The Canadian Press wire service sent out this story entitled “Oil at $250 a barrel would transform Canada as we know it” just now, including quotes from an interview done with me. The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
Next month, I will be attending Readercon 19, near Boston. It’s a conference devoted entirely to the printed literature of science fiction. In their program book, they publish elaborate “bio-bibs” (biography/bibliography combos) for each program participant, with all kinds of detailed info. Since it’s a good overview of my career, I thought I’d share mine […]
It delights me that my books are widely taught — and it’s always a special thrill when I get to visit a class that’s studying one of them. Yesterday, I went to the University of Toronto at Mississauga and spoke to Chet Scoville’s class for two hours about my 2000 novel Calculating God. Lots of […]
Woohoo! Just received copies of the 6th printing of the mass-market paperback of Hominids from Tor. Book got legs! And, in at least some acknowledgment of the fact that the US and Canadian dollars are now worth about the same, Tor has changed the cover price from US$7.99/Cdn$10.99 to US$7.99/Cdn$9.99. I’m glad to see Hominids […]
I ran into my friend Nalo Hopkinson at BookExpo Canada, and she was carrying a backpack with the Alphasmart Dana logo. I’ve always been intrigued by these dedicated writing machines, and asked her what she thought of hers. Her answer: she’d sold it, and bought a real laptop (but kept the backback!). Me, I’ve got […]
… was small. Smallest I’ve seen. Don’t get me wrong: I had a great time, and saw lots of old friends and colleagues. But still. One major player said to my wife he thought this might be the last year for BookExpo Canada (just his opinion, not inside scoop or anything). Of course, the point […]
The tradeshow part of BookExpo Canada 2008 runs Sunday, June 15, and Monday, June 16, at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. On Sunday at 1:00 p.m., look for Hugo winner Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo nominee Nick DiChario, and Kristyn Dunnion signing at the Fitzhenry & Whiteside booth; I’ll be signing Identity Theft and Other Stories. […]
How’d it get so late? Well, I had a nice lengthy phone call from my buddy Jack Dann down in Australia (a terrific SF writer and editor). And I had to go over the final typesetting corrections for The Savage Humanists edited by Fiona Kelleghan for my Robert J. Sawyer Books imprint (which is a […]
Now, if that isn’t a cool-sounding title! On the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica, Admiral Adama refers to himself on the wireless as “Galactica Actual.” After failing to find any reference to this being an actual bit of military protocol — referring to a vessel’s commander as its “Actual” — I asked my friend Kirstin Morrell, who […]
I’m delighted to see John Joseph Adams interviewing Nick DiChario about his Valley of Day-Glo, the latest novel under my Robert J. Sawyer Books imprint, over at SciFi Wire, the news service of the SciFi Channel. The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
Woohoo! Over at SFFaudio, Scott D. Danielson has reviewed Audible.com’s new unabridged recording of my Hugo Award-nominated Calculating God, and given it their highest distinction: an SFFaudio Essential! Yay! The reviews says in part, “Sawyer presents, in a very entertaining and interesting way, arguments for and against God’s existence. I can think of no better […]
My friends John Robert Colombo, Lorna Toolis, Judith Merril, and Jon Lomberg created an anthology of Mars-themed science fiction that is now, in fact, on Mars! Read all about it on John’s website right here. The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
I’m very pleased to note that Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer is #3 this month on the paperback bestsellers’ list published by Locus, the trade journal of the science-fiction field. I’m particularly pleased because #1 and #2 are fantasy, making Rollback the top-selling SF title for the month. And I’m even more pleased that this […]
Coming home from Washington yesterday took forever. My flight was to leave at 5:59 p.m. The plane scheduled for the incoming flight (as it happens, from Toronto) was delayed in Toronto because of mechanical difficulties — and they spent too long (two hours) trying to fix it before abandoning that and ordering up another plane. […]
Thanks heaps, Air Canada. My flight home from Washington, DC, was delayed six hours today at Reagan. But I’m finally home … The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
