Robert J. Sawyer

Hugo and Nebula Award-Winning Science Fiction Writer

"The Aurora Award-winning novel that started it all!"

by Rob - September 21st, 2009.
Filed under: FlashForward.


The back cover of the new TV-series tie-in editions of my 1999 novel FlashForward proudly proclaims “The Aurora Award-winning novel that started it all!”

And indeed, FlashForward did win the 2000 Prix Aurora Award — Canada’s top honour in science fiction and fantasy — for “Best Long-Form Work in English” (yes, the award category names were decided by a committee; it’s de facto the Best English Novel Award — “English,” because Auroras are also given for work in Canada’s other official language, French).

Canadian SF&F readers from coast to coast nominate and vote for the Auroras, and they are presented at a ceremony at the annual Canadian National Science Fiction Convention (or “CanVention”).

The awards given in 2000 were for work first published in 1999. That was a very strong year for Canadian SF&F, I must say, as the list of nominees in the Long-Form English category attests:

  • Beholder’s Eye by Julie E. Czerneda, DAW Books
  • Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson, Warner Books
  • FlashForward by Robert J. Sawyer, Tor Books
  • Starfish by Peter Watts, Tor Books
  • Bios by Robert Charles Wilson, Tor Books
  • Death Drives a Semi by Edo van Belkom, Quarry Press

(As it happened, I also won the Best Short-Form Work in English Award that year, too; you can read my winning story “Stream of Consciousness” here.)

And a press release about my double Aurora win that year is here.

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

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