I’m delighted to announce that my agent Ralph Vicinanza has just sold Korean rights to my 1994 novel End of an Era to the charmingly named Woonghin Think Big Company; the deal was done in conjuction with Ralph’s Korean co-agent, Shin Won Literary Agency. This brings to 16 the languages my novels are in: Bulgarian, […]
The postmarked-by deadline for paper-mail ballots for this year’s Aurora Awards — the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Awards — is this Friday, May 9, 2008. My novel Rollback is one of five finalists in the Best Long Form in English category (and the book is also a current Hugo Award finalist). Any Canadian may […]
I normally don’t approve of contests with entry fees, but it’s just six bucks in this case, and so I’m going to plug this one, anyway: “In Places Between: The Robyn Herrington Memorial Short Fiction Competition.” Robyn was my friend, my writing student, and a fine writer herself, and my latest novel, Rollback, is dedicated […]
Booked my outbound flight today for the Gartner IT Security Summit in Washington, DC, June 2-4, 2008, at which I’ll be chairing a panel discussion by science-fiction writers Arlan Andrews, Greg Bear, Robert J. Sawyer, and Bruce Sterling. More info is here. Speaking of flights, tomorrow morning I’m off to Montreal for the Blue Metropolis […]
Go me! The American Library Association’s magazine Booklist — one of the buying bibles for bookstores as well as libraries — has a review coming in its May 14, 2008, edition of my new short story collection Identity Theft and Other Stories. Says reviewer Carl Hays: “As fellow Canadian SF author Robert Charles Wilson points […]
This morning I handed over to our typesetter the tenth volume under the Robert J. Sawyer Books imprint. This one is an anthology entitled The Savage Humanists, edited by Fiona Kelleghan of the University of Miami; we’ll be publishing it later this year. We have high hopes for this book in the academic market (it’s […]
I had the great pleasure of publishing a novel by Canadian author Matthew Hughes late last year: The Commons, under my Robert J. Sawyer Books imprint from Red Deer Press / Fitzhenry & Whiteside. A portion of that book, published as a standalone novella, was up for the Nebula Awards given this past weekend; Matt […]
The winners of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America’s 2007 Nebula Awards were announced this evening at a banquet in Austin, Texas. Of course, I congratulate all the winners, but I’m particularly happy for two good friends who won: Nancy Kress and Ted Chiang. Novel: The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon (HarperCollins) […]
Things I’ve been doing … Well, let’s see … the days are flying by, but how am I occupying them? On Tuesday, April 15, 2008, I finished revisions on Wake, my eighteenth novel. Yay! Go me! :) On Wednesday, April 16, 2008, Carolyn and I picked up Joe and Gay Haldeman (who were in Toronto, […]
Hot on the heels of their release of The Terminal Experiment, Audible.com has just released unabridged recordings of my novels Calculating God, Hominids, and Hybrids (with Humans coming soon). The new readings are by Jonathan Davis. Check ’em all out right here. The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
I sent out this e-mail newsletter today to the people on my email-notices list; if you’d like to be added to that list, drop me a note at sawyer at sfwriter dot com. === Hello, Robert J. Sawyer reader! You’re most likely getting this note because you’ve written to me in the past about my […]
I’ve been having no end of lost connections to the Internet with the Wi-Fi router in my home … ugh I installed a firmware update tonight, and hopefully that will help. The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
Off to one of my favorite conventions — Eeriecon, a small but high-energy con in Niagara Falls, New York. The fun begins this evening. Guests of Honor this year are Joe Haldeman and Sephera Giron. Details are here. The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
My all-time favourite Doctor Who serial is “The Time Warrior,” written by Robert Holmes for Jon Pertwee’s Third Doctor. It’s packed with firsts: new opening credits, the unveiling of the diamond-shaped Doctor Who logo, the revelation that the Doctor’s home planet is Gallifrey, the introduction of the Sontarans, and the introduction of one of the […]
… for a third year, by Toronto producer Scott Calbeck. I’m delighted! Mindscan, which won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Novel of the Year, is a story of transferred human consciousness and attempting to define what it means to be human. The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
