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sawyer@sfwriter.com

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  Short Stories  

Robert J. Sawyer's short stories have been called everything from "quietly intelligent" (Booklist) to "gobsmacking" (Publishers Weekly). You'll find the full text of the following Rob Sawyer short stories available right here:

• "Above It All" — from the 1996 anthology Dante's Disciples. A dark-fantasy story set aboard the Mir space station. Winner of the CompuServe HOMer Award for Best Short Story of the Year (4,400 words).

• "Fallen Angel" — from the 2000 anthology Lisa Snellings' Strange Attraction: Turns of the Midnight Carnival Wheel. A young circus performer fears falling. Finalist for the Bram Stoker Award for Best Short Story of the Year, and one of three stories cited as "highlights" from this the anthology by the Denver Rocky Mountain News. (4,700 words).

• "Forever" — from the 1997 anthology Return of the Dinosaurs. A tale of intelligent dinosaurs during the Mesozoic. Honorable Mention in Gardner Dozois's Year's Best Science Fiction (3,200 words).

• "Gator" — from the 1997 anthology Urban Nightmares. The truth behind the stories about alligators in the sewers of New York City. Honorable mention in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror (4,400 words).

• "The Hand You're Dealt" — from the 1997 anthology Free Space. A murder mystery set aboard a space habitat. Finalist for the Hugo Award for best short story of the year; winner of the Science Fiction Chronicle Reader Award for best short story of the year; finalist for the Aurora Award and the Crime Writers of Canada's Arthur Ellis Award for best short story of the year (6,500 words).
  • See also my notes on the science in this story, and my introduction to the story's Polish edition.

• "Iterations" — from Transversions: An Anthology of New Fantastic Literature, 2000. A multiple-world-Canadian-publishing-revenge story. (3,800 words).

• "Just Like Old Times" — a time-travel yarn, from the anthology Dinosaur Fantastic, 1993. Midnight Zoo calls it "a marvelous story." Winner of both the Crime Writers of Canada's Arthur Ellis Award and the Aurora Award (4,800 words).

• "Peking Man" — from the 1996 anthology Dark Destiny III. What really happened to the bones of Peking Man? Winner of the Aurora Award (3,600 words).

• "The Shoulders of Giants" — from the 2000 anthology Star Colonies. A sleeper ship arrives at a supposedly uninhabited planet. Finalist for the 2001 Aurora Award (5,800 words).
  • See my essay on writing "The Shoulders of Giants." (150 words).

• "Star Light, Star Bright" — from the 2000 anthology Far Frontiers. A community living on the surface of a Dyson Sphere discovers the universe (4,800 words).

• "Stream of Consciousness" — First published in the 1999 anthology Packing Fraction. An alien ship crashes in Sudbury. Winner of the Aurora Award (4,100 words).

• "Wiping Out" — from the 2000 anthology Guardsmen of Tomorrow. How do you achieve closure on an interstellar war lasting 500 years? A homage to James White (4,300 words).

• "You See But You Do Not Observe" — from the 1995 anthology Sherlock Holmes in Orbit. Sherlock Holmes tackles the Fermi Paradox. Starlog called this story "delightful." Winner of France's Le Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire for Best Foreign Short Story of the Year (6,400 words).
  
  • See also my essay on writing "You See But . . ." (250 words).

  Stories as eBooks!  

You'll find a bunch of my previously published short stories at:

Fictionwise.com

Why are they there, instead of on this site? Simple. Although people who already know my work come to this site, those who haven't yet discovered me won't ever be stopping by here. But over at Fictionwise, I've found lots of new readers. I view my short fiction as a sort of advertising for my novels, so I wanted them available to a wider audience.

Fictionwise sells stories dirt cheap (mine are mostly priced between 49 and 79 cents U.S.), and for one price you can download them in any or all standard eBook formats, and use them on all your personal machines. Formats supported include:

Desktop Computers:

• Adobe Acrobat (PC and Mac)
• Microsoft Reader (PC)
• Palm Doc (PC and Mac)
• eReader (PC and Mac))
• MobiPocket Reader (PC and Mac)

• Palm Doc (generic)
• eReader
• iSilo Reader
• MobiPocket Reader

• Microsoft Reader
• MobiPocket Reader
• Palm Doc

• eReader
• MobiPocket Reader

• Amazon Kindle
• BlackBerry (MobiPocket Reader format)
• Cybook (MobiPocket Reader format)
• eBook Technologies ETI-1 and ETI-2 (.imp format)
• eBookwise 1150 (.imp format)
• Franklin eBookMan (Franklin Reader format)
• Franklin eBookMan (MobiPocket Reader format)
• Gemstar 1150 (.imp format)
• Hiebook (.kml format)
• iLiad (MobiPocket Reader format)
• OEBFF Full VGA
• OEBFF Half VGA
• RCA REB 1100 eBook (.rb format)
• Rocket eBook (.rb format)
• Sony Reader (.lrf format)

I've licensed most of my stories to Fictionwise.com (and you can also get ebook version there of my novels Hominids, Humans, and Hybrids).

So, to read Robert J. Sawyer short fiction, go to:

Fictionwise.com

  Stories from Audible.com  

A number of my novels are available from Audible.com, but if you want to check out one of my short stories, there's only one available: "Shed Skin," first published in The Bakka Anthology: Original Science Fiction, then reprinted in Analog's Jan/Feb 2004 issue.

"Shed Skin" won Analog's Analytical Laboratory Award for Best Short Story of the Year, and was a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Short Story of 2004.

Spoiler Warning! This story was the genesis of my novel Mindscan. The story and the novel are quite different, but there are common themes and actions.

Check out Audible.com for "Shed Skin."

Unabridged audio from Audible.com

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  Iterations and Other Stories  

Twenty-two of Rob's short stories are collected in Iterations, published in hardcover in January 2002, by Quarry Press of Kingston, Ontario.

Reprinted in trade paperback in February 2004 and again in March 2008 by Red Deer Press of Calgary, Alberta.

The introduction is by award-winning author James Alan Gardner.

You can order autographed copies of the hardcover from this web site!

See what the hardcover and trade paperback covers look like.

More about Iterations

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  Relativity  

An eclectic mix of short stories, speeches, articles, plus all twelve "On Writing" columns are collected in Relativity, published in hardcover in November 2004, by ISFiC Press of Chicago, Illinois.

The introduction is by multiple-award-winning author Mike Resnick.

You can buy copies of this Aurora-Award-winning hardcover from Bakka-Phoenix Books in Canada, or directly from ISFiC Press.

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  Identity Theft and Other Stories  

A new collection of 17 short stories published in May 2008, by Red Deer Press of Calgary, Alberta.

The introduction is by Hugo-Award-winning author Robert Charles Wilson.

More about Identity Theft and Other Stories

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  More Good Reading  

Robert J. Sawyer's short-fiction bibliography
Sample Chapters from Rob's novels
Recurring themes in Rob's work

A profile of Rob from Tangent concentrating on his short-fiction career