Today, Carolyn and I had a few friends over: high-school buddies Ted Bleaney and Gillian Clinton, and our dear friends Marcel Gagné and Sally Tomasevic for a day of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. We put in episodes of Supercar, Fireball XL5, Stingray, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, and UFO, and watched them on our […]
You know what many of my favourite films have in common? A fervent desire to see the world avoid a nuclear war. WarGames (which I’ve commented on repeatedly this year), the original Planet of the Apes (“You maniacs! You blew it up! God damn you — God damn you all to hell!”), and Dr. Strangelove, […]
The season premiere of Saturday Night Live just started here in the Eastern time zone, and, yay, Tina Fey is on as Sarah Palin (totally nailing her manerisms and speech patterns), and William Shatner appears during the opening monologue. Yay! The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
The 25th-anniversary DVD of WarGames is well worth picking up. It’s only about $12, and it’s a beautiful new transfer of the film — much, much nicer than the previous DVD edition. Also, the new making-of documentary is really quite good, and, to my delight, spends a lot of time interviewing the writers (often given […]
The late Sir Arthur C. Clarke has always been my favourite science-fiction writer, and Frederik Pohl’s Gateway has been, for decades, my pick for the finest science-fiction novel ever written. So when their collaborative novel The Last Theorem was published a few weeks ago, I immediately grabbed it. And now I’ve finished it. What I […]
As of today, I’m wearing bifocals. :) I tried once before (in February 2007), getting a pair of progressive (no-line) bifocals, but I couldn’t stand them. My normal workstation is two 19″ LCD monitors side-by-side; with my regular glasses, the entire sweep of workspace left-to-right is in focus through my lenses, but with those progressive […]
I’m delighted to report that my short-story collection Identity Theft and Other Stories is on the bestsellers’ list published by Locus, the American trade-journal of the science-fiction and fantasy fields, for a second consecutive month. Last month, it was #3; this month, it’s #5 (tied with Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policeman’s Union). I’m particularly pleased […]
As we did last year, Robert J. Sawyer Books and the rest of Red Deer Press will be exhibiting in the dealers’ room at this year’s World Fantasy Convention in Calgary, and there will be an RJS Books room party one night. We’ll be selling all our books, including our latest book, The Savage Humanists […]
Oh, my, yes, indeed. :) A very, very good day. Details later, when I can talk about it. But … Happy feet! The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
According to the Sacrmento News & Review, that’d be me. Their full review of Hominids is here. The reviewer is Kel Munger. The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
My very conscientious Italian translator, Dario Rivarossa, today asked me what the following phrases mean in Rollback: “One of my favorite authors once said, `Virtual reality is nothing but air guitar writ large.’” I’m having a bit of fun there, because the character is quoting me, from my 1995 novel The Terminal Experiment. But as […]
So, today, I was at a writers’ festival, and, when it was time to do my autographing, I was sitting next to a very nice female writer. She had a copy of her book, and I asked if I could see it. I turned to the back and read the “About the Author,” which said […]
Just finished watching (recorded earlier) the 2008 HBO film Recount, about the process of determining the winner in the US presidential election in Florida in 2000. The film stars Kevin Spacey. I thought it was terrifically well done; check it out if you have a chance. The Wikipedia entry on it is here. The Robert […]
So, this evening, after a wonderful dinner out with my family, Carolyn and I went on to pick up a friend. Said friend lives in an apartment building with very nice grounds, but as we opened the door of our car to let him in, I remarked that “it smells like a cloud of pesticide […]
… you’ll love this! (Direct YouTube Link) The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
