Robert J. Sawyer

Hugo and Nebula Award-Winning Science Fiction Writer

Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category

Eric Layman obituary

Tuesday, May 27th, 2008

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

Charles Lindbergh and the quest for immortality

Monday, May 26th, 2008

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

Star Trek director Joseph Pevney passes on

Monday, May 26th, 2008

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 […]

More Stephen J. Greene RJS fan art

Monday, May 26th, 2008

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 […]

Me and Bobby McKee …

Thursday, May 22nd, 2008

I’m off to take famed Hollywood script consultant Robert McKee‘s “Story” seminar this weekend: three 9:00-to-9:00 days, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. It’s actually my second time taking it; my buddy Herb Kauderer is taking it with me this time (Carolyn did it last time with me, back in the fall of 2003). McKee is the […]

Classic cylon robots as CGI

Thursday, May 22nd, 2008

Fascinating discussion of the guest appearance by the classic cylon design in flashbacks for the new Battlestar Galactica can be found here at Darth Mojo. The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

The Quotable Rob Sawyer

Wednesday, May 21st, 2008

Somebody over at The Quotations Page is a fan of my novel Calculating God, I see. That site lists seven quotes from the book, including one I had cause to repeat to a friend recently: “Honor does not have to be defended” — you’ve either got it, or you don’t, and if you do no […]

Hominids half-price at Audible.com

Wednesday, May 21st, 2008

Until Tuesday, May 27, 2008, at 11 AM EDT, the unabridged recording of the Hugo Award-winning novel Hominids by Robert J. Sawyer is half-price at Audible.com. Click here for the special price. The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

Shelving books in electronic bookstores

Wednesday, May 21st, 2008

Interesting discussion going on in the Fictionwise Yahoo! Groups newsgroup; I began it based on having a frustrating shopping experience at Fictionwise.com yesterday. My posts: I’ve just gone through 1,100 Secure Mobipocket titles filed under “Science Fiction” on the Fictionwise ebook store — and hundreds of Star Trek titles were scattered in amongst the regular […]

Aurora Awards business

Tuesday, May 20th, 2008

Note: These are not the official Canvention / Aurora Award minutes; they’re just my notes and comments on what went down at the business meeting in Winnipeg yesterday. It only took eleven years, but some reforms for the Aurora Awards very similar to ones I first proposed right here were passed. For one, assuming next […]

Aurora Award winners

Monday, May 19th, 2008

My congratulations to Nalo Hopkinson, whose The New Moon’s Arms took the English Long-Form Aurora Award this year; it was an honour to be on a ballot with such a fine book, and I’m thrilled to see Nalo win her first Aurora. Way to go, Nalo! I was also honoured to be the presenter of […]

Coming this fall: a new Gorn figure!

Thursday, May 15th, 2008

I love the Gorn from classic Star Trek. He probably has the highest ratio of toys-made-of-him to actual-screen-time of any character in television history :) and I own most of them. The best likeness to date is the Art Asylum version — but Mego has a new one coming this fall (that’s a prototype for […]

McNally Robinson loves Identity Theft

Thursday, May 15th, 2008

The official review from Canada’s McNally Robinson bookstore chain is here. As it happens, I’m signing at their Winnipeg Grant Park store this Saturday, May 17, 2008, at 2:00 p.m. More about Identity Theft and Other Stories is here. The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

More e-ink devices announced

Thursday, May 15th, 2008

The Astak Mentor line of electronic-ink ebook readers was formally announced yesterday, although they’re not yet shipping. Also rumored: support for the eReader (formerly Palm Reader) format, now owned by Fictionwise, my favorite ebook-reading platform (and with the best/fairest/least-awkward DRM scheme around). Some more info is here. Interesting times in the ebook market. Looking at […]

Stan Schmidt for the Hugo!

Wednesday, May 14th, 2008

Stan’s the man! I received the latest progress report from Denvention, this year’s World Science Fiction Convention, today here in Canada, and it contains the Hugo voting ballot. So it’s a good time to remind people of all the reasons, back at the nomination stage, that I suggested it’s high time Stanley Schmidt got a […]

Sacremento News & Review loves Rollback

Wednesday, May 14th, 2008

A very kind review is here. The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

Free public event in Winnipeg!