I mentioned a while back that Audible.com had issued me a seven-book (!) contract for audio versions of my novels (the entire Neanderthal Parallax trilogy, the entire WWW trilogy, and Calculating God); those are still forthcoming (and the first of them should be out next month). But Audible.com has also just released an audio version […]
More or less: a synthesized, simulated Neanderthal vocal tract has now produced the sound of a Neanderthal saying “E.” New Scientist has the scoop. I fondly remember interviewing cognitive linguist Phil Lieberman, who is involved with the research mentioned above, for two hours on November 4, 1999, at his office at Brown University to discuss […]
I’m thrilled to be participating in this year’s Blue Metropolis Literary Festival in Montreal. My full schedule is here. My main event is a solo reading by me, with commentary, hosted by Claude Lalumière. The event is Saturday, May 3, 2008, at 8:30 p.m., at the Delta Centre-Ville hotel in the Versailles Room (details are […]
Today’s mail brought my author copies of the German edition of Flashforward, published as simply Flash. The cover is lovely, I think. The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
Just received a copy of The Coming Convergence by Stanley Schmidt, Ph.D., the editor of Analog Science Fiction and Fact. The book’s subtitle is “The Surprising Ways Diverse Technologies Interact to Shape Our World and Change the Future.” It’s a terrific book, and, on the “Advance Praise for …” page, you’ll find this blurb from […]
I received today, hot off the presses, the first copies of my new short-story collection Identity Theft and Other Stories, and I have to say it looks fabulous. Red Deer Press has always been known for beautiful books, and this one is no exception. The cover and interior design are by Karen Petherick Thomas. Amy […]
A question that showed up in my in-box today: I have now completed two SF novels and am hard at work on a third. However, I have had no luck whatsoever in piquing the interest of any publishers or agents. Do you have any thoughts on how to attract something more than a momentary “glance” […]
Charlton Heston, who starred in three of the best remembered science-fiction films of the 1960s and 1970s — Planet of the Apes, Soylent Green, and The Omega Man — died yesterday at the age of 84. Rest in peace, Chuck. Charlton Heston as Col. George Taylor in Planet of the Apes: And that completes my […]
Five years ago today, one of my week-long writing workshops at the Banff Centre in the ski-resort town of Banff, Alberta, started. I had six students with me for that week, and a terrific bunch they were! I’ve kept in touch with all of them to one degree or another since, and I’m just pleased […]
If you’re a member of this year’s World Science Fiction Convention in Denver, electronic copies (as RTF files, which are readable by almost all word processors) of four of the five best-novel Hugo Award finalists are yours for the asking. See John Scalzi’s blog for the details (and many thanks to John for handling distribution!). […]
… is my buddy S.M. Stirling, formerly of Toronto. Says Steve, “Since it’s going to be published in the trade press soon, I can say that the advances for the latest contract have gone well into six figures per book and the overall advance for all six books is in the seven figure range; it’s […]
On Saturday night at Ad Astra, Toronto’s annual SF convention, I happened to notice that all five of the nominees for this year’s Aurora Award for Best Short-Form Work in English were standing or sitting within two metres of each other at the hotel bar. Photo-op! Here they are: Left to right: Stephen Kotowych, Tony […]
Brian Hades, my good buddy and publisher of EDGE Science Fiction, points out that this headline, over at SFScope, is quite amusing: Robert J. Sawyer’s Wake to be Serialized in Analog Hopefully, there’ll be a brief obit in Locus, too … ;) The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
CBC Radio One’s Between the Covers will do a serialized reading of Robert J. Sawyer’s Hugo Award-nominated Rollback later this year. Between the Covers airs across Canada, and presents novels in 15-minute chunks each weekday over several weeks. Billed as “Story Time for Adults,” it has a huge positive impact on physical book sales in […]
Toronto’s annual SF con, Ad Astra, begins today. I’ll be there tonight and tomorrow (Saturday) and maybe on Sunday. As it happens, all my programming is tomorrow (Saturday): 10:00 a.m. Panel: Near Future vs. Far Future (Gallery Centre) 12:00 p.m. Reading: First ever public reading from Wake (Ballroom West) 1:00 p.m. Panel: Authors who Edit […]
