Fan letter of the day: "theological whiplash"

Now here's a particularly nice and thoughtful fan letter; great way to start the day!

I picked up Far-Seer back when it first came out back in '92. I was intrigued by the cover and the concept.

<shame>It sat unread on my shelf until a couple of months ago.</shame>

I don't know why I never got around to it. No idea whatsoever. I just never did.

Flash forward (pun intended) to 2009, and the launch of the television series FlashForward. Was hooked on the series from the word go. <shame>But I was still clueless...</shame>

Walked into a bookstore near the end of October and saw a novel on the shelf titled FlashForward. "Gee, that was fast, they already have a novelization out.... oh, wait the series is based on the novel!"

Blew through the novel in a little over a week (given the limited time I have for reading for pleasure, less than a month is now considered "blowing through" a book), enjoyed it thoroughly, and have been wondering how the series (which seems to have a bit more of an action/adventure spin on the premise) is going to modify itself to fit on television - and leave an opening for a second season...

You could have knocked me over with a feather when I realized that the reason the name "Robert J. Sawyer" sounded so familiar was because I already owned a book by the same author... that I had been (passively) putting off reading for over a decade...

Knocked that one out in a couple of weeks too. And have been metaphorically kicking myself for not having read it sooner ever since. Then to find out it is the first in a trilogy...

I felt even more stupid when I discovered that I had read and greatly enjoyed "You See But You Do Not Observe" in a time travel anthology (I'm a sucker for time travel stories) several years ago and hadn't made the connection to Far-Seer.

When I got a gift certificate to a bookstore for Christmas/Hanukkah, I knew exactly what I was going to spend it on - whatever other Robert J Sawyer books they had on the shelf. Picked up Calculating God and Hominids.

A few minutes ago, I finished Hominids (having polished off Calculating God week before last). You've become the latest annual "addict my dad to yet another writer".

I really am intrigued by the dichotomy of the anti-theist stance of Far-Seer and the pro-theist stance of Calculating God and the anti-theist stance of Hominids. (I'm now suffering from theological whiplash. My existential insurance company will be sending you a bill...) As someone who feels strongly about the debate, I appreciate the way in which you handled both sides of the argument in each of the books. But even more, what I really like about your books (so far) is that the plot resolutions aren't so much about accomplishing something, or defeating something, as they are about healing the suffering of the characters.

As an American with a Canadian wife, I also appreciate the lack of US-centric thinking.

Great stuff! Thanks for writing it!

Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
and WakeWatchWonder.com

Is atheism a religion? Is the many-worlds interpretation pseudoscience?

In response to my op-ed piece "A Bright Idea for Atheists" (expanded from a speech I gave at the grand opening of the Centre for Inquiry Ontario), and the essay "Science and God" I wrote for Borders Books to help promote the release, back in 2000, of my novel Calculating God, a friend wrote to me to object to two points I make.

First, he objects to this statement: "Atheism is no more a religion than not playing chess is a hobby."

Second, he objects to my citing of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics (which, coincidentally, Lloyd Simcoe discussed in last week's episode of FlashForward, the ABC TV series based on my novel of the same name).

My reply:

Thanks for your thoughtful comments. It all comes down, to me, to what a religion is. For me (codifying here in words off the top of my head what I believe) the defining characteristics of a religion are:

(1) a belief in a supernatural sentient being or beings, whether extinct or extant, that has or had an influence on our own existence, and

(2) a systematic undertaking to communicate with, get the attention of, worship, avoid the wrath of, or otherwise interact with or act in response to the existence of said supernatural being or beings.

I freely admit that others have their own definitions of religion, but for me atheism fails to meet either of the above criteria and therefore is not a religion. (It may be a movement, a club, a cult, a lifestyle, or a community, but it is not a religion.)

And I gently disagree on the possibility of alternate realities, many-worlds, or multiple universes being "a pseudoscience that is not falsifiable and can never be 'proven' nor 'disproven' since the theory itself demands that no information can ever be exchanged between universes."

I invite you to cite where the theory demands that no information can ever be exchanged between universes; it's true that there's no current mechanism for that, but except for the argumentative sleight-of-hand that says "I insist that this theory and all iterations and variations of it have this defining characteristic [that no information can ever be exchanged between universes] because insisting on that characteristic is necessary for me to be able to dismiss this theory as unprovable pseudoscience," I'm unaware of any laws of physics that prevent individual universes within a multiverse ever exchanging information.

Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
and WakeWatchWonder.com

Wake on the Locus bestsellers list for a second month!

W00t! Woohoo! My Wake, first of my WWW trilogy, is on the Locus hardcover bestsellers list for a second consecutive month. It was #2 last month (and the highest-ranked SF, rather than fantasy book); this month it holds on at #5 (and is the second-highest-ranked SF book).

This is my 28th appearance on the Locus bestsellers list.

Also of note is that the beautiful new trade paperback of Calculating God is the new "runner-up" (that is, 6th place) title on the trade-paperback bestsellers list (it hit #1 on the Locus list when it first came out in mass-market paperback in 2000). Go me! :) [Yes, I've been writing too much Caitlin of late ... ;) ]

The full list is here (data period May 2009, reported in the August 2009 issue).

Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
and WakeWatchWonder.com

Calculating God wins the Audie Award!

My friend Alethea Kontis is in New York City at the Audie Awards and reports that Calculating God by one Robert J. Sawyer just won the 2009 Audie Award from the Audio Publishers Association for best Science Fiction or Fantasy Audio Book of the Year!

I'm super-proud of the team at Audible.com that produced the audio version as an original production for their Audio Frontiers series, including narrator Jonathan Davis.

(I had thought about going down to NYC for the Audies and BookExpo America, but just couldn't get away, what with moving to Saskatoon for two months this Monday morning.)

Still: yahoo! The full list of all winners in all categories is here.

You can get the Audible.com production of Calculating God right here.

The full list of nominees was:

Calculating God, by Robert J. Sawyer, Narrated by Jonathan Davis, Audible, Inc.

Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke, Narrated by Eric Michael Summerer, Audible, Inc.

Ghost Radio, by Leopoldo Gout, Narrated by Pedro Pascal, HarperAudio

Skybreaker, by Kenneth Oppel, Narrated by David Kelly, Full Cast Audio

Sunrise Alley, by Catherine Asaro, Narrated by Hillary Huber, Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
and WakeWatchWonder.com

Calculating God reviewed at Curled Up

Curled Up With a Good Book has a lovely review of my Calculating God right here (and you can read more about the novel here).

The review, by Ray Palen, concludes:

Compelling to the final page, Robert J. Sawyer’s Calculating God is not to be missed by fans of science fiction, religious history, philosophy or even thriller fiction, an intelligent and challenging work that is quite comparable to Sagan’s classic Contact.

Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
and WakeWatchWonder.com

"Are you a religious man yourself?"

A grade-12 student sent me an email today about my novels The Terminal Experiment and Calculating God (the former a Nebula Award winner; the latter a Hugo Award finalist), because she's doing her final project for English class on them. She asked:

I don't mean to ask anything personal, but are you a religious man yourself? Or do you tend to be more like Tom, in 'Calculating God', and not really believe in anything other than science? Or on the flip side, was this book a way for you to explain your reasoning to the idea that a supreme being must exist through Hollus' character?

Here's my response:

I'm not a religious person. It would take proof to convince me that souls, or God, exist -- so I wrote books in which scientists found proof of those things to play with the notion of how skeptical people might react. I'm fascinated by the fact that many skeptics are as dogmatic in their anti-religious beliefs (nothing could convince them that they are wrong) as many religious people are dogmatic in their beliefs. I liked playing with the notion of whether skepticism/atheism was really a reasoned position, or simply another belief system that would endure regardless of the evidence, or lack thereof, for its veracity.

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

Review of the Calculating God reissue

SciFi Dimensions has just posted a lovely review of my Calculating God on the occasion of it being reissued in trade paperback by Tor Books. The review concludes:

"If sci-fi is literature that leaves you thinking as it thoroughly entertains you, then Sawyer's Hugo and Campbell Award finalist Calculating God is a paragon of the genre. Sawyer treats with heady themes that seldom are explored so well and so memorably. Don’t miss it.

You can read the whole review here.

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

Alternative Worlds on Calculating God

Harriet Klausner -- Amazon.com's #1 reviewer -- now has a website devoted to science fiction and fantasy reviews, and she's just posted a review of my Calculating God, which says in part:

Although most of this profound science fiction novel is passive as the two scientists debate the existence of God, this is a terrific tale that will have the audience pondering how they would we react if an ET arrived with strong empirical evidence that God exists. The story line mostly focuses on Hollus the believer and Thomas the non-believer who wants to believe as he is dying from cancer. There is also a limited but fascinating look at the reactions of various people from the Intelligent Design crowd to the Darwinists and all sorts in between who have their own agendas. Fans of cerebral science fiction will relish the visit from a theistic evolutionary ET spider.

I'm actually re-visiting Calculating God myself: I'm listening to Audible.com's Audie-award-nominated audiobook of the novel right now; the reading, by Jonathan Davis, is terrific.

(Oh, and a shout-out to Kirstin Morrell for drawing the Klausner review to my attention.)

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

Calculating God nominated for the Audie

Woot! Audible.com's unabridged audiobook of my novel Calculating God has just been nominated for an Audie Award. Given by the Audio Publishers Association, the Audies are the top honor in the audiobook industry.

The full list of finalists in the Science Fiction and Fantasy category:

Calculating God, by Robert J. Sawyer, Narrated by Jonathan Davis, Audible, Inc.

Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke, Narrated by Eric Michael Summerer, Audible, Inc.

Ghost Radio, by Leopoldo Gout, Narrated by Pedro Pascal, HarperAudio

Skybreaker, by Kenneth Oppel, Narrated by David Kelly, Full Cast Audio

Sunrise Alley, by Catherine Asaro, Narrated by Hillary Huber, Blackstone Audio, Inc.

You can get Audible's version of Calculating God here.

(Oh, and I'll just mention in passing that the introduction to one of the other nominees -- Childhood's End -- is by none other than yours truly; I also do an introduction to the Calculating God audiobook, too.)

The winner will be announced at the Audies gala on Friday, May 29, 2009, at the New York Historical Society in New York City.

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site