Tuesday, May 13th, 2008

Not one, not two, but three science-fiction authors will be appearing at McNally Robinson Grant Park in Winnipeg this Saturday afternoon, May 17, at 2:00 p.m. Come here Robert J. Sawyer, Nick DiChario, and Hayden Trenholm read and talk about the state of SF. I’ll be reading from Identity Theft and Other Stories, Nick will […]

Earthquake in China

Tuesday, May 13th, 2008

Death toll currently at almost 10,000. The quake’s epicenter was just 100 km north of Chengdu, where the International Science Fiction Festival I attended was held last year. I’m hoping for the best for all my wonderful friends there. News is everywhere on the net, including here. The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

Orthopedic Horseshoes

Monday, May 12th, 2008

Herb Kauderer and Al Katerinsky, who live in Western New York, have a show on Think Twice Radio called Orthopedic Horseshoes. They interviewed me for half an hour — without any prep, I must say: I was simply asked cold, “What makes you cranky?” And off we went, discussing (as the web site says), “gas […]

Keycon Schedule

Monday, May 12th, 2008

Next weekend — Friday, May 16, to Monday, May 19, 2008 — I will be at Keycon in Winnipeg. Not only is it this year’s CanVention — the Canadian national SF convention, at which the Aurora Awards will be presented — but it’s also the 25th anniversary of Keycon (and, in those 25 years, I’m […]

Bewitched theme song lyrics

Sunday, May 11th, 2008

There are lyrics to the theme songs of lots of TV shows that normally aren’t heard — most famously, classic Star Trek (for which Gene Roddenberry wrote lyrics to Alexander Courage’s instrumental theme so he could claim half the royalties). Sometimes the lyrics are very good; I’m rather fond of the lyrics to the 1980s […]

As It Happens

Sunday, May 11th, 2008

On Friday, May 9, 2008, CBC Radio One’s very popular As It Happens aired three and a half minutes from my opening comments at the Walrus Magazine debate between me and Hal Niedzviecki. You can listen here — I come in at the 10 minute, 27 second, mark. Needless to say, I’m taking a much […]

Are science fiction ebook sales declining?

Friday, May 9th, 2008

Over in the Fictionwise Yahoo! Groups newsgroup, science-fiction ebook author Darrell Bain has noted that whereas SF titles used to dominate the bestsellers lists at Fictionwise.com (and, indeed, my own work has hit number-one on various lists there in the past), the current top-ten list has only one SF title on it. Darrell asks, “What’s […]

Book launch tomorrow!

Friday, May 9th, 2008

Come one, come all, to Toronto’s Bakka-Phoenix Books, 697 Queen Street West (just west of Bathurst), for the launch party of Identity Theft and Other Stories by Robert J. Sawyer, with an introduction by Robert Charles Wilson. The event is tomorrow, Saturday, May 10, 2008, from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m., and afterwards Carolyn and I […]

Clearing my plate

Friday, May 9th, 2008

Whew! I’ve at long last cleared my plate of all sorts of things I’d promised to do. Over the last little while, I wrote an introduction to Jack McDevitt’s new short story collection Cryptic, coming from Subterranean Press; I wrote introductions to two classic pulp reprints coming from the Battered Silicon Dispatch Box (the Polaris […]

Debating Hal

Thursday, May 8th, 2008

“HAL, I won’t argue with you anymore! Open the doors!” Oops! Wrong Hal. Today I was debating Canadian writer and cultural critic Hal Niedzviecki. We were the entertainment at a $110-a-plate luncheon at the University Club in Toronto, sponsored by Canada’s The Walrus magazine, a wonderful glossy newsstand magazine that’s a bit like a Canadian […]

E-ink device roundup

Tuesday, May 6th, 2008

Today, I spoke to students in the Creative Book Publishing Program at Toronto’s Humber College, run by former Penguin Canada publisher Cynthia Good. Great students, great questions, and a great time. I’d brought along my brand-new iRex iLiad — and Cynthia has an Amazon Kindle (one of very few in Canada, I’m sure; it’s not […]

Rob live on CBC Radio on Wednesday

Tuesday, May 6th, 2008

From 1:00 to 2:00 p.m. Eastern time tomorrow, Wednesday, May 7, 2008, I’ll be live in studio in Toronto for CBC Radio One’s Ontario Today. We’ll be doing a phone-in show about why people like science fiction (and plugging the launch of my new collection Identity Theft and Other Stories, which happens this Saturday afternoon, […]

IEEE’s Today’s Engineer

Tuesday, May 6th, 2008

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) interviews Robert J. Sawyer, Mike Resnick, and Lawrence Watt-Evans about the relationship between science fiction and real-world engineering in this article by John R. Platt in the magazine Today’s Engineer. The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

Rollback paperback on Locus bestsellers’ list

Monday, May 5th, 2008

I’m pleased to see the mass-market paperback of my Rollback on the bestsellers’ list published in the May 2007 issue of the science-fiction trade journal Locus (covering the data period February 2008), which arrived today. MAY 2008 (data period: February [Locus site]): 1) White Night, Jim Butcher (Roc) 1 – 2) Iron Kissed, Patricia Briggs (Ace) […]