Robert Sawyer’s body of work, though it covers a myriad of subjects, is uniformly optimistic in tone. His latest novel, Triggers, slides comfortably into that body of work, optimistic while attempting to address an inordinate number of social and racial issues.” –The Globe and Mail

“The Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of Calculating God and The WWW Trilogy delivers a tense, race-against-the-clock adventure with a surprise ending. It should appeal to mainstream thriller readers as well as its target market.” –Library Journal

“First and foremost, Robert J. Sawyer is a rip-roaring good storyteller. Triggers operates on both a global and a personal scale — sometimes simultaneously. By juxtaposing the problems of the entire world with the problems of individuals, Sawyer allows each equal importance. Each of these people deals with their new knowledge in different ways — and each deals with different consequences. It makes for a rich and compelling narrative.

“There are few authors writing today that bring such a strong combination of literate storytelling and complex ideas to the page. Robert J. Sawyer is one of the best in the business right now, and Triggers is him at his finest.” –The Maine Edge (Bangor, Maine)

“No one digs into a sci-fi thought experiment with quite the zest that Robert J. Sawyer does. Sawyer doesn’t stint the thriller framework, but the story’s real joy is the care he takes in exploring the details of the memory-sharing.” –Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“Triggers is congruent with the best science-fiction in that it’s not about blasters, but about issues and social commentary. Sawyer’s novel falls right into line with the kinds of things he’s always written about: it’s an exploration of a part of consciousness — in this case, memory — packaged in an entertaining story. His prose is as clear and sharp as ever. But he also uses the book to explore issues such as empathy among humankind (a primary concern of the novel) and the brutal trauma of war. Sawyer is a pacifist at heart, and it’s refreshing to hear a voice advocating peace in a genre that often glorifies war.

“Triggers is an action movie with a big science-fiction finish and an optimistic message.” –Mississauga Life

“A turbo-charged techno-thriller. Sawyer offers an escape from the recent run of near-future dystopias in a combination of classic and contemporary science fiction.” –Publishers Weekly

“Triggers fully justifies the title of a techno-thriller. There are chases and stand-offs, terrorist threats, bombs and hostage situations. But they are never allowed to dominate the novel, because Triggers is also a medical drama, with many of the legal ramifications of medical accidents discussed. And it’s a love story, as people learn that barriers are sometimes things that we simply create for ourselves. It’s also a treatise on memory, identity, and perception. You come away with a lot of new viewpoints and ideas to think about.

“Verdict: Not to be missed.” –Sci-Fi Bulletin

“Triggers is an imaginative and technical tour de force — a fascinating book that makes its bizarre situation seem real and possible and the people linked so strangely and sometimes unhappily to one another quite true. It’s hard to put down.” –Saskatoon StarPhoenix

“Triggers has the hard-core military/political insights of Robert A. Heinlein, and the compassion of Theodore Sturgeon.” –Jonathan Vos Post

“Mr. Sawyer works through the permutations with one surprise after another, including the president’s deep, dark secret — now in somebody else’s possession — that would make him a one-termer for sure. The positive side is that the president can appreciate firsthand the cost of the orders he’s given. He now shares the memories of a returned Iraq veteran, called for him up by the trigger phrase “crying babies … and the smell of smashed concrete.”

“Techno-future, telepathy: The third ingredient is a consideration of terrorism itself. Mr. Sawyer, a Canadian, remembers what Pierre Trudeau did back in 1970, when he took such drastic action following the murder of one of his ministers that terrorist cells have never surfaced in Canada again. What might an American president do? Get away with doing? Be justified in doing? And is there another way out? Triggers is constantly gripping on the surface and seriously provocative deep down.” –Tom Shippey in The Wall Street Journal

Triggers a Maclean’s and Globe and Mail Bestseller

Rob — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 16:37:16 +0000

Triggers debuted at #8 on the Fiction bestsellers list in Maclean’s: Canada’s National Newsmagazine in its first week out (list published April 12), and has moved up to #7 in its second week (list published April 19).

And it debuted at #7 on the Canadian Fiction bestsellers list in The Globe and Mail: Canada’s National Newspaper (list published April 14).

These are the two principal bestsellers lists in Canada; Triggers is a bona fide national top-ten mainstream bestseller in Canada.

Edmonton event is at 7:00 p.m. …

Rob — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 21:47:48 +0000

… not 7:30 p.m., as incorrectly reported in a few places. The event for TRIGGERS takes place this Wednesday, April 11, at Audreys, 10702 Jasper Ave. NW, Edmonton at 7:00 p.m. Free; everybody welcome.

Triggers now out!

Rob — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:10:49 +0000

Today is the official publication date of my 21s novel Triggers. The hardcover, ebook, and Audible.com versions are all out now. I begin my book tour tonight!

Toronto Star ad for Triggers: NYTBR back cover!

Rob — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 13:45:28 +0000

On Sundays, The Toronto Star — the largest-circulation newspaper in Canada — contains a version of the New York Times Book Review. Today, Sunday, April 1, 2012, the entire back cover of that section was devoted to this terrific ad produced by Penguin Group (Canada) for Triggers. Penguin Canada has been enormously supportive of my work, and I’m very proud to be published by them.

You can see a bigger version of the ad by clicking on the graphic above or this link.

Oh, and here’s the ad Penguin Canada took out in the same place last year for the release of Wonder.

The Wall Street Journal loves Triggers

Rob — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 03:42:30 +0000

Tom Shippey — the world’s top Tolkien scholar — reviews my novel Triggers in the March 31, 2012, edition of The Wall Street Journal. The review concludes:

You can read the whole review here.

Two million words of science fiction

Rob — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 20:03:18 +0000

Now that I’ve received the first copies of my 21st novel, Triggers, I am delighted to realize that I have published two million words of science fiction in my career.

More than that — and here’s a claim very few authors can make — all two million words of it are still in print.

My early novels were shorter than my more recent ones. My first, Golden Fleece, published in 1990, was under 60,000 words; later books — including my Hugo Award-winning Hominids, my John W. Campbell Memorial Award-winning Mindscan, and my Aurora Award-winning Wake — were each 100,000 words. Rounding me up to the 2,000,000-word mark are the 180,000 words of short fiction I’ve published, which is collected in two beautiful matching volumes, Iterations and Other Stories and Identity Theft and Other Stories.

It astonishes me to think that I’ve even typed that number of words (it’s about 8,000 manuscript pages). But I’m very glad I did, and I’m super-grateful to all my readers who have been with me on this long, wonderful journey.

Wanted to buy: Easton Press FlashForward

Rob — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 23:16:04 +0000

Anyone out there with a copy of the Easton Press signed leather-bound edition of my novel FlashForward they’d like to sell me? My authors’ copies went astray in the aftermath of the death of my literary agent, and I’d love to have a copy for my shelf. Send me an email at rob@sfwriter.com if you’d like to sell one. Thanks!