You know a book tour is ending well when you get bumped up to Executive Class for the flight home. Woohoo! Today, I finished the second — and longest — of the four phases of the book tour for Rollback, my 17th novel. This was the by-plane cross-Canada part, and included stops in Winnipeg, Vancouver, […]
I’m in Saskatoon right now to present the Saskatchewan Library Association’s Mary Donaldson Memorial Lecture; that’s Mary Donaldson above. If you’re in town, come on out! It’s tonight at 7:30 p.m. at the Frances Morrison Library; it’s free! My topic is: SCIENCE FICTION AS A MIRROR FOR REALITY Many people dismiss science fiction as escapism […]
Planet S is the biweekly free arts-and-entertainment newspaper in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan — and the current issue contains this wonderful interview with me, conducted by Gregory Beatty. In the print edition, the interview takes up a full page, and the cover of the issue proclaims “Sci-Fi Sensei Comes to Saskatoon.” Woohoo! The Robert J. Sawyer Web […]
The by-plane part of the Rollback book tour is drawing to a close. I’m now at the Calgary airport, in the Air Canada lounge, about to fly to Saskatoon for the final stop on the tour. The event in Calgary at McNally Robinson was excellent — packed house, ton of books sold. It was a […]
Edmonton was fabulous — one of the very best stops on the entire Rollback book tour. I flew in from Calgary (only 250 km away), and was pleased to see that the Indigo bookstore at the Edmonton Airport had a whack of hardcover copies of Rollback. I signed their stock, then was picked up by […]
Still on book tour for Rollback … Vancouver was fabulous. Bonnie Jean Mah, who was one of my writing students at Banff in 2000, picked me up at the airport. We rushed off to Chapters on Robson Street, so I could sign stock. The afternoon was spent with meetings. Bonnie Jean and I got the […]
Odyssey: The Fantasy Writing Workshop has just released a podcast of my lecture on point of view, given last summer when I was writer-in-residence at the workshop. Have a listen here. The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
I’m kicking Tolkien’s butt, at least in Winnipeg! The Winnipeg Free Press bestsellers list for the week of April 22, 2007, in the hardcover fiction category: 1. Divisadero by Michael Ondaatje 2. Effigy by Alissa York 3. Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows (advance orders) by J.K. Rowling 4. Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer 5. […]
Sunday, April 29, 2007, was my 47th birthday, and I happened to be in Calgary, Alberta, a good waystation on the Rollback book tour (I was en route from Winnipeg to Vancouver; my actual event in Calgary is this coming Wednesday, May 2, 2007). I spent most of my birthday at the Calgary Comic and […]
Check out the “The Page 69 Test” for my novel Rollback. And there’s more of interest here. The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
So begins the full-page article “Reeling in the years: Sci-fi hero Robert J. Sawyer’s Rollback finds taint in the fountain of youth” in the Thursday, April 26, 2007, edition of FFWD (Fastforward), Calgary’s free arts and entertainment weekly. It’s a great piece — part review of Rollback, part interview with me — by Hugh Graham. […]
The second phase of the Rollback book tour started yesterday (Thursday, April 26, 2007). This is the by-plane part, and I’ll be hitting these Canadian cities over the next eight days: Winnipeg, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, and Saskatoon. Details are here. The trip got off to a propitious start: the little bookstore at Lester B. Pearson […]
Tee Morris’s Survival Guide to Writing Fantasy podcasts Robert J. Sawyer from Ravencon — for almost an hour! — right here. (This was in fact the Guest of Honor interview with me, conducted by Tee, at Ravencon in Richmond, Virginia, last weekend.) The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
My one day in Toronto was spent doing media — three interviews, to be precise: Sounds Like Canada on CBC Radio One, which went fabulously; a half-hour phone for KAOS-AM in Olympia, Washington, which was also great; and a really pleasant face-to-face interview with The Mississauga News, the local newspaper here. Tomorrow, I set out […]