Classic Star Trek has lost some of its most influential behind-the-scenes people this past month: director Joe Pevney, composer Alexander Courage, and now producer Robert H. Justman. All the Justman obits are talking about Trek, but I want to mention one of his other genre connections: he was a producer on Search, the high-tech detective […]
Robert J. Sawyer moderated a panel with fellow science-fiction writers Greg Bear and Arlan Andrews today at the Gartner IT Security Summit just outside Washington, DC. PC World reports on the panel here. The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
SF Crowsnest reviews Rollback right here, saying: “The sensitivity of the issues involved here is likely to get this book up for awards in the coming months and you might as well be in on the ground floor and say you’ve got there before the judges. A compelling read.” The review is by Geoff Willmetts. […]
… right here. Identity Theft and Other Stories by Robert J. Sawyer. Red Deer Press, 2008. Buy an autographed hardcover from the author here. The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
Working furiously on a bunch of projects, including Watch, the sequel to Wake. I’ve been using the index-cards feature of Celtx, a way-cool open-source free media preproduction package, to plot it out. Celtx is a Canadian project (yay, team!), based in St. John’s, Newfoundland. The index-card feature is the closest simulation to actually using 3×5 […]
There are many hundreds of Star Trek books, but Roddenberry.com — the official website, run by Gene Roddenberry’s son Rod — has chosen to stock only two commercially published bookstore-distributed books. One of them is the (excellent) Star Trek Creator: The Authorized Biography of Gene Roddenbery. And the other is Boarding the Enterprise, edited by […]
… was Gerry and Sylvia Anderson’s UFO, filmed in 1969, but set in 1980. YouTube’s got the opening credit sequence (with Barry Gray’s wonderful theme music) here. NOTE: Click on the “Watch in high quality” link just below the “Views” hit counter. Really, quite an ambitious undertaking: cars, fashions, hairstyles, all created for a coherent […]
Having accumulated a big pile of frequent-flyer miles, I decided to use some of them today to book a flight to Vancouver, British Columbia, for VCON 33, the Vancouver SF convention being held October 3-5, 2008. (I was surprised that I could book a flight all the way from Toronto to Vancouver and back using […]
The remarks below were made today in Canada’s Senate by The Honourable Nick G. Sibbeston (pictured above), Senator for the Northwest Territories, and will be recorded in Hansard, the official parliamentary transcripts: Honourable Senators, on Sunday, May 18th, the Aurora Awards, honouring the best in Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing in both English and […]
As a best-novel Hugo Award-winner myself (not to mention a current nominee in that category), I like to think that winning SF’s big one ensures immortality for the book. But one book is sometimes called the “lost” Hugo winner, because it’s rarely been in print since its win: They’d Rather Be Right by Mark Clifton […]
Apologies to those who’ve been looking for my Hugo Award-nominated Calculating God over the last little while. Demand has exceeded supply — but Tor is going back to print (for an 8th mass-market printing!), and it should be back in stores shortly (and will absolutely be available for teachers who wish to use it this […]
The Globe and Mail devoted a half-page to an appreciation of my recently departed friend Eric Layman on Saturday. It’s free to read it right now, although sometime soon it will be put behind the Globe’s pay-for-old-content wall. Check it out while you can. The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
Some of the issues explored in my current Hugo Award-finalist Rollback are also addressed in a new nonfiction book called The Immortalists by David M. Friedman. The BBC has a print interview with Friedman here about aviator Charles Lindbergh’s “deranged” quest for immortality … The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
TrekMovie.com has the scoop here. Pevney directed 14 episodes — more than any other director — including some of the Original Series’ very best: Amok TimeThe AppleArenaCatspawCity on the Edge of ForeverThe Deadly YearsThe Devil in the DarkFriday’s ChildThe Immunity SyndromeJourney to BabelThe Return of the ArchonsA Taste of ArmageddonThe Troulbe with TribblesWolf in the […]
Last June, I posted here about the terrific fan art for my Quintaglio books done by Stephen J. Greene. Stephen has now done a very nice piece of fan art based on my Aurora and Arthur Ellis Award-winning 1993 short story “JUst Like Old Times.” Check it out here. Many thanks, Stephen! (Oh, and the […]