As those who follow my travel schedule know, I fly a lot (next month, I have eight flights booked). I rely on SeatGuru for information about which are the good seats and which are the bad ones on planes. When you’re flying across country, as, for instance, I am on the trip I just booked […]
For those reading my new novel Wake, now being serialized in Analog: please let me know if you spot any typos or errors. I still have time to correct them in the Ace hardcover, which comes out in April 2009. Many thanks! Rob
I mentioned back in June 2008 that Srinivas Krishna, the director who has my Nebula Award-winning novel The Terminal Experiment under option, has renewed his option for a third year. And I note now that his large-scale public art installation When the Gods Came Down to Earth is on display outside the Royal Ontario Museum […]
Jeffrey A. Carver is a good friend of mine, and also one heck of a good hard SF writer. To set the stage for Tor’s forthcoming release of his next novel, Sunborn, Jeff is giving away ebook versions of his older titles. Highly recommended. The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
I had cause today to gather some links to podcasts of me talking about science-fiction writing and the history of the genre, and I thought I’d share them here: Audio lecture from Odyssey Workshop with Robert J. Sawyer on point-of-view Audio lecture from Odyssey Workshop with Robert J. Sawyer on “Is your science-fiction element extraneous?” […]
Cribbed from Torontoist: The Eden Mills Writers’ Festival—the Toronto literary community’s annual out-of-town oasis—is celebrating its twentieth birthday this summer. This year’s festival, a mere forty-five minutes west of Toronto, starts this Friday [September 5, 2008] and includes workshops, seminars, and the popular “festival day” on Sunday [September 7, 2008]. Some of the big appearances […]
Pure Speculation Festival (October 18-19, 2008) Hazeldean Community Hall, Edmonton, AB, Canada. Two days of literary science-fiction and fantasy panels, including Con Spec (hosted by On Spec Magazine) and Comic Talks (hosted by Happy Harbor Comics); plus games, the Geeks for Geeks Charity Auction (in support of the Edmonton Small Press Association), the Speculation Bake-off, […]
The 2008 Mississauga Write-Off, which began Thursday evening, August 29, and finished this afternoon, Monday, September 1, was a great success. The weather was gorgeous throughout, and our balcony was put to good use: Elizabeth Westbrook-Trenholm Hayden Trenholm Herb Kauderer I did some work on the balcony, but also worked with my lovely dual-monitor setup […]
She leaves you breathless! The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
They’re drifting away: Liz and Hayden left before lunch. Herb, Al, Paddy, Dave, Carolyn, and I went to Swiss Chalet for lunch once more. After, I showed people the “Crazy Ray” episode of Pam Anderson’s sitcom Stacked, one of the best treatments of writerly jealousy I’ve ever seen — and very, very funny. Herb and […]
We ordered in pizza (which we ate out on my balcony), then we all did brief readings of the new work we’d written over the weekend. And then, to round out the evening, we watched part one of “In a Mirror, Darkly,” from Star Trek: Enterprise, because Paddy Forde, Herb Kauderer, Al Katerinsky, and Hayden […]
We had a long lunch at The Mad Hatter, a pub near Carolyn and my home; it was a wonderful walk to the pub and, once again, the Toronto weather is perfect. David Clink is rejoining us this evening after his day of golf. Paddy Forde is in the sun room; Carolyn and Liz Trenholm […]
Ben Wall, a fan of my stories, just sent me the above photo from BrickFest in Washington D.C., a convention for adult fans of Lego. The placard says: Brickfest 2008Starships Merelcas and Starplexby Phillip Thorne, 33 Exploratory starships from the Robert J. Sawyer novels “Calculating God” (2001) and “Starplex” (1996) How cool is that! :) […]
Pat Forde got us all to watch this online video, entitled “Where the Hell is Matt?” Next time we send something like the Voyager record out into space, we should include this. It’s us — the joy of being human. The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
Carolyn just drove her brother, the poet David Livingstone Clink, home; he’s off to play golf tomorrow. But he was a great writing-retreat participant, and we were glad to have him. Still going strong: Robert J. Sawyer, Carolyn Clink, Hayden and Liz Trenholm, Al Katerinsky, Herb Kauderer, and Pat Forde. Tomorrow’s our final day. A […]