A nice review of Terence M. Green’s Sailing Time’s Ocean, published under my Robert J. Sawyer Books imprint is here at Andy’s Anachronisms. The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
Minister Faust is one of Canada’s best SF authors (his latest is From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain, published by Del Rey). He’s just posted a lengthy interview with Robert J. Sawyer on his blog, The Original BRO-Log; the article also appears in the April 26 edition of Edmonton’s VUE, the weekly arts newspaper there. […]
Indigo — the big Canadian bookstore chain — sent out this email to its iRewards loyalty-program members who are interested in science-fiction titles. Nice to be featured up front! (Many thanks to my high-school buddy Ted Bleaney who pointed this out to me.) The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
I’m quoted in this article on that topic. Author Mike Collins quotes part of what I said in response to his email question; here’s my full response: I don’t think there is a decline in reading per se; more people are reading more books than ever before — all the stats show that. However, they’re […]
I’m going to be on CBC Radio One’s Sounds Like Canada with Shelagh Rogers tomorrow morning (Wednesday, April 25, 2007) — one of Canada’s most-popular radio programs, heard coast-to-coast in Canada. Of course, we’ll be talking about my just-released 17th novel Rollback. I’m arriving at the Toronto CBC studio at 9:45 a.m. Eastern time on […]
After our visit to the Smithsonian, Carolyn and I knocked 500 km off the 1,000 km of our trip home to Toronto, arriving north of Williamsport, Pennsylvania, at 8:30 p.m. at the country home of Paul Shuch and Muriel Hykes. Paul is Executive Director Emeritus of The SETI League. Paul is mentioned in Rollback, and […]
Don D’Ammassa has weighed in with his review of my Rollback. Don is the long-time reviewer for Science Fiction Chronicle. Says Don, “Thoughtful, low key, and convincing. One of Robert Sawyer’s strongest points as a writer is that his characters are always real people. Sawyer has repeatedly shown that he can portray very dramatic situations […]
Why my life rocks: We stayed overnight Sunday, April 22, 2007, at the country home of Smithsonian paleontologist Mike Brett-Surman and Smithsonian exhibit designer Kim Moeller. On Monday morning, April 23, 2007, we got up at 5:45 a.m., and were out the door by 6:20 a.m., in hopes of beating the bulk of the traffic […]
Carolyn and I had a great time at Ravencon in Richmond, Virginia. The convention is only in its second year, but it is clearly on its way to being one of the great regionals. I heard various attendance figures quoted; something approaching 700 people seems to be the right number (although, as is often the […]
New writer Jamie Rubin had a great time at Ravencon, and I’m thrilled that I was part of it. Read Jamie’s con report here.
… says The Kansas City Star of Robert J. Sawyer’s Rollback in this review. The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
Ravencon, in Richmond, Virginia, is excellent — a great science-fiction convention. I’m Author Guest of Honor here, and am being treated like royalty; it’s very nice. :) A few images: My Kaffeeklatsch at noon today in the hotel restaurant. At left, Larry Hodges, one of my students from last year’s Odyssey workshop Guest of Honor […]
My talk at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., went well yesterday (Thursday, April 19) — Carolyn said I was on fire. There’s lots of security for federal buildings in Washington, but we were on the appropriate lists, and indeed had a parking space waiting for us, once we got through the very intimidating […]
… as you can see here. :) There’s also a link there to more photos from the Bakka-Phoenix launch for Rollback. The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
I will be interviewed tonight (Thursday, April 19) about Rollback for 40 minutes live (via phone) on CHED AM630 radio in Edmonton, Alberta, on the Lesley Primeau show. You can listen in real-time live on the internet. Just go to the CHED page, and click on “Listen Live.” The interview will run live starting at […]
Rollback is the SciFi Channel’s “SciFi Essential Book” for the month of April. And today, SciFi Wire, the news service operated by the SciFi Channel, put up a new interview with me about the book. Check it out! The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